Contagious Diseases of Live Stocli. 
267 
during transit, and if not sold at the first market they would most 
assuredly be down with the disease before the next market day, 
and the owners would then be unable to sell or remove them. 
A deputation was appointed to wait upon the Home Secretary, 
in order to convey to him the feelings of the Club. The result 
was that the Bill was dropped, and when the outbreak of 
cattle plague occurred in the following year the Government 
said “ they had not sufficient power to deal with it. : ’ 
As recorded in the Journal, Vol. XVII., 185G, the following 
communication was received from the Foreign Office, June 12, 
1856 : — 
I am directed by the Earl of Clarendon to transmit to you, to be laid 
before the President and Council of the Royal Agricultural Society, the 
accompanying copy of a despatch from Colonel Hodges, Her Majesty’s 
Consul-General at Hamburg, enclosing a second report from the British Vice- 
Consul at Liibeck respecting the contagious disease that has broken out 
among the cattle at Mecklenburg.— E. Hammond. 
The despatch contained a full and elaborate description of 
the disease, which left no room to doubt that it was the Steppe 
murrain, or rinderpest, popularly called Cattle Plague. It was 
officially sent to the Foreign Secretary, who was in the unfortu- 
nate position of having no authority in connection with the 
Government to whom to forward it. He therefore had no 
other alternative than to send it on to an independent body 
outside the Government, it being a far too important matter 
to be totally disregarded. Eventually an arrangement was en- 
tered into by the Councils of the Royal Agricultural Society of 
England, the Highland and Agricultural Society of Scotland, 
and the Royal Agricultural Improvement Society of Ireland, to 
send, at their joint cost, Professor Simonds to make tbe neces- 
sary inquiries and report thereon. The repeated warnings as 
to the rapid approach of the malady had excited great alarm 
throughout the United Kingdom, and the official report was 
looked forward to with more than ordinary interest. 
The inquiries and investigations extended over a very large 
area of Europe, and Professor Simonds was enabled to state 
(Journal, Vol. XVIII., 1857, pp. 268-70) as the result of his 
researches : — 
That all the countries of Northern and Western Europe from which 
cattle are exported to England are perfectly free from the rinderpest. . . . 
That in tbe greater part of the official despatches and reports which have 
been forwarded to the Government, and by them transmitted to the Royal 
Agricultural Society of England, the rinderpest has been confounded with 
pleuro-pneumonia, “ Milzbrand,” and other destructive maladies to which 
cattle are liable. . . . That no fear need be entertained that this destructive 
pest will reach our shores. Its present great distance from U3 would of 
