June, ’23 
mccubbin: domestic quarantines 
255 
fast being realized. Henceforward the crop protection watch dogs may 
be expected to roam free, ready at a moment’s notice to deal with each 
unfriendly intruder, instead of being confined by the chain of in¬ 
adequate legislation, at the end of which chain they could bark but not 
bite. 
It should now be added that such a law can only function with full 
mobility, if it is entrusted to a well-trained and capable staff. The size 
of this force may vary for different conditions, but it should be so 
organized that, like a skeleton army, it can be promptly enlarged and 
extended in any direction to meet all sorts of emergencies. With a 
basic law and an efficient staff, there still remains one other feature to 
complete this trinity of legal factors. It is an emergency fund, without 
which the most faithful and energetic body in the world will be utterly 
helpless. This has always been a difficult matter to procure, and various 
administrations have solved it differently, when need arose unex¬ 
pectedly. The makeshifts, subterfuges and juggling of finances that 
have been found necessary to meet emergencies are strong evidences 
that the setting aside of a definite emergency fund is a desirable thing to 
plan and work for in every state. 
A great deal could be written on the legal bearing of numerous 
quarantine details. There might be considered for example, the 
wording of a quarantine so as to accord with, and keep within the 
authority of the basic law; the fixing of responsibility for violation; 
delimitation of areas so as to correspond to known political subdivisions 
or in some other simple manner easily verifiable; the position and legal 
status of employees, agents, and common carriers in respect to the 
quarantine; the delegation of authority to agents; the necessity for 
drawing up regulations so that they will include every type of situation 
that is likely to arise, will be clear to the public, and will exhibit that 
sweet quality of “reasonableness” so dear to the legal mind; the de¬ 
sirability of having these regulations so arranged that any violation 
can be established in a simple and definite way; of having them so 
worded that they and the violations of them will be easily understood by 
magistrate, judge, or jury; the necessity of having each indictment or 
information free from error and the evidence clear and incontrovertible; 
the question of whether violations shall be taken into court or regarded 
as cases of summary trial before a magistrate or justice of the peace. 
While these and numerous other similar points are not properly the 
field of the scientist, yet they are the materials of which the quarantine 
fence is constructed. He who understands the purpose of such a fence 
