Report on the Trade in Animals. 
203 
railway company having been summoned for this offence either 
by the police or the Veterinary Department. 
The absence of the provision for a coating of limewash requires 
a word of explanation, as limewash is probably the most con- 
venient available means of ascertaining at a glance whether the 
trucks have been cleansed since they were last used. The informa- 
tion given to me was to the effect that the railway companies had 
memorialised the Government to abolish the requirement relating 
to limewash on the ground that the proportion of goods-trucks 
is very small in comparison with the traffic, and that therefore 
many of the cattle-trucks (I presume the covered ones) are used 
for the conveyance of goods on the return journey into the interior. 
The damp climate, especially in the autumn months, when the 
greater number of cattle are exported, causes the limewash to 
rub off, not only on the cattle, but on the merchandise afterwards 
sent in the same trucks. This seems a reasonable explanation of 
the difference between the Irish and the English regulations, 
though it may be questioned whether the difficulty could not 
have been met in another way. However, taking the explanation 
for granted, it certainly did appear to me that great corporate 
bodies, like the Irish railway companies, should have considered 
that they were under a moral obligation to carry out both the 
letter and the spirit of the regulations which had been thus 
modified by the Government for their convenience. So far, 
liowever, from the companies having accepted the concession 
in this spirit, it is not too much to say that, on every Irish 
railway on which I travelled, the regulations as to the cleansing 
of cattle-trucks were practically disregarded. 
In this aspect of the subject it may be useful to call attention 
to 'the fact, that the conveyance of cattle is almost entirely a 
*'one way" traffic. In Ireland the direction is from the interior 
to the coast, and thence to England. Therefore railway-trucks 
in which the germs of a disease were existent would not neces- 
sarily cause a great extension of that disease in Ireland itself; 
but they would infect the stock en route for England, and in the 
course of a week or two make a very perceptible diOcrence in 
our returns of affected animals. 
At the country stations small cattle-pens are required to 
confine the stock pending the arrival of the cattle-train by which 
they are to travel ; but at the terminal stations at the ports such 
adjuncts are not often seen, the responsibility of providing for 
the cattle on arrival being apparently undertaken either by the 
steamboat companies or the owners. The railway companies in 
such cases, as at Cork, VVaterford, &c., have, therefore, no cattle- 
pens at their railway stations ; but the steamboat companies have 
receiving-yards, and the consignees have either lairs or fields, to 
VOL. IX. — s. S. V 
