No. 4.] CATTLE COMMISSIONERS' EEPORT. 211 



without restriction, makes it exceedingly easy for those cow 

 owners wlio are disposed to do so to realize some few dollars 

 each for their consumptive cattle ; and, perhaps not unnatu- 

 rally, certain owners prefer to do this rather than to have 

 the animals seized and killed by the State authorities, from 

 whom they receive nothing in the way of remuneration for 

 the animal. To be sure, after a time, when the present 

 methods of inspection have become more perfect, the supply 

 of this sort of animals will be considerably lessened, per- 

 haps even so much so as to drive a certain small number of 

 butchers out of business (this has already been done to some 

 little extent, in a very few localities) ; but evidences are 

 plenty to show that when this period has been reached we 

 shall begin to receive this same sort of cattle from some of 

 the neighboring States, as dealers are already collecting 

 them in Vermont and Xew Hampshire, and shipping them 

 here by the carload for this purpose. So that it would 

 seem to be desirable to make it impossible, or at any rate 

 exceedingly difficult, for these unprincipled butchers to sell 

 meat from the diseased animals. 



Section 5 of chapter 58 of the Public Statutes recites, in 

 part, that whoever knowingly sells, or offers for sale, any 

 diseased animal, or any diseased or unwholesome meat, shall 

 be punished by imprisonment for not more than sixty days, 

 or by fine not more than one hundred dollars. The practical 

 difficulty in enforcing this portion of the law is, that after an 

 animal has been killed and cut up it is nearly always impos- 

 sible to say whether or not the meat has or has not come 

 from a tuberculous animal. If, on the other hand, it can 

 be made possible for the inspectors to be present at the time 

 of the butchering, the recognition of tuberculous animals 

 will be exceedingly easy. It would seem as if all butchers 

 throughout the State could be compelled to take out a 

 license to do business from the board of health in the town 

 in which their slaughter-house is located ; and that, without 

 too much hardship, they might be required to name the days 

 of the week upon which they propose to kill animals, 

 together with the time of day at which they propose to com- 

 mence operations. It can then be made the duty of the in- 

 spector to be present at such times to examine the carcasses 



