SECRETARY'S REPORT. 19 



insurance, and the alarming losses from the spread of this 

 contagion, tlirough exposures in the public markets, naturally 

 lec^to a business amounting to a million and a half dollars a 

 week for many weeks in succession, after the books were 

 opened. At the end of three years, fifty millions of dollars 

 worth of stock had been insured by the concern, the largest 

 business, at that time, ever done by any similar institution in 

 the world. 



What was the result ? It was a race against a stanch and 

 long-winded competitor. The cows died. Loss after loss 

 began to stagger even that great company. The official report 

 says, " that in some districts thousands were carried off; so 

 great, indeed, were its ravages that nearly three-fourths of the 

 losses for which claims were made upon the company were the 

 results of that incurable disease." 



Then the stockholders got together, again and again ; raised 

 the rate of premium again and again, and iiontinued to pay 

 claims. But these losses could never be made up, and this 

 greatest and best managed cattle insurance company that ever 

 existed, after holding out seventeen years, was compelled to 

 wind up in 1861, carrying down with it five other companies 

 to total annihilation. I ani not aware that a single similar 

 institution still survives in Great Britain. 



Now, if, after a careful calculation that 31 per cent, pre- 

 mium would cover all the losses that could possibly occur, and 

 after actually more than doubling that rate, the strongest 

 companies abroad have come to utter ruin, can we console 

 ourselves with the hope that such institutions here would meet 

 with any better fate after this insidious disease has got a firm 

 and permanent hold on the lungs of our cattle ? 



Now a word more on the matter of contagion, because the 

 whole question as to the propriety of legislative action in 

 regard to it, turns, of course, on the contagious character of 

 the disease. 



We know it is contagious. We knew it on its first introduc- 

 tion, four or five years ago. The evidence then, as now, was 

 so conclusive and overwhelming that it would seem that any 

 one, who could doubt, with only a limited knowledge of the 

 facts, would doubt all human testimony, even that of his own 

 senses. I could fill many pages with the opinions of the most 



