The Rinderpest.

Hastings Standard, Issue 26, 27 May 1896, Page 4

The Rinderpest.

News received in Sydney last week from South Africa reveals ,i terrible state of affairs through rinderpest. Thousands of cattle have died, including many of Khama'a cattle, hundreds of transport waggons at Palapye being as a consequence, unable to move. A prominent transport agent says that all the mules and donkeys in South Africa would not be able to convey the goods now lying at Mafeking to i'.ulawayo, and adds that the most that can be clone in the next 12 months will be to keep np the food supply. The disease is said to have, directly or indirectly, led to the present rising in Matabeleland. So far as can be ascertained, the frightful havoc occasioned among cattle by this epizootic disease led to the imposition of such severe regulations, necessitating in many cases the destruction of whole herds of cattle, that the natives rose in i--volt. It seems to be a characteristic (m the disease that, when once it gets a boll, nothing can check its course. CcT-e there is none, and the only hope lies in destroying the cattle among which it makes its appearance whether they be few or many. To attempt to core, says one authority, is to put, as it were, a firebrand through the midst, and fan the flames of contagion, which only die out after the animals themselves are no longer living to be subject to their influences.

The rinderpest is known by several other names. In England it is generally designated the cattle plague ; i'.i other countries it is termed the Step p.? se, the Russian fever, and the murrain of the Steppes, from tho eirv! .. -tance that it had its origin uuv-ag the cattle in the Russian jSfcppe country. There is little doubt, though it is not absolutely certain, that it is this Russian form of rinderpest which is now working such mischief in South Africa, as it has also begun to do, according to latest advices, in China. Chatting with a Sydney Daily Telegraph representative," Mr John" Pot tie, the well-known veterinary surgeon, expressed the opinion that" the subject was one of first importance to Australians, owing to the comparative death . rate from the disease in other coirutries, and the possibility of i>s reacjr.n-,' Australia, seeing that it* now made its appearance in C' uina Wltb iatal'results. He j t undoubted ly been broug j nl(> Chinese waters by i Ui vessels, and explained that J™' ay several foreign plagues in Aus.ralia have come through Chinese ports into Xortnern Queensland. " (Jiving to the new geographical distribution of Russian. -Japanese, and Chinese interests," said Mr Pottio, " there is an immense danger that this wretched rinderpest may be imported into these colonies through shipments from countries now in the hands of the Russians. The only safeguard would be concerted action on the part of the Australian Governments in framing stringent regulations.