Report on the Trade in Animals. 
without let or hindrance. If they were stopped by an inspector, 
or by a policeman, or by a private individual, on the ground 
that they were affected with loot-and-mouth disease, and if the 
owner were summoned for committing an offence against the 
Act, such as driving diseased cattle along the high road, 
the evidence of the inspector would not, under the Act, be 
more conclusive as to the fact of the animals being affected with 
foot-and-mouth disease than the evidence of a policeman, or that; 
of a private individual (§ 33). On the other hand, the owner 
misrht bring: an overwhelming number of men " who had been 
with cattle all their lives," &c., to swear that the beasts had no 
foot-and-mouth disease at all, but were only footsore and thirsty ; 
that the sheep were suffering from foot-rot, " all along of the 
wet, your honour." Such defences sometimes are, I am told, 
set up, even when dealers are prosecuted for exposing diseased 
animals for sale in a public place ; and they show how necessary 
it is that the inspector's certificate should be received as con- 
clusive evidence of the existence of disease. I have an instance 
noted, on most reliable authority, of a lot of pigs having been 
seized while affected with foot-and-mouth disease ; but the 
owner, on being brought before the magistrate, was acquitted of 
the charge of committing an offence against the Act, and was 
allowed to drive his diseased pigs home again, because there 
I was no evidence before the magistrate except the word of the 
police on one side and that of the owner on the other. If an in- 
I spector is incompetent he should be removed ; but while he 
remains inspector his decision should be as final in the less fatal 
cases of sheep-scab and foot-and-mouth as in the more fatal dis- 
II eases of sheep-pox and pleuro-pneumonia. 
Sections 3l and 32 refer to the right of entry into fields, 
stables, and other premises, which an inspector possesses in the 
event of his suspecting, or receiving information as to, the exist- 
ence of cattle-plague, sheep-pox, and pleuro-pneumonia. The 
I necessity of this right of entry being extended to foot-and-mouth,, 
and, indeed, generally to all contagious or infectious diseases of 
I stock, will be understood by the description of the arrangements 
and practices at some of the English and Irish ports, and espe- 
cially at the port of Bristol. 
Ireland. — The legislative enactments which in Ireland take 
^ the place of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act, 1869, are 
known as " The Cattle Disease Act (Ireland), 18fi6," and "The 
Cattle Disease (Ireland) Amendment Act, 1870." These two Acts 
are construed together ; and their provisions, with those of the 
Orders of the Irish Privy Council founded on them, are carried out 
by a Veterinary Department, as in England. The constitution of 
