isolation when infected, and not to liberate | missioners speak for themselves, even at some them till they have clean bills of health; but length :— we find that we are anticipating a future branch of our subject.

"To interfere with the circulation of fat stock is to interfere directly with the meat market; and to embarrass it is to raise, for a time at least, the price of meat. To require that every bullock sold for slaughter shall be slaughtered on the premises of the seller, will undoubtedly in a multitude of cases be inconvenient to both farmer and butcher. There will be difficulties about the actual slaughtering, about the disposal of hides and offal, about transport; and these difficulties appear still more serious when we consider the manner in which the live-meat trade is now carried on through salesmen and jobbers, and the vast quantities of fat cattle continually in motion to and from London, and midland and northern counties. A large sysfrom one market to another throughout the tem of trade and transport will have to be deranged, and many new arrangements to be

The Privy Council having failed in preventing the extension of the plague, found it advisable to recommend to the Queen that a Royal Commission should be issued to investigate into the origin and nature of the disease, and to frame regulations with a view of preventing its spread and of averting any future outbreak of it. This commission was issued by her Majesty on the 29th of September, and was addressed to certain members of both Houses of Parliament and men of scientific and medical attainments.* The Commissioners did not allow the grass to grow under their feet; they sat daily for a month after their appointment, and on the 31st October issued their first report, unaccom-made, and the cost of effecting these changes panied, however, by the mass of evidence which it is understood they have collected from all parts of the kingdom and from abroad, and which is now in the hands of the printer. Unfortunately the Commissioners have not been unanimous in their report, Lords Spencer and Cranborne, Mr. Read and Dr. Bence Jones, being dissentients from one important recommendation in it, while Mr. M'Clean holds aloof altogether, and makes a separate report, to the effect that there is no reason for alarm, and therefore no cause for action. We will endeavour to indicate their general conclusions, with a running commentary upon them.

After referring to the history of the plague and its remarkably contagious nature, the Commissioners point out that the disease, widely extended as it now is, can only be arrested by stopping for a time the movements of cattle. The majority of the Commissioners desire that this stoppage should be absolute; the minority are contented with preventing movement of lean or store stock, while they would permit fat cattle to go to fairs and markets for immediate slaughter. Both the majority and minority agree that the traffic in lean stock must be prevented for a period; they diverge only on the policy of applying these restrictions to cattle fit for the butcher. Let the majority of the Com

* The names of Her Majesty's Commissioners are as follows:-Earl Spencer, K.G., Lord Cranborne, M.P., Right Hon. Robert Lowe, M.P., Lyon Playfair, C.B., C. S. Read, M.P., R. Quain, M.D., Bence Jones, M.D., E. A. Parkes, M.D., Thomas Wormald, President of College of Surgeons, Robert Ceely, Surgeon, Charles Spooner, Principal of Veterinary College, and J. R. M'Clean, President of Institution of Civil Engineers, with Mr. Montagu Bernard, Secretary,

on the spur of the moment must fall to a considerable extent on the consumer of meat.

"If the distinction be admitted, however, many other questions arise. In the first place, how is it to be enforced? If a privilege is conceded to cattle destined for the butcher, how are we to make sure that a particular animal is really destined for the butcher, or that he will be slaughtered immediately, or slaughtered at all; or that he will not scatter infection on his road? May he be driven home by the nearest country butcher who will buy him, or must he be sent to market? May he go to any market, or only to one where conveniences for slaughtering and for careful inspection are, or can be provided? May he, if unsold, be sent home again, or transported from one market to another, or if not, what chance will the seller have, should the market be overstocked, of making a fair bargain? In considering these points, it must be borne in mind that a butcher has, as some witnesses have remarked to us, facilities which a farmer has not for concealing infection; and that he has not those motives for being on his guard against it which the farmer has. A farmer who brings home a diseased animal may probably lose his whole herd. But it is often the butcher's interest to ask no questions.

