EDITORIAL OBSERVATIONS. 751 
diverted to other things, to insure all the disaster which 
has recently happened. 
Report attributes the introduction of the plague to 
Podolian, or Steppe, cattle ; but it is at least as probable 
that Polish or Galician cattle first carried the malady to 
Berlin, and it is tolerably certain that it was early pro- 
pagated from that centre by cattle of various breeds. 
The disease was not detected until some of the infected 
cattle had been distributed, and although immediate steps 
were taken to trace animals which it was suspected would 
carry the disease, the attempt was only partially successful. 
Schwerin and Stralsund were said to have soon become in- 
fected, but this report has not been confirmed, in so far as 
the first named place is concerned. Saxony, however, 
was quickly invaded by the disease, then the Palatinate, 
and lastly Prance. Accounts which reach this country are 
somewhat vague in detail, but there is no doubt that the 
cattle plague has spread over a large extent of country in 
Saxony, Rhenish-Prussia, Bavaria, and Prance, to say 
nothing of its progress in the more Eastern provinces, which 
usually suffer more or less from the malady. The extent of 
the area over which the plague has advanced is less a subject 
for surprize than the wonderful speed of its progress. 
Under ordinary circumstances, the rapid spread of the 
disease would have excited profound alarm and attracted 
universal attention • but now that the lives of thousands of 
human beings, and the fate of nations are in question, the 
devastations of the cattle plague are only alluded to by many 
persons as among the contingencies of war. 
Holland and Belgium, as being near to the centres of 
infection, have done all that is possible to prevent the 
entrance of infected animals by closing their frontiers to 
cattle, sheep, goats, hides, &c., from Germany and Prance, 
and up to this time the precaution has been effectual. 
An outbreak of the disease was said to have occurred at 
Soeterwoude, near Leyden, in Holland, but the report was 
afterwards officially contradicted. 
England has established restrictions which are in some 
respects even more stringent than those which were 
