CONTAGIOUS DISEASES IN KANSAS. 
265 
measures, and with force enough to see that the law is complied 
with in every particular, I am fully satisfied that from 50 to 75 
per cent, of the outbreaks of hog cholera can be prevented ; and 
if this is a fact—which can be fully demonstrated with a trial— 
it will not only save the State millions of dollars, but will place 
the industry of raising swine upon a comparatively safe basis, 
thereby stimulating that enterprise to a marked degree. 
Railroads should be compelled to thoroughly disinfect all 
cars before swine are received for shipment (excepting those 
shipped for immediate slaughter), also all their shipping pens ; 
and right here I wish to say it is one prolific source of hog 
cholera. For instance, some one within the interior of the 
State, goes to another point within the State, to buy a car-load 
of hogs, and of course loads them at the nearest shipping point; 
perhaps a car-load of diseased hogs has been recently shipped 
from those very yards, and thus he brings his hogs directly in 
contact with cholera infection, and if the profits on that car-load 
of hogs would buy him a blue jean shirt in the fall, it would be 
a very strange circumstance indeed. Of course, he will say, 
u it’s just my luck,” but, gentlemen, luck has nothing to do with 
it; it’s only a blundering way of doing business, which hun¬ 
dreds are doing daily in the State of Kansas. But the party 
shipping the hogs is not the only one to suffer, his neighbors 
interests are jeopardized, perhaps a whole community will be 
compelled to see the profits of a whole year’s hard labor swept 
away as a result of this loose, indifferent way of transporting 
swine over the State. 
Now, I believe in educating the people, as I said in the begin¬ 
ning of my paper ; but, there is now and then a man who don’t 
like to have too many new ideas thrust at him at once ; he had 
rather do as his father did forty years ago ; he don’t believe in 
the germ theory very much anyway ; and, by the way, these 
fellows generally lay it all to their luck, when they have a mis¬ 
fortune of any kind ; now, to stop to educate a man of this kind, 
life is too short, there is too much to do, and the quickest and 
best way to educate these fellows is to pass laws governing the 
