Report on the Trade in Animals. 
207 
were in a small corner of the fair-green, would have been to leave them to 
starve, as tliere were no means of feedinfj; or watering tliera on the fair-grten. 
To take them to a paddock near and confine them there, would have been no 
gain to the public, on the score of a ])recaution against the spread of disease, as 
to reach any paddock they would have had to pass through a portion of the fair. 
The amount of mischief done, I considered, had been done while removing 
them from the paddock in which they had passed the preceding night, although 
their owner, who 1 heard is a very respectable man, declared that none of 
these cattle showed any signs of disease on the previous evening, nor until it 
was observed amongst them iu the fair on that morning, nor have I any just 
cause to doubt his word. 
",The usage of Ballinasloe fair is so vague that it was difficult to decide 
who was the owner at the time the disease appeared, and who was the respon- 
sible party to prosecute. Their owner, however, offered to take them home ; 
and as his farm was only eight miles off, along a country road, I decided in 
sending them there, but in charge of the constabulary. This was accord- 
ingly done. During that day 1 discovered no other eases that called for my 
interference." 
The law relating to such cases is clearly set forth in sections 
3 and 13 of the Order of the Irish Privy Council, dated Novem- 
ber 3rd, 1870, and generally known as the " Foot-and-Mouth " 
or "Distemper" Order. The provisions of section 13 are so 
clearly impracticable, that one is, if possible, even more sur- 
prised that it should have been in the first place enacted, and 
afterwards allowed to remain unrevoked for two years, than that 
the authorities at Ballinasloe declined to carry them out. 
The sections are as follows : — 
" 3. The words ' an infected place or district,' according to this Order, shall 
mean or signify any field, stable, cowshed, premises, or other place on or in 
which there is or has been at any time within the immediately preceding ten 
days, an animal affected with, or laboui ing under foot-and-mouth distemper, or 
the apthous disease, and the adjoining lauds, buildings, premises, or places iu 
the same occupation, or with or through which, from it or them, there is a 
communication of passage which is not a public road." 
" 13. No animal affected with foot and mouth distemper, or the apthous 
disease, shall be moved alive from any lands, premises, or place while so 
afiected, and no animal which has been in contact or herded with an animal 
so affected, shall be moved from any lands, premises, or place, except for 
immediate slaughter, and under a licence obtained in that behalf, and in the 
form set forth in Schedule 2 of this Order, from the officer in charge of the 
nearest constabulary or police station ; and every person obtaining such licence, 
and removing, under the same, animal or animals specified therein, shall pro- 
ceed immediately to slaughter the same, under the penalty of being deemed 
to have offended against this Order. And the owner of every slaughter-house 
in which such animal or animals has or have been slaughtered, or his agent, 
shall, within forty-eight hours from the time of slaughter, forward to his 
licenser a certificate in the form in the Schedule 2 of this Order set forth, under 
a like penalty." 
Having naturally felt great interest in the solution of the pro- 
blem thus presented to the authorities, in consequence of a 
county Meath gentleman having informed the Government 
Commissioner that a certain lot of cattle showed symptoms of 
