164 
RINDERPEST. 
which swept over Canada and some of our Northern States in 1870, 
was imported in two first-class blooded Shorthorns, the property of Mr. 
Cochrane, of Compton, which certainly started sound, were infected in 
piocess of shipping, and only showed the disease after having been two 
days at sea. It is quite needless to follow this subject, these instances 
must illustrate how vain is the idea that the careful selection of blooded 
stock is a sufficient guarantee of security, and how little we can rely on 
the best intentions of the importers as a safeguard. In no one instance 
above mentioned did the owners knowingly import diseased animals, 
and none could be more anxious than they for the extinction of the 
malady when its true nature had been discovered. Such instances show 
no want of care, judgment nor honor on the part of the importers ; they 
merely show that protective measures, founded on the principle of 
allowing the embarkation of none but healthy stock from an infected 
country, are utterly inadequate to meet the end in view. To insure the 
exclusion of diseased animals, we must either exclude all animals with¬ 
out distinction, that are subject to the disease in question, and that 
• come from an infected country, or we must have a clean bill of health 
for the voyage, describing every individual beast imported, a quarantine 
of a length proportionate to the period of latency of the disease to be 
guarded against (in the case of rinderpest one week), and a disinfection 
of the surfaces of the stock, and of all articles that may be landed with 
them. 
Sheep, goats, deer and other ruminants. —Rinderpest, unlike 
lung fever, is by no means confined to cattle. All ruminants are more 
or less susceptible to it, and no measures of prevention are reliable, in 
which this fact is not recognized. And here again, our treasury circu¬ 
lar is sadly lame in its provisions. Sheep are referred to, not because 
they aie liable to the disease, but because, like “horses and swine, they 
may be media for its communication.” Then comes the statement, that 
“ the department has no authority under the law to prohibit the import¬ 
ation of horses, sheep and swine ” ; and the suggestion that these “ be 
examined by experts, and, if necessary, quarantined for a reasonable 
time. Here we must go back of the present Executive, and consider 
that state of things which makes no provision for the protection of our 
momentous live stock interests in case of a threatened invasion of pesti¬ 
lence. The government ought to have an expert as an official, or at 
least as a responsible adviser ; and, above all, it should not be hamper¬ 
ed by legislation nor the want of it, but should be invested with full 
powers to take whatever measures may be necessary to exclude all 
