488 
Report on the Contagious and 
is no doubt that frequent communication took place. Persons concerned about 
the cattle visited the ship, and while the vessel was lying in the dock the 
removal of the general cargo from the hold was continued. On Friday, July 
26th, I proceeded on board the ' Joseph Soames,' accompanied by Professor 
Simonds, and after making a careful examination of all the cattle, we ascer- 
tained that 18 of them presented decided evidence of being affected with cattle 
jilague. Under these circumstances it became absolutely necessary that the whole 
of the cargo should be slaughtered and the carcases in some way destroyed. 
At this point a serious difficulty arose. The defined part of the port of Hull 
includes the landing-places, the Customs' depot in Bath Place, and several 
slaughter-houses in that part of the town which is nearest to the places where 
the cattle are landed. Ko ground was available in which carcases could be 
buried without previously being taken through the streets of the town ; and 
within the defined part there existed no appliances for the destruction of them 
by burning or boiling. The only course that j^resented itself was the sinking 
of the carcases at sea, and after communication with the local authority, whose 
inspector was in attendance from the first, it was decided to slaughter the 
animals on board the vessel, pack the carcases in lighters, and sink them, in 
accordance with the terms of the Order, more than three miles from the 
British coast. Steps were immediately taken to carry this intention into 
effect; all the animals were slaughtered on board on July 27th, the carcases 
were packed in two lighters, battened down, roped across, and at high tide 
about 11 o'clock the same night they were towed out to sea. The means 
employed to sink the lighters proved to be quite inadequate, and they were finally 
turned adrift. Information of the event was communicated to me on July 
the 28th, about the middle of the day, by the officer of the local authority 
who had been sent out in charge of the carcases. Notwithstanding that I was 
fully aware of the grave error which had been committed in not bringing the 
lighters back again into the Humber, when it was found that the appliances 
for sinking them were not sufScient, I was unable to suggest any remedy. It 
was anticipated that the carcases, and most probably the lighters in which 
they were placed, would be stranded on some part of the English coast, but 
previous experience of such an occurrence did not justify any serious appre- 
hension of its consequences. 
One of the lighters and all, or nearly all, the carcases were subsequently 
cast ashore on various parts of the Lincolnshire and Norfolk coasts. 
On the morning of the 29th July one of the lighters was seen about eight 
miles from the shore at Dimlington. On Friday the second of August, this 
lighter, marked " W. Brown, Hull, No. 9," with 40 carcases, was washed 
ashore at Huttoft, on the coast of Lincolnshire, in the port of Boston. On 
August 28th it was reported that a number of carcases of Russian cattle had 
been washed ashore on the north-west coast of Norfolk, and between the 8th 
and 30th of August the returns of the Receiver of Wreck mention six car- 
cases which were washed ashore in the port of Wells. 
All these carcases were buried under the direction of the Customs authorities 
in accordance with the conditions of the Order of Council relating to the burial 
of carcases. The actual number stranded is 55, of which 48 were washed 
ashore in Lincolnshire at Boston and Grimsby, and 7 at the port of Wells. 
On the assumption that all these animals came from the 'Joseph Soames' 
only one carcase remains to be accounted for. It is not, however, absolutely 
clear that all the carcases were those of the Russian cattle. In any case it 
can now be confidently asserted that no outbreak of cattle plague occurred in 
any part of the country where the carcases were stranded. 
Some weeks passed after the last carcases had been buried, and it was 
anticipated that all danger had passed, when intelligence of the alleged exist- 
ence of cattle plague among a herd of 22 cattle belonging to Mr. Berryman, of 
