234 Report on the Health of Animals of the Farm in 1877. 
The expediency of this order was soon apparent, for even then 
the contagion had obtained considerable hold, as was proved by 
the fact that during the next six days, by the 6th of February, 
no less than seven dairies in the Limehouse district had been 
declared infected. 
Orders were then issued to prohibit all sales in the lairs and 
markets of the metropolis, unless by special licence, and it was 
also enacted that all animals exposed for sale should be marked 
for immediate slaughter, so that, in the case of any evasion of 
the law, such animals could be readily recognised. Notwith- 
standing these prompt measures, the disease still continued to 
spread, and by the 20th of February several more outbreaks 
were reported in the metropolis, and two had occurred about a 
mile and a half beyond. While this extension in the East of 
London was taking place, much fresh alarm was created by the 
appearance of the plague in Hull, on the 18th of February. 
This outbreak was not, as at first supposed, due to contagion 
carried from London, and its source could not in the first in- 
stance be traced. As the result of an inquiry made by the local 
authority regarding the health of stock in Hull, it was found 
that one dairyman had disposed of the whole of his stock, and 
refused to assign any reason for so doing, merely stating that he 
had sold them to a butcher. The inference to be drawn from this 
is that they were diseased ; and it seems very probable that they 
were affected with cattle-plague. Further inquiry elicited the 
following facts : — On the 12th and 14th of January two cargoes 
of animals were landed at Hull from the same sheds in Ham- 
burg where the Deptford cargo had been housed. Soon after the 
arrival of one of these cargoes, one animal presented peculiar 
symptoms, from the description of which, and the post-mortem 
appearances reported by the Inspector, Professor Brown came to 
the conclusion that the animal was suffering from cattle-plague ; 
and we have thus evidence of the importation of the plague into 
London and Hull from the same infected sheds in Hamburg, in 
January, The disease spread from this original centre in Hull 
to several other dairies, and on the 8th of March an outbreak 
was discovered on a farm at Beelsby, near Grimsby, in Lincoln- 
shire, The inquiry which was instituted did not result in the 
source of the infection being traced ; but it can scarcely be 
doubted that the poison was conveyed, in some indirect way, 
by the agency of people or things that had been in contact with 
diseased animals in Hull. 
The continued extension of the disease in and around London 
led to the Privy Council, at the suggestion of the Royal Agricul- 
tural Society, taking charge of the Metropolitan Police-district. 
The order under which the functions of the local authorities in 