"Answers more or less conplete may be furnished on all the points above enumerated, and precautions may be devised with a view to each of them. In general terms, it may be stated that such precautions must in the main rest on some or all of the following expedients:

On a modified adoption of the Cordon system; on the imposition of new and peculiar legal obligations upon butchers, and probably upon drovers, railway companies, and the authorities in charge of markets; lastly, on a system, more or less extensive, of permits, certificates, or declarations. We ought not, however, to shrink from distinctly saying that no answers can be given which, in our judgment, are perfectly satisfactory, and no precautions invented on which it is possible entirely to rely, and that we believe it to be best for the country, and even for the interests which will

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suffer most in the first instance, that the pro- | upon the accuracy of which, experience warns hibition against the circulation of cattle should be maintained in its integrity.

us, little reliance can be placed. The liberty to remove cattle for particular purposes is sure to "We have stated frankly the difficulties and be extended and abused for other purposes. A sacrifices for which the country must be pre- man has only to profess an intention in accordpared, should this proposition be carried into ance with the law, in order, by a little dexterieffect. Of these difficulties the one which will ty, to obtain under such a system the utmost probably be felt most strongly relates to the facility for violating the law. It will be a supply of food to the great towns. Fears have long time before the rules are understood, and been expressed that to close the metropolitan the period in which they are violated through market, for instance, against the influx of cattle ignorance will be succeeded by the period in from the country, would create a famine. We which they are evaded by design. England is have already seen that the attempt to close the probably the worst country in the world for markets of London and Westminster during the the working of a system of certificates, permits, plague which raged here in the reign of George licenses, and passports; and the temptation to II. was given up on account of the clamour violate the rules will be very great, for the which it created; and it may be argued that thought that naturally occurs to every one the same thing would happen now. Circum- whose herd is attacked, is to conceal the existstances, however, have widely changed. In the ence of the disease until he has got rid of those days of George II., meat could only be trans- animals which do not show symptoms of its ported to London alive; even the roads along presence. To the objection, true as far as it which the cattle travelled were what we should goes, that the embarrassment thus thrown in the now think few and bad; there was little or no way of trade will probably tend to raise the importation from abroad, and some difficulty price of meat, it may be answered, first, that must have been often found in supplying the such a rise in the price of meat will afford, at wants of the metropolis by the ordinary means the expense of the community, the means of of communication. Now, every place where reimbursing the trade for the sacrifices it has fat cattle are fed in large numbers is approached made for the common benefit; and, secondly, by railways, which can transport dead as well that the immense destruction of cattle which as live meat; and it seems no unreasonable de- such a measure alone is calculated to prevent is mand to require that, for the sake of averting a likely to raise the price of meat to a higher calamity of almost incalculable magnitude, Lon- point, and for a longer time, than a regulation don should be content to be supplied with dead which really does little more than change the meat from the provinces, instead of constituting place of slaughter from large towns to grazing herself the hotbed of infection by receiving districts. In the period from 1745 to 1757, altwice a week great throngs of living cattle. This most every measure, short of the one which we change is indeed in itself economical and ad- are considering, was tried in vain. The disease vantageous, and appears to be gradually taking at first advanced slowly, but it lasted twelve place as a natural consequence of the extension years, and then died out apparently from want of the railway system. There is obviously an of animals susceptible of its influence, although immense waste of labour in bringing the live the difficulty of communication from one part animal to London, in order that certain portions of England to another offered at that time the of its carcass may be consumed as human food; fairest chance for the success of palliative meadead meat is more easily carried than the living sures. England has now to contend with the creature, and it seems quite as reasonable to plague under disadvantages never experienced carry the butcher to the ox as to bring the ox by any other country. The density of her to the butcher. We are informed that, from population, the large quantity of her horned Aberdeen alone, which is distant from London stock, and, above all, the enormous facility of (by cattle-train) some thirty-six hours, upwards communication by railroad, make her peculiarly of 1000 carcasses are sent up weekly during liable to the ravages of a contagious disorder, eight months of the year, and 300 or 400 during and render the prospect of eradicating it within the remaining four months, and special cattle- any reasonable time, either by slaughter or by trains leave Aberdeen on this errand five days curative and disinfecting measures, almost hopein the week. Nor is it to be forgotten that less. For these reasons we feel ourselves comLondon is at present fed in a great measure pelied to recommend to Your Majesty that such with foreign cattle. From the 16th of Septem-measures shall be taken as may be requisite to ber to the 18th of October last, both inclusive, the number of English beasts in the market was but 14,645 to 20,185 foreign. It must further be observed-and this is the most important point-that a general prohibition is capable of being thoroughly enforced. The mere presence of a beast on any highway will be sufficient to prove the infraction of the rule. Any plan which, while laying down the general prohibition, admits exceptions in favour of cattle removed to particular places or for particular purposes, must rest upon the ascertainment of facts more or less complicated, to be proved by certificates from local authorities,

invest, with as little delay as possible, some high officer of Your Majesty's Government with the power of suspending for a limited time the movement of cattle from one place in Great Britain to another, for extending or shortening such period, and for renewing the prohibi ion as often as circumstances may render necessary.”

