244 
COMMUNICATION FROM "JOHN STEER” ON 
THE ALLEGED IMPORTATION OF CATTLE 
FROM HOLLAND THE SUBJECTS OF PLEURO- 
PNEUMONIA. 
Buffalo Farm, Pigsby; 20 th Feb., 1871. 
Dear Sir, — For the information of farmers, as well as meat con- 
sumers, will you allow me to ask who Mr. John Waller is? I take 
a natural interest in British meat, and am sensitive, I hope, as to 
the privileges of foreign importers. I hold (as all well-thinking 
farmers do) that we who are thoroughly English should not have our 
thoroughly English prices deteriorated by foreign competition, and 
I am delighted when a discovery is made which tends to obviously 
elevate the cost of beasts in the market. But I am, I candidly con- 
fess, completely puzzled about this Mr. Waller. I read letters of 
his constantly in the Times , in which the wrongs of us meat-pro- 
ducers are enumerated, and I naturally feel sentimental and injured. 
I read his letter too in the same powerful organ of public opinion, 
pointing out that pleuro-pneumonia of cattle had been recently 
brought in by our natural enemies, the importers of foreign cattle ; 
and when, with a revulsion of feeling which I cannot fully express, I 
remark to my Betsy (my wife, Mr. Editor), “ Waller’s the man for my 
money!” I am shaken to my centre — and it takes a good deal to shake 
it — by an announcement in the Parliamentary reports that in answer 
to Alderman Lawrence, the Vice-President of the Council said “ the 
statement appeared to be entirely without foundation.” Now, sir, I 
want to know who Mr. Waller is ? and if you can’t tell me, I must ask 
you to permit me to let loose a suspicion of my own. Betsy and I 
both think that he is an emissary of the foreign cattle importers, 
who wants to interfere with our hard-earned profits, who wants, in 
fact, to milk our cows. I have a horrid suspicion that these vaccine- 
Jesuits, so to speak, have taken means, under a fictitious name, to 
injure our prospects, to throw doubt and ridicule on our natural 
desire to keep the cattle-market to ourselves ; in fact, to insert the 
thin end of the wedge, and to destroy the little amount of protection 
we enjoy in the trade of cattle, and to establish by artful measures 
the principle of free-trade in beasts. Your sincere friend, 
John Steer. 
To the Editor of the 1 Veterinarian 
ERRATA. 
In Vol. xliii, No. 515, page 829, line 10, for Simla read Simla ; page 830, 
line 3, for administerial read administering; page 830, line 7, for mediums 
read medicines; page 832, line l,for presented read prescribed; page 833, 
line 24, for to transfer read by transfer; page 833, last line, read relief of 
troops ; page 835, line 1 ,for continuation read combination. 
In Vol. xliv. No. 518, line 5, for liver read kidneys. 
