42 



" I say Dick, lend me your knife." 



" I can't, I haven't got one, besides I want it my- 

 self." 



Surely Mr. Gamgee must be the man Sydney 

 Smith talked about, whose understanding- was always 

 getting between his leg's and tripping 1 him up. And 

 after all it is quite possible, for Sydney Smith has 

 not been dead so many years. 



But this Aberdeenshire stamping out is just like 

 all Mr. Gatngee says in his book about stamping- out 

 on the Continent, only he evidently cannot see the 

 true conclusions from his own facts. Some of the 

 countries in the middle of Europe seem always to 

 be stamping- out the plague j and then the plag-ue 

 when it is stamped out seems always to be coming 1 

 back again. The fact is, the whole thing- is a de- 

 lusion. Of course if every sick beast in a country is 

 killed on the 31st of March, the probability is there 

 will be no sick beasts in the country the 1st of 

 April. So it seems to all, who are not in the 

 habit of thinking-, immediately to be stamped out. 

 AH such (and they are a good many on the whole) 

 are just now thinking- that the stamping- out that is 

 now going on accounts for the diminution of cases 

 that has undoubtedly taken place of late. The re- 

 maining- few remember that according to all history, 

 and all accounts of Rinderpest, the disease always 

 rages worst in winter and diminishes or dies away 

 as the summer approaches. This is specially men- 

 tioned in the first report of the Commissioners with 



