REPORT OF CATTLE COMMISSIONERS. 391 



His report gave us good reason to believe that the disease 

 had been there during the winter; and that fact, with the 

 added one of the seven hidden animals, led us to send a 

 circular to the officers of all our towns and cities, directing 

 them to forbid the movement of all cattle from place to 

 place, except those on their way to market for immediate 

 slaughter. So far as we know this order was universally 

 obeyed except in the city of Boston. The circular was 

 received by the Mayor and transmitted to the board of 

 aldermen, where, by Brighton influence, it was laid on the 

 table, and where it remains to this date. But Brighton, one 

 of the wards of Boston, was the centre of infection, if there 

 was one in the State. The disease, doubtless in an active 

 form, had been there. Infected cattle had been driven about 

 the lanes and yards, and sheltered in the sheds of its cattle 

 markets, and had passed back and forth through the streets 

 of the town. Under the circumstances the public safety 

 appeared to make it the duty of this Board to do that which 

 the law under severe penalties required the municipal officers 

 of the city to perform. Therefore, on the 8th of March, an 

 order was issued and posted, forbidding the driving about 

 the streets and lanes, or to and from that market, of any 

 milch cows, store cattle or working oxen. This order, 

 though generally obeyed, was resisted in two or three in- 

 stances. This resistance led to prosecutions, during the 

 trial of which the constitutionality of our contagious cattle 

 disease law was severely attacked at many points, but it 

 was sustained by the courts in every instance, and convic- 

 tions followed. It was soon found that objectionable cattle 

 had been driven from Brighton to the Watertown market, 

 which caused the closino; of that also to this class of stock. 

 March 30 information, was received from the agents of the 

 Bureau of Animal Industry that a herd of twenty-eight 

 young cattle, sent from western New York to New York 

 market, had been shipped thence to AYashington County in 

 that State, and by sale had been scattered through that and 

 the adjoining county of Bennington, Vt. Also, that several 

 of the animals had died of contagious pleuro-pneumonia, 

 and others were sick. As cattle had been shipped from this 

 vicinity to our State during the winter, and more were 



