90 



between these two cases. I confess I cannot see any. It is be- 

 lieved also that men carry the disease. Now, supposed facts 

 have been brought forward to show this ; so the error, if it be 

 one, should be classed under the head of illogical reasoning, 

 not of superstition. Disease breaks out just after a drover 

 has arrived at a farm. "The drover brought it," says 

 everybody at once. Not a word is said about the ninety 

 and nine cases where no disease followed a drover's arrival 

 at a farm. These cases passed unnoticed. Drovers, in- 

 spectors, &c., innumerable, are always going from farm to 

 farm. Disease is always breaking out at farm-houses in- 

 numerable, so the coincidence of disease breaking out and 

 one of these men coming must continually take place. 

 Who is to say that this has happened oftener than the 

 doctrine of chances would lead one to expect ? Perhaps 

 some extraordinarily clear-seeing, logically-minded indi- 

 vidual might be able to do so, if he knew all the facts (which 

 nobody can know) certainly no body of men or committee, 

 for bodies of men are only very moderately logical, and 

 only very moderately clear-seeing. The truth is, all we 

 can say, with reason and without superstition, is that facts 

 show that one beast will often, but not certainly, catch the 

 disease directly from another, but that there are no facts 

 whatever to warrant belief in any further degree either of 

 infection or contagion. 



I am, Sir, 



&c. &c. 



THE END. 



