SANITARY LEGISLATION. 
149 
SANITARY LEGISLATION. 
STATE VETERINARY DEPARTMENT OF ILLINOIS. 
In the early part of the late session of the Legislature of 
Illinois, the Illinois Legislative Farmers’ Club, composed of some 
sixty or more farmer members of the Thirty-second Legislative 
Assembly, whose object it is to further such measures as are of 
direct importance to the agricultural interests of the country, took 
cognizance of the necessity of protecting the cattle interests of 
this State, as far as possible, from contagious diseases. A bill 
was prepared by the Hon. D. W. Smith, a wealthy farmer of 
Sangamon County, who, keenly alive to the necessity for legisla¬ 
tion to prevent the spread of contagious pleuro-pneumonia among 
cattle, bent his energies toward that laudable object. After being 
fully discussed, it received the sanction of the Farmers’ Legisla¬ 
tive Club, and was at once introduced into the House. The bill, 
as it passed from one reading to another, was subjected to a vast 
amount of persecution, and encountered a bitter fight from first 
to last. Too much credit cannot be given to Mr. Smith, and to 
Senator Moffatt, of Macon County, and others, who did good 
work for the bill in the Senate at the very last hour. 
W hile it must be acknowledged that the act is far from perfect, 
it is without doubt the best that could be done at present, and is 
a long step in the right direction. By its passage a new State 
Department has been created, and this done, its provisions can 
always be amended and perfected by future legislation. In the 
absence of National safeguards, mutual interests and good comity 
demand similar legislation by all the States of the Union. This 
act, which creates the office of State Yeterinarian, takes effect on 
the first of July of the present year, and it is to be hoped that 
the Governor of the State may succeed in selecting the right 
man to fill the office. 
The following is a copy of the law: 
AJS ACT to Suppress and Prevent the Spread of Pleuro- 
Pneumonia Among Cattle. 
Section 1 . — Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois, 
