C0N1AGI0US PLEURO-PNEUMORIA LN CONGRESS. 
551 
i 
and the new, that this plague is only known as communicated by 
contagion ; that all countries out of its primary habitat and that 
i have never imported it, remain free from it to the present date ; 
I that all fenced countries that have unfortunately imported it, but 
; have systematically set about extirpating it and persisted intelli- 
! gently, have succeeded; that unfonced countries, when infected 
have maintained the infection in spite of ail human efforts ; that 
i countries out of the line of traffic from infected places (as those 
in Northwestern and Southwestern Europe), have kept clear of 
the infection; and that in spite of a constant open-air life in re¬ 
gions of perpetual summer, the herds of South Africa and Aus- 
tialia, mingling on limitless unfenced ranges, have, since the in¬ 
troduction of the plague, been cut down in greater numbers than 
even in Europe, and that in both regions the colonists, in self- 
defence, are largely exchanging cattle for sheep. They will find 
all they can reasonably ask for in that small report—incompar¬ 
ably more than the three proposed experts could possibly attain 
to m several generations of observation on the disease as seen in 
America only. 
A few years ago Congress created a Treasury Cattle Com¬ 
mission, and instructed it to investigate and report, which it 
promptly and faithfully did, leaving in the first year half its ap¬ 
propriation unused. The two following years the reports made 
were extremely short, as far more than the available funds were 
demanded for the establishment of quarantine stations at four of 
our Eastern ports. Then Congress created the Bureau of Ani- 
| ma ^ Industry, and the Commission willingly resigned its duties 
into the hands of that Bureau. In the reports of our Commis¬ 
sion, in those of the Department of Agriculture, and in those of 
! the Bureau of Animal Industry, there is the amplest fund of in¬ 
formation on this lung plague to which the Congressmen may 
resort without going outside and scanning he whole libraries that 
have been written on the subject. 
It is the absolute duty of every Congressman to acquaint him¬ 
self with these Congressional documents as the basis of future 
egislation. We P a y our Congressmen handsomely to attend to 
'he needs of the country, and they are recreant to their high trust 
