648 Chronicles of Science. [Oct., 



especial interest now. The price of butcher's meat is unprecedented. 

 It is probably chiefly due to the small produce of cattle food which 

 last year's climate gave us. There was little hay and hardly any 

 roots, and the raw material of the meat manufacture being scarce, the 

 quantity of the manufactured article is proportionably small and its 

 price proportionably high. But we have now among us a contagious 

 disease, which is destroying large numbers of beasts, and there is every 

 prospect consequently of meat becoming even scarcer. The Eussian 

 rinderpest, imported early in June, has found in the London cowhouses 

 and in many cowsheds elsewhere, circumstances under which its poison, 

 rapidly spreading,, is extremely destructive. But it is not confined 

 to close and badly ventilated building"!, for in country districts — 

 Hampshire, Sussex, Kent, Essex, Norfolk, Shropshire, and elsewhere 

 ■ — we hear of its occurrence and fatality where cattle have been graz- 

 ing in the open meadows. It is almost always traceable to stock 

 bought in the London market, which has brought the infection with 

 it into the country. It is an extremely virulent and infectious bovine 

 typhus, which has hitherto completely foiled all attempts at treatment. 



The principal endeavour therefore seems to be to isolate the evil, 

 and by the destruction and burial of cattle when once they are attacked, 

 to kill the poison before it has had time to spread. There has thus 

 been less opportunity for the treatment of the disease than is desir- 

 able. Orders in council have given power to veterinary inspectors 

 to direct the destruction of infected cattle, and attempts have been 

 made to isolate particular districts, by hindering transportation and by 

 regulating sales. Altogether untouched by these arrangements, how- 

 ever, there can be no more fruitful source of contagion than town 

 dung from infected cowhouses, which is widely distributed by railway 

 and canal. And so subtle is the mischief, that animals not themselves 

 liable to the disease, both sheep and men, it is said, can convey the 

 virus from diseased to healthy stock by contact, first with the one, and 

 then, even at a considerable interval of time, with the other. 



Another attack of contagious disease occurred during July and 

 August on a farm in Sussex, where a flock of sheep became infected 

 with the ovine small-pox ; but here the prompt destruction of the 

 infected animals and complete isolation of the farm has been 

 successful in hindering the spread of the malady, which seems to 

 have at length died out. It is to be hoped that similar measures, 

 vigorously taken with reference to the rinderpest, may be similarly 

 successful, notwithstanding that its occurrence in quick succession in 

 so many different localities greatly increases the difficulty of the task. 



The Society of Arts have published a report on the cottage building 

 question, which, although its subject is treated as especially affecting 

 labourers in towns, must yet be noticed in our agricultural chronicle. 

 They have not considered it necessary to collect proofs of the existing 

 unfitness of the greater part of the dwellings of labouring men as 

 habitations for respectable and well-conducted families, nor have they 

 thought that any further proof was needed that the excessive over- 

 crowding which now exists in such dwellings promotes crime and 



