THE CATTLE PLAGUE.-FOREIGN IMPORTATIONS. Ill 
out as they should be; and there is nothing to justify the 
assertion that foreigners have stronger scruples about run¬ 
ning the blockade’^ than Englishmen have. We found it 
here exceedingly easy to pass Orders of Council, and to issue 
directions from all sorts of authorities, but the task of enforc¬ 
ing the laws was by no means trifling, particularly when 
people quietly ignored their existence, and acted in accord¬ 
ance with their own ideas of right or convenience. Pro¬ 
viding that all the regulations respecting the passage of ani¬ 
mals through Prussia are carried out stringently, w^e may 
perhaps rest in tolerable security, but any evidence of the 
fallibility of the precautions which are adopted by that 
power will necessarily disturb our repose, anid such evidence 
we undoubtedly have had. Under ordinary circumstances, 
the system of feeding Bohemian and other white cattle’^ 
in the large distilleries works well, and no foreign beasts im¬ 
ported to this country “die better,^^ in butchers^ phrase, than 
the cattle so treated ; but this is small compensation for an 
occasional outbreak of cattle plague in the metropolis, or 
elsewhere. So long as all the conditions of security are main¬ 
tained, no danger need be apprehended. Capitalists on the 
Continent may buy hundreds of cattle in Bohemia, Moravia, 
and Hungary, feed them upon the w^aste products of their 
distilleries, and having brought them to a condition fit for 
the English market send them to England; the time required 
to fatten them will in itself be a guarantee of their freedom 
from infection, and if there is no disease in the locality where 
they are fed, they may safely be treated as though they had 
been bred there. The transit of these cattle through Prussia 
to the coast is permitted only under restrictions; evidence of 
their having come from a healthy locality is required; and, 
in short, every care is taken by the Prussian authorities, as 
might be expected, to prevent the entrance of infected animals 
into their country—not always with success, as their records 
will show\ 
The transit of cattle through Prussia to this country occu¬ 
pies some days. Cattle coming from Bohemia are usually 
on the road about six or seven days before they reach the 
London market; and it may be said in reference to the 
white cattle’"’ of Austria, that their passage occupies some¬ 
thing like a week. This fact is often quoted in support of 
the theory that infected animals—that is, cattle infected in 
any part of Austria (in Bohemia or Moravia, for instance) — 
cannot be sent to London, because by the time they arrive the 
disease will be sufficiently advanced to be at once detected by 
he inspectors. The argument rests entirely upon the as- 
