Probable Losses in 1900. 67 



tie. For this is not like an evil preying on our currency, 

 banking, trade, or manufactures, the full extent of which 

 may be, in a great measure, seen from the beginning, and 

 the repair of which may be at any time inaugurated by 

 legislative enactment. The animal plague only increases 

 its devastations as we increase the numbers of our herds, 

 and threatens soon to acquire an extension to which no 

 legislation can oppose a check, and a prevalence in the 

 face of which the most desperate efforts of the nation 

 will prove of no avail. Thus, our cattle are increasing 

 at the rate of 13,500,000 every ten years, so that, by the 

 end of this century they may be exactly doubled, with a 

 prospective loss, if our Western and Southern ranges are 

 infected, of $130,000 000 yearly in deaths alone. 



"The choice is now in our power. So far as we know, 

 our stock-raising States and Territories are stUl unaf- 

 fected. We can still successfully meet and expel the 

 invader; next year it may be too late." 



On April 15th, 1878, the New York Protective Bill be- 

 came law, but no practical application of it was made 

 until the present year. In the New York Weekly Trih- 

 wne for November 27th, 1878, another call for action was 

 made in connection with the prevalence of the disease 

 around Washington. This was immediately quoted by 

 various English papers and a demand was made for the 

 embargo of American cattle. It was followed by the con- 

 demnation at Liverpool of the cattle shipped in January, 

 on the Ontario, from Portland, Maine, by the institution 

 of special inquiries by H. B. M. Consul-General in New 

 York, by the mission of Professor McEachran on the 

 part of the Dominion Government in the end of January, 

 1878, and his report that the plague existed in Washing- 

 ton, Philadelphia and Brooklyn, by the author's commis- 

 sion fi'om Governor Kobirfison, February 6th, and his re- 

 port of the presence of the plague in Kings and Queens 

 counties, on February 9th, and by the Privy Council or- 

 der of the same date that all American cattle should be 

 sUu^^litereJ on their arrival at English ports. With 



