The late William Torr. 
305 
horses ; but five years later he was more successful, in con- 
junction with Air. Milward. Recent discussions will give a 
more living interest to his last attempt bearing on these ques- 
tions. In March, 1870, he gave notice that he would move 
" that judges of live-stock be provided with catalogues, in the 
same manner as judges of implements now are;" but the op- 
position of a section of exhibitors induced him to modify his 
resolution so that the names of the exhibitors should be with- 
held, but that the pedigrees of the entries should be given. 
This compromise did not satisfy his opponents, while it alien- 
ated his supporters ; but the indirect result was the existing rule 
that each entry in the Shorthorn classes should be certified to 
have not less than four crosses of blood registered, or eligible 
to be registered, in the Herd-book. 
At the time he died, he was on most of the important Com- 
mittees, viz., Finance, House, Stock Prizes, Implement, Country 
Meeting, Showyard Contracts, and Selection. He was also a very 
active Member and Trustee of the Smithfield Club, and was well 
known as a Judge of Live-stock at the principal Agricultural 
Shows of the three kingdoms, and at those organised in Paris by 
the late Emperor of the French. 
The value which the Council of the Society attached to 
his opinion on practical matters was attested by his frequent 
appointment on the Committee of Inspection to visit the sites 
offered for the Annual Country Meetings, as well as by his 
selection as one of the Judges of Farms at the first competition 
carried out under the auspices of the Society, viz., in connection 
with the Oxford Meeting of 1870. As a large producer of beef 
and mutton, of original views and practice on the various 
systems of transport of live cattle and dead meat, he was called 
to give evidence before the select committees of the House of 
1 Commons on those subjects, which have been appointed since 
. the outbreak of the cattle-plague in 1865. As a feeder, he 
attached little importance to foot-and-mouth disease ; but he 
was careful not to purchase animals at fairs and markets, except 
as a matter of necessity ; and he was especially severe in his 
estimate of the influence of small dealers in cattle, sheep, and 
; pigs, in spreading contagious diseases of the animals of the 
iarm throughout the country. He also attached considerable 
weight to the possibility of the importation of disease from 
foreign countries under the regulations that were in force in 
1871, and in July of that year he called the attention of the 
t Council to the relaxation of the restrictions on the foreign cattle- 
I trade, which had recently been made by the Privy Council, and to 
the injury which may have been thereby inflicted on English herds. 
It was his boast, not without reason, that everything on his 
VOL. XI. — S. S. X 
