No. 4.] CATTLE COMI^nSSIONERS' REPORT. 441 



other similar products, or from those which in any way restrain 

 the doing of a wrongful or criminal act ; that, while apparently 

 the loss by the destruction falls on the agricultural class, the 

 loss is not due to the destruction, but due to the existence of 

 the disease ; that, while it may be a serious loss to the agri- 

 cultural class to lose their animals through tuberculosis, it is 

 simply a loss which is incident to the trade which they have 

 seen lit to carry on ; and that, if they have had the misfortune 

 to invest in materials of their business which either are at the 

 time of such purchase, although unknown to them, or which 

 subsequently become in their possession, worthless, from causes 

 over which the consumer of their products has no control, the 

 policy of the State no more dictates that it should bear this loss 

 than that it should bear the loss which others suffer by reason 

 of business reverses. 



They assert that a policy involving the payment to the farm- 

 ers of a portion of or the whole of the value of such animals, 

 upon a basis other than their actual worth, considering the 

 disease, is an encouragement to these owners to be careless 

 about the sanitary conditions under which their cattle are kept ; 

 and that this would result in the unnecessary exposure of the 

 stock to the ravages of the disease, and so reduce their power 

 of resistance as to make them an easy prey to it. And they 

 cite in this connection numerous statistics tending to show that 

 the percentage of this disease among the human race increases 

 directly in proportion to the density of the population of the 

 locality where they dwell, and that where the sanitary condi- 

 tions of such people are the poorest, there the percentage of 

 consumption is the greatest. They further assert that, inas- 

 much as the majority of the cattle in this State are kept for 

 dairy purposes, any law which pays to such persons the full 

 health value of their tulierculous stock will eventually cause 

 the majority of these animals to be purchased by the State ; 

 because, they say, by keeping his cattle in close, heated (juar- 

 ters, where they have an insufficient supply of pure air, Avhere 

 they are fed upon rich food materials and where they are bred 

 oftener than once a year, the owner receives the greatest annual 

 return, but that this treatment results in so wearing out the 

 constitution of the animals that they die at an early age and are 

 rendered higlily susceptible to tuberculosis ; and if in the end 