before us, and we should be at once in a The case is excellently and tersely placed position to deal with it, were it not necessary to describe the alternative propositions of the

minority of the Commission. This minority | a country must be of brief continuance if they has the support of Earl Spencer, the chair- are to be strictly enforced; but they must be man of the Commission, who is said to have large and sweeping if they are to be brief. conducted its inquiries with much skill and Such are the restraints urged by the majority judgment. The dissentients admit that the of the Commissioners, and we proceed to retemporary stoppage of ali movement in cattle fer to them. would be more effectual in extirpating the disease than any measure which could be proposed, but they do not believe it to be practicable, and contend that it would involve an interference with the course of trade at variance with our national habits, and would involve difficulties and dangers of the most formidable kind. They therefore support the alternative measures of the report by which fat cattle markets are alone to be permitted. Cattle, however, are only to go to such markets from healthy districts, and therefore they must have passes, or clean bills of health, before markets or railways will be permitted to receive them. Unhealthy districts are to be put under ban by notice in the Gazette, and all egress of cattle from them is to be strictly prohibited.

The total stoppage of movement of cattle is a simple idea, one readily understood, and only capable of evasion by palpable contumacy, but it must be accompanied by many difficulties and inconveniences which the Commissioners have foreseen, and by many more which cannot be foreseen. Is the sacrifice which the country is called upon to make not greater than the evil which is to be averted by it? An answer to this question depends upon the impression of the magnitude of the danger with which we are threatened. Those who point to the small number of animals which have hitherto perished, as a proof that the plague has terrified us be yond measure, will scout at the recommendation of the Commission, and consider it the presumptuous scheme of theoretical men, unWe have now the two main recommenda- acquainted with the realities and necessities tions of the report before us. The report of of the world in which they live. Farmers, the minority relies wholly on the measures cattle-dealers, butchers, jobbers, drivers, and pursued from 1745 to 1757, and which were even the market committees of our corpora then found signally inoperative. Referring tions, will aid them in the cry against this to that period, Youatt tells us that "the re- despotic interference with business and strictions with regard to the sale or removal traffic. This race of men have shown singuof cattle, and communication between differ- lar incredulity as to the reality of the plague, ent districts, were so frequently evaded, that till it actually reached their own localities, it was either impossible or impolitic to exact and even then consoled themselves with the the penalties." Certainly we are in no more belief that it was a mere summer attack, favourable position now to enforce such which would leave the country as soon as the measures. If they were found inoperative at cold weather came. But the cold weather a time when transit was comparatively diffi- has come, and the plague increases, for this cult, how are they to be carried out now in a is one of its peculiarities, that it advances country intersected everywhere with high- with equal strides, sometimes even at a ways and railroads, and coasted by steamers? greater rate, in cold as in warm weather. The very system of passes is so obnoxious to We, on the other hand, who consider that the feelings of our population, that it could the distemper has not yet got headway, and not be sufficiently explained within the next has not yet gathered itself up for its raid three months so as to make it understood, or, through the country, welcome any measure if understood, adopted, with the determina- which proposes to deal radically with the tion of local authorities that the passes should murrain, before its proportions become unnot be evaded. Such measures must dege- manageable. The object of the Commission nerate, as they did in the years from 1750 to is the same as that of a fire-brigade when 1757, into petty wars between counties, one brought on the scene of an extensive concounty proscribing another because it is in-flagration. They know how hopeless it is to fected. The meeting in Forfarshire, presided over by Lord Dalhousie in October, shows that this disposition to exclude stock from other counties is growing. Argyleshire has already got a prohibition against importation, and Forfarshire was on the verge of trying to obtain similar restrictions, while Elgin has petitioned for them. Such local efforts will be both irritating and useless unless they are part of a general and well-conceived plan. Restraints on the usual business and traffic of

extinguish the flames till the combustibles on fire are consumed, so they at once proceed to cut off all communication from surrounding parts, leaving the fire to burn itself out without extending the area of its mischief. Three months of stoppage of movement of cattle would do this effectually in the case of the plague. But these will be three months of suffering to some, of great inconvenience to many, and of high price of meat to all. Surely this would be more tolerable than an