448 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Pub. Doc. 



not claim that he has made any personal examination of the 

 home cattle of our State, but only of " cheap cattle brought 

 from Brighton." He does, however, quote Dr. J. F. Win- 

 chester of Lawrence, Mass., who has already been alluded 

 to in this report, and whose statements should be carefully 

 dissected and compared before full credence is given them. 

 This is not the first time that this Dr. Bailey has made the 

 most sweeping charges against the entire cattle stock of this 

 State, and drawn his proof of them from the same source as 

 now, viz., " cheap cattle from Brighton, and Dr. Winchester 

 of Lawrence." 



It ought to be sufficient for us to say that the charges 

 against Massachusetts cattle by Dr. Bailey are untrue, and 

 to refer to facts already given in this report as proof. But 

 it is perhaps better that we shall allude to the legal attitude 

 of the Cattle Commissioners of Maine, and quote from the 

 latest reports at hand of the inspection of Massachusetts 

 cattle and their products on a large scale to sustain them. 

 The law of Maine above alluded to, and of which the Cattle 

 Commissioners or Dr. Bailey are presumably the authors, is 

 no law at all, and it is not a " crime" to import cattle from 

 Massachusetts or any other State into Maine. Massachu- 

 setts and nearly all States westward to Kansas once com- 

 mitted that folly, and in 1875 passed similar acts to prevent 

 the introduction to their States from Texas of cattle infected 

 with Spanish fever. In the State of Missouri this law was 

 contested, and a case brought before the United States 

 Court, where the law was declared unconstitutional, because 

 it attempted to interdict or control commerce between the 

 States, which was a power conferred by the Constitution 

 only upon Congress. Massachusetts and other States then 

 passed enactments substituting quarantine of suspected ani- 

 mals when found within the State. If Maine and Dr. Bailey 

 are still in the Union, they must be amenable to its constitu- 

 tion, and be careful about arrogating to themselves the 

 powers of Congress, especially in going so far as to declare 

 what shall be " a crime, with a penalty attached." Dr. 

 Bailey may possibly be familiar with the cattle and the cattle 

 trade of Maine, removed as it is from the great lines of 

 trade and transportation of these animals ; but he exhibits 



