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CONTAGIOUS DISEASES (ANIMALS) ACT. 
Several deputations, accompanied by a large number of mem¬ 
bers of Parliament, waited on Saturday, June 15th, upon the 
Right Hon. W. E. Eorster, M.P., for the purpose of representing 
the necessity which exists for amending the Contagious Diseases 
(Animals) Act, so far as regards the removal and slaughtering of 
cattle affected with disease. The deputations represented the 
North-Western English and Irish Cattle Trade and Earners* 
Protection Association, the Liverpool Cattle Market Company, 
the Liverpool Abbatoir Company, the Liverpool Town Council, a 
public meeting of the inhabitants of Liverpool, the Cattle Trade 
and Earners* Protection Association of Ireland, the Scotch Cattle 
Trade, and the City of Dublin and Drogheda Steam Packet 
Companies. It was requested, among other matters, that the 
foot-and-mouth disease might be exempted from the operation of 
the Act; that permission should be accorded to owners of cattle, 
upon the cattle being seized as affected with disease, to have 
them slaughtered at the nearest slaughterhouse; that provision 
may be made for the erection of slaughterhouses at every cattle 
market where one does not already exist, and for the licensing 
of such as already exist at cattle markets; that the practice of 
granting rewards to informers may be abolished; and that the 
power of the local authorities to inflict fines may be considerably 
reduced. Mr. Eorster, in reply, said that Government had 
already considered the matter, and did not think there was a 
case for the exemption of the foot-and-mouth disease from the 
Act. The regulations in England, and the restrictions on cattle 
imported from Ireland, could not be relaxed without staying the 
regulations on foreign importations, and such a proposal would 
create great opposition. As regarded the erection and licensing 
of slaughterhouses at cattle markets, it seemed to him that that 
was an omission in the Act which should be remedied. As to 
permission to slaughter at the nearest slaughterhouse to the place 
of seizure, he thought a prima facie case had been made out, and 
he would see what their powers were; but he could not promise 
that they should be used in the way suggested by the deputations, 
as he would have to hear the statements on the other side. 
