PARLIAMENTARY INTELLIGENCE. 
317 
they proposed regulations for preventing the removal of live 
sheep or carcases without licence in places declared to be in¬ 
fected with sheep-pox. They proposed to take powers to check 
lung disease and foot and mouth disease—any contagious disease, in 
short, among sheep, cattle, or horses. They had done this for two 
reasons. In the first place, the facts elicited by the Government in 
the course of their inquiries proved that pleuro-pneumonia had 
been, from first to last, almost as dangerous and destructive as the 
cattle plague; and, in the second place, they had every reason to 
believe that the agriculturists generally were much more willing 
than they were formerly to submit to interference on the part of the 
Government. They had seen the good results which had so evi¬ 
dently attended the exercise of summary power in the case of the 
cattle plague, and they were, consequently, willing to submit to 
something of the same character in reference to other diseases. 
But, in the case of pleuro-pneumonia, the Government did not pro¬ 
pose to take such stringent powers. Upon the declaration by the 
inspector that any premises, field, stable, or cowshed was infected 
by lung disease, that place was declared to be infected, and came 
under certain rules set forth in the schedule of the Act, the main 
purport of which was that diseased animals were not to be moved 
out of such infected area, except for slaughter, and no animal that 
had in any way come into contact with infection was to be moved 
except for slaughter without a license. They proposed to make it 
penal to exhibit infected animals for sale in any market, or to turn 
them on to a common, the same provisions being applicable in the 
case of scab in sheep, and they proposed to take powers to prevent 
animals being moved when diseased by road, rail, or steamboat. 
The definition of contagious diseases as given by the Bill was the 
cattle-plague, sheep-pox, pleuro-pneumonia, foot and mouth disease, 
and scab in sheep, and they took powers to enable the Privy 
Council to include other diseases in the list if it should be thought 
necessary to do so ; providing, however, that the least stringent of 
the regulations contained in the Bill should be applied in any such 
cases. The Bill re-enacted the powers at present existing for disin¬ 
fecting and cleansing lairs, sheds, and trucks, and to that category 
the Bill added steamboats and sailing vessels. Another object which 
they sought to attain was the better provision for animals sent long 
distances by rail, the destination usually being London. The 
Government were pressed by many gentlemen to take compulsory 
powers to compel the railway companies to provide food and water, 
but there appeared to be great difficulty in doing so. The directors 
of railway companies stated that they did not provide food and water 
because they had no power to recover the expense from the con¬ 
signor or consignee, and because they were bound by Act of Parlia¬ 
ment to change certain rates. What the Bill, therefore, proposed 
was, that railway companies should make the charge of supplying 
the animals a debt upon the consignor or consignee, and that the 
animals themselves should be a lien for the debt. With regard to 
the importation of foreign cattle, they proposed to take the same 
XLii. 22 
