No. 4.] REPORT OF CATTLE BUREAU. 223 



nished 269 of these stamps to 227 cities and towns when, 

 ordered hy the boards of health. Since this law was re- 

 enacted in 1903, 163 of these stamps have been furnished to 

 116 cities and towns when ordered through the Cattle Bureau 

 office by local l)oards of health. Fifty-two of these cities 

 and towns had no stamps prior to the re-enactment of the 

 law in 1903 ; the others ordered them to replace stamps worn 

 out or lost. Twenty-six cities and towns have ordered 

 stamps during 1906, since the revelations of the packing 

 town investigators led to a demand for a better inspection, 

 and the United States government issued stricter regulations 

 for establishments doing an interstate or export business, 

 and increased its force of inspectors. 



While the law provides that boards of health are to be fiu- 

 nishcd these stamps through the Cattle Bureau, it provides 

 no penalty for any one having a similar stamp made else- 

 where, or for an unauthorized person having such a stamp in 

 his possession, or using such a stamp. 



Reports come from various sources of the misuse of such 

 stamps. In the Avestern part of the State it has been re- 

 ported that in a small town near the Connecticut River the 

 son of an owner of a slaughterhouse, where animals are killed 

 to be marketed in a neighboring city, was appointed agent 

 of the board of health to stamp the carcasses of animals killed 

 there. This agent having left town, a younger brother, a 

 lad twelve or fourteen years of age, now does the stamping; 

 and if he is absent, the butcher who slaughters there goes to 

 the house and obtains the stamp and uses it himself. In this 

 way many cattle and calves are stamped as fit for food that 

 should not be. 



A report comes from a physician who is a member of the 

 board of health in a town within twenty miles of Boston, 

 that the chairman of the selectmen thinks that licensing 

 slaughterhouses and stamping carcasses is a humbug ; and he 

 has had a stamp made, and has the inspector of animals 

 stamp the carcasses of animals killed at an unlicensed slaugh- 

 terhouse. While the board of health in this town has one 

 of these stamps, it is never called upon to send an agent to 

 mark the carcasses of animals killed for food. Upon being 



