NEWS AND ITEMS, 
439 
cab horses, omnibus horses and business horses were ruled out. 
This only left very choice risks, such as family carriage horses 
and well-kept horses doing light draught work. The principal 
reason, however, for non-snccess was want of sufficient capital 
to keep the project going. 
An experiment in horse life insurance was tried in New 
York some years ago by the Retail Grocers’ Union, an organiza¬ 
tion of about looo members. Inside the Union a horse-insur¬ 
ance fund was started, and i per cent, was collected on the 
amount for which each horse was insured, while losses were 
sustained pro rata by the members in the scheme. No horse 
was insured for over 75 per cent, of its value. In less than 
eight months losses by pneumonia and other diseases were so 
great that the grocers were compelled to raise the dues to 2 per 
cent. Most horse owners are satisfied if they insure their 
stables for a good round sum, imagining that most of the dan¬ 
ger to their stock dying suddenly is in the direction of fire. 
Probably the heaviest insurance ever placed upon a horse 
to protect the owner against loss by death was the amount for 
which Blundell Maple, Member of Parliament for Dunwich, 
had the famous racer Common insured. He paid a premium of 
^500 for an insurance of ;^io,ooo. He also made a similar 
provision against the premature death of Plaisanterie, which 
was a yearling at the time. He paid 6000 guineas for the colt 
and insured it for ^5000 at a premium of ;^3oo. The insur¬ 
ance was a novelty in England at the time and was a good deal 
talked about.— {^Newark^ N. y., Sunday Call.) 
The State of Veterinary Science in England. —At a 
meeting of the Central Veterinary Medical Society, held at the 
Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, Red Eion Square, on the 
7th inst., Mr. H. Sessions, of Brighton, read a paper on “ Vet¬ 
erinary Sanitary Science,” in which he pointed out how greatly 
this country was behind other continental nations in methods 
for the suppression and prevention of diseases among animals. 
He said that had all counties and boroughs in the kingdom coin¬ 
s' petent veterinary officers of health, and gradually taught, by is¬ 
suing minimum regulations, that air and light were essential for 
stabled animals, an immense amount of loss and disease would 
have been prevented. Gradually in town and country more 
attention would have been paid to these matters, and the sheds 
and houses altered to meet the requirements. Periodic ophthal¬ 
mia, many cases of colds, pneumonia, many virulent attacks of 
influenza, glanders would have been unknown ; while that wide- 
