DISEASED CATTLE AND MEAT.

Colonist, Volume VII, Issue 661, 26 February 1864, Page 3

DISEASED CATTLE AND MEAT.

At a time like the present, when a fatal cattle disease is committing serious ravages among the herds of the Australasian colonies, the following article from the Lancet "will prove interesting:—

In the 37th section of his " Eeligio Medici," Sir Thomas Browne has these significant words, " All flesh is grass is not only metaphorically, but literally true; for all those creatures we behold are but the herbs of the field digested into flesh in them, or more remotely carnified in ourselves. . All this mass.of flesh which we behold came in at our months; this frame we look upon hath been upon our trenchers." The truth here involved is so very patent that we are apt to overlook it. If we pondered a little more upon it wa should not be so callous about the quality of the objects we place upon our platters. The nature of the " raw material" is surely well worth consideration befose we put it into the human crucible that it may undergo its higher metamorphosis. Tha stale of affairs so pertinently insisted upon by Mr. Gamgee, and practically illustrated by almost daily convictions at our police-courts, tells a pretty tale of insouciance as respects both our stomachs and our pockets. Englishmen are generally credited by continental nations with caring rather much for both, but in this matter of diseased stock and unwholesome meat we appear to flatly contradict our neighbors. If people will continue to believe that the flesh of cattle sick unto death is not so bad after all, and, with but the inducements of cheapness and the " flavoring" of sausages, continue to eat ifc, why, they must do so. Neither Mr. Gamgee nor ourselves can help it. ... Whilst the soil and climate of Ireland are allowed to be the most favorable in the three kingdoms for the rearing of healthy stock, there ia yet a' constantly higher mortality there amongst cattle, sheep, and pigs than either in England or in Scotland. Statistics continue to prove, it is said, irrefutably, that Ireland is not yet prospering. And it may well be asked,*" How is it possible, in the face of such losses, that an essentially stockproducing country should thrive?" Nob only is there the loss of the animals themselves—so much money at the bottom of the sea—but there is the loss of their manure for the fields on which they pasture. These fields must, then, have money directly laid out upon them. There is not much of this to spare in Ireland. We can scarcely wonder at hearing of " enormous losses," " uugrazed lands," and '• Irish distress." But what is to be done ? "We have a beam in our eye, and must not be too hard on Ireland. If all be true, we are very much to blame in the matter; for it is said that the English calves carried over the Irish Channel 'take with them the diseases they have caught here from foreign cattle, and further infect the Irish stock, already half devastated. Ihis is too bad certainly," and somebody feels it to be so, we imagine," or they would not insist upon feeding us with the measly pi<r 3 whose carcases they bring back to England in exchange, we presume as a sort of r^paratjon. It is well to say, " Surely the subject should be inquired into and unremittingly worked out;" but what we desire to know is, what tho remedy exactly consists in, and 5? W *£ Bet al>out bl' in #ing ifc into action ? Mr Garagee writes (the Times, October 2ith) :—

It the difficulties in the way of prevention of diseaso were insuperable, and if attention to the suijcct necessitated enormous expenditure, there might be some excuse for the al>sence. of nil effort' in that direction; but as the immediate return for any trouble or expenditure would he very large and ever-increasing, it is tmly surprising that sune steps are not taken by Government with a view somewhat to check th« ravages by cattle, sheep, and swine plagues of home am! of foreign origin in a country so poor as Ireland. If attention be paid to (ho health of stock, Mr. Donelly's returns will soon change their aspect. If, on the other hand, we continue as for the past, Ireland's decline can only be accelerated,"

As a mere commercial speculation, then it would appear to be one of the most promia.

ing ventures of the day to check the disease which is ravaging, our cattle. Why will no one set about it ? Is it that they do hot know how? Will Mr. Q-amgee tell us the secret? Here are thousands of animals annually dying from, it is said, preventable causes.; we are fed partly upon their disgusting carcases ; the land is deprived of their manure; and, as a general result, the pecuniary loss to the nation is extremely large. It can all be prevented • yet nobody prevents it. •