224 
The Outbreak of Cattle-Plague. 
Commons, and move a Resolution to the same effect as his 
Amendment. But to-day he asked the Council for an unfettered 
expression of their opinion upon it. He, therefore, moved as 
an Amendment, in place of the first and second Resolutions, and 
the preamble of Mr. Jones's motion, the following : — 
"That seeing the precautions hitherto adopted for the prevention of out- 
breaks of rinderpest and other contagious diseases of animals in Great Britain 
have not been successful, it is the opinion of this Council that nothing snort of 
the total prohibition of the importation of live stock from European ports will 
meet the exigencies of the case." 
In reply to Mr. Wells as to the statement in Tuesday night's 
' Gazette, ' 
Professor BROWN stated that the outbreak of cattle-plague at 
Hull was one of four which had occurred in the infected district, 
and the disease had 'not extended beyond that area. The last 
case in Hull had occurred on February 27th. In the metropo- 
litan area a case had occurred at Hackney on March 3rd ; and in 
Essex there was another case on March 4th. Up to the present 
time 138 animals, healthy and diseased, had been slaughtered 
from either being affected with cattle-plague or having been in 
contact with diseased animals ; but generally only one or two 
animals in a dairy had been attacked, and the rest were imme- 
diately slaughtered. The disease had not spread to any im- 
portant extent beyond the area of the first outbreak in each case. 
The Hull outbreak had nothing to do with that in the metro- 
polis. On January 12th and 14th, two cargoes of animals were 
landed at Hull from the same sheds in Hamburg which had 
housed the infected animals that had been sent to Deptford, and 
one cargo left Hamburg on the same day and within a few hours 
of the " Castor," and would have arrived in Hull simultaneously 
with the " Castor's " arrival at Deptford, but that the " Castor " 
lay off Gravesend all Sunday night. The officials at Hamburg 
declared the existence of cattle-plague on the day after the 
infected cattle left that port, and they not only killed all the 
animals, but burnt down some of the buildings in which the 
animals had been kept, as the best means of disinfecting them. 
It now appeared that soon after the arrival of one of the cargoes 
at Hull, one animal presented peculiar symptoms, from the de- 
scription of which, and from the fost mortem examination by 
the inspector, taken in connection with the other evidence, Pro- 
fessor Brown had no hesitation in pronouncing the disease to 
have been cattle-plague. The disease had thus reached the 
dairies in Hull, as in 1872 it reached the farms in the East 
Riding of Yorkshire from Russian animals which had never 
been landed. In each case, persons employed about the 
animals must have carried the infection. 
