206 
Report on the Trade in Animals. 
separated into lots by pens, or any other kind of division, and 
almost every inlet to the fair was a scene of indescribable con- 
fusion, owing to the frequent collisions of an ingoing with an 
outgoing lot of cattle. 
The Veterinary Commissioner was most courteous to me under 
very trying circumstances. As an inspector, he was unas- 
sisted ; but he possessed and used the power of calling in another 
veterinary surgeon in the event of any doubt existing in his own 
mind as to any particular case. When I first saw him he had 
isolated two lots of cattle in one of the far corners of the fair- 
green, and he was surrounded by a somewhat excited knot of 
people, some of whom endeavoured to prove that the cattle 
were healthy, and others that they had taken the distemper " 
in the fair. The inspector had sent for the local Stipendiary 
Magistrate, and I cannot better describe what took place than 
by quoting the paragraphs relating to one of the foregoing cases 
(the other not being mentioned) from the official Report of the 
Government Veterinary Commissioner: — 
" On Friday morning, about 7.30 a.m., I was informed by a county Meath 
gentleman that some cattle which he had agreed to purchase, while they were 
in a paddock, on the preceding evening, were standing in the fair, and show- 
ing symptoms of disease. On searching, I soon found them in a corner of 
the green. On making a close examination of them— in conjunction with 
Veterinary-Surgeon Murphy— I found that some of them were suffering from 
one of the earlier stages of foot-and-mouth distemper. Among the herd of 
83 animals, there were some 7 or 8 showing signs of the disease, such as con- 
gestions within and frothing at the mouth, ropy discharge therefrom, incipient 
vesicles iu the course of formation therein, and feverisliness pervading the 
entire system. We could not discover any vesicles between the claws, or 
near the feet ; we, however, determined not to allow the animals back into the 
fair, but to communicate with j'ou on the subject, which I did by telegraph. 
But pending your answer, and as a result of consultation with the Sub-Inspec- 
tor of Constabulary and the local Stipendiary Magistrate, it was decided to 
require the owner of the lot of cattle amongst which the disease had broken 
out, to remove them back to his form, as the distance to it was not long, and the 
road leading to it was, at that hour, unfrequented. Had there been any delay 
in the receipt of your answer, the cattle being very large and heavy, it might 
have become verj- difficult to remove them when your reply arrived, particu- 
larly if the disease rapidly increased towards full development. The pur- 
chaser had refused to take them, as they were not in a fit state for removal to 
his farm, some seventy miles away in the county Meath, giving, also, as a reason 
for such refusal, that the cattle could not be regarded as his property until 
handed over to him beyond the custom-gap. This ajipeared to me a just 
reason for his refusing to take them; also, if they had been bought the 
preceding night, they had no business in the fair. I could not allow these 
animals, consistently with safety, down to the railway station ; and, had 1 
enforced the provisions of the Contagious Diseases Act, by declaring the spot an 
infected space, I should have also had to ileclare the whole fair-green an infected 
district; and thus have prevented all moving of cattle, which would have 
been impracticable. At the hour to which I allude, 9 a.m., many cattle had 
left, many by the road these cattle had come in by, consequently they would all 
have been liable to take the disease. And to leave the 83 heifers where they 
