HE PORT ON THE CATTLE PLAGUE. 
153 
owners have escaped upon the whole, but in many, every 
proprietor has had his herd affected. In the first quarter of 
the present year the official returns show a total loss of 
3655 head of cattle, of which 1502 died, and 2153 vrere 
killed by order of the authorities, which gives an average 
loss of about 281 per week. 
We are not surprised at the great extent of these losses, 
judging from what we saw of the secondary causes of epi- 
zootics in operation in the vicinity of Rotterdam. The cattle 
are often crowded into houses so thickly, that to pass be- 
tween them is almost an impossibility. The form and size 
of the building also will frequently allow of a passage only 
to be made by a person along its centre, where the heads of 
the animals nearly meet over their feeding troughs, while 
the height of it is generally insufficient to stand upright in. 
No windows exist in many of these sheds, nor any other 
inlet for light and air, except the door. The heat is almost 
suffocating, and the stench abominable. In such unwhole- 
some and pest-breeding places as these, the cattle, often to 
the extent of forty or fifty in a shed, are kept for weeks toge- 
ther to be fatted for the market, by being fed chiefly on 
the wash and grains which come from the distilleries. 
The cattle which are sent from Friesland are shipped at 
Harlingen direct for England, and the numbers put on 
board there are fully six times greater than at Amsterdam. 
Friesland is one of the great cattle districts *of Holland, and 
supplies not only the English market with many animals, 
but other countries likewise. She therefore receives no im- 
ports, nor does it appear that any of the vessels conveying 
cattle from the ports of the Elbe or the Weser, or from any 
part of the coast of Holstein, ever touch at the Dutch ports, 
so that a contagious malady like rinderpest, existing in 
Holstein or in the countries watered by those rivers, would 
have to make its entrance by way of the land into Holland. 
No restrictions are put upon the cattle trade with refer- 
ence to bringing of animals over the frontier, but all impor- 
tations of the kind would be immediately prohibited on the 
appearance of the disease in question in any neighbouring 
states. The prices obtained for cattle in the English market 
are not viewed as being sufficiently remunerative just now by 
the Dutch feeders, and hence the diminished numbers sent 
here. When the contrary state of things prevailed, many 
animals were purchased in Prussia by the dealers, and for- 
warded to the different ports of Holland for exportation : and 
not a few, it is said, came even from Switzerland down the 
Rhine for this purpose. These facts show that it is pos- 
xxxi. 21 
