infant Britons crowd the Zoological Gardens to
see a few surviving specimens of the once-
common domestic cow.

A year ago we were flattering ourselves that
the rinderpest—- as the more infectious of cattle
diseases is called by the German doctors—- had
been stamped out of Great Britain, slaughtered
and buried; but, unfortunately, since last Christmas
a series of sudden outbreaks have shown
how difficult it is to neutralise the germs of this
subtle animal poison, and how impossible it is
to distinguish between healthy and tainted
importations of foreign cattle.

We are not about to re-write a history that
has already been written so many times in
journals devoted to veterinary science and
agriculture in English, in French, in German, in
Dutch, within the last two years. A few
figures in their proper place will show the
influence that the rinderpest has had on the
demand and supply part of the question.

The British, or rather the English, farmer has
a peculiar dislike to answering the questions of
an official. It is an ignorant prejudice, but it
has a foundation in traditionary reason. He
learned from his father, who learned it from his
grandfather, that in the days of that departed
respectable top-booted gentleman the government
made many inquiries, which were generally
followed by new taxes. The then exciseman
wished to know, not only how much beer was
brewed, but whether the farmer made any candles,
or soap, or bricks, or tanned any hides, and
whether he had paid duty on all the salt he used.
Then, too, the parson of those deeply regretted
times was curious as to the yield of every crop,
for he took his tithes in kind. Now farmers—-
who, as a rule, read little, and think the more of
the past—- still very often look on the parson as
their natural enemy, and on the government
as a malicious powerful fiend that served them
an ill turn nineteen years ago, that makes them
alone of all producers pay a tax on produce, and
is on the look-out to impose on them another.
Therefore they detest the name of statistics.
Besides, the English farmer is usually a tenant-
at-will, paying a low rent as a compensation for
a nominally precarious but practically permanent
tenure. Tenants-at-will labour under the delusion
that they can keep their position and their
profits or losses from the calculations of the
landlord's agent—- an ostrich-like delusion, but very
firmly fixed.

For all these reasons the farmer has hitherto
displayed a rooted aversion to anything like
agricultural statistics, and has successfully
resisted attempts, even endorsed by noblemen
considered "farmers' friends," to collect the
sort of agricultural information which is
furnished annually to the governments of the
United States and of the Australian colonies,
as well as to all the governments of
continental Europe.

Thus, when cattle were dying off at the rate
of some thousands a week, we positively did
not know, within a couple of millions, more or
less, how many cattle, sheep, and pigs there
were for the British meat-eater to fall back on
when the foreign trade in live cattle was entirely
stopped—- that foreign cattle trade which in
1864 brought us as many animals as have since
perished by the plague.

One indirect result of the cattle-plague was
to obtain official, although non-compulsory,
returns of the numbers of horned stock, sheep,
and pigs in Great Britain; Ireland having for
several years been the subject of an annual
statistical inquiry. The English tables are now
before us. They are not very satisfactory, for
the inquiries were conducted by the officers of
the inland revenue, and it is amongst the
traditions of that office to afford no more information
than the law requires.

Nothing, therefore, is given but the bare
figures of the return, which are thrown, as
though grudgingly, before the public, like the
pieces of a child's puzzle, to be put together as
we can. We are not told how many schedules
were distributed, how many defaulters there
were, or the number of owners, or the estimate of
stock unreturned. Neither are we informed of
what is equally important—- the particulars of
the breed of the stock, and whether they were
stores or fat stock. ln some counties lambs
were embodied with sheep; other returns in
the colder counties were made before the
lambs were yeaned; but intelligible notes for
the useful reading of the naked statistics do
not appear.

The number of cattle before the outbreak of
the rinderpest in Great Britain, excluding Ireland
and the islands, has been estimated at nearly five
millions. The return falls short of that number
by some six thousand; but this first voluntary
census may be wrong by that number either way.
The rinderpest, up to October, 1866, had by
the plague or the poleaxe destroyed over two
hundred thousand head, or something like five
per cent of the average stock—- a serious loss,
not easily to be replaced, especially under the
restrictions which have become indispensable
to guard the country against a second introduction
of the disease. The sheep of 1866 were
counted at over twenty-two millions, and the
pigs at two millions and a half. Sheep, although
not absolutely free from rinderpest, suffered to
the extent of less than eight thousand.

We have not included the live stock of
Ireland in these figures, because the sea-passage
that divides the green island from England
makes the importation just as difficult as from
Holland and North Germany, and more difficult
than from the Channel ports of France. But
Ireland, although still under-stocked for want of
capital and confidence amongst graziers, makes
a very respectable display in the statistical
tables. The cattle amount to three millions and
a half (we throughout quote round numbers);
the sheep are only a very little more numerous
than the cattle; and the pigs reach one million
three hundred thousand.

A writer in the Journal of the Royal
Agricultural Society has given us the area
in acres and the population of the principal