very contagious or infectious nature
of the disorder; _second_, inattention on the part of Government to the
importation and subsequent sale of diseased animals; and, _third_, the
recklessness of purchasers of dairy or feeding cattle.

This disease may be defined as an acute inflammation of the organs of
the chest, with the development of a peculiar and characteristic poison,
which is the active element of infection or contagion. It is a disease
peculiar to the cattle tribe, notwithstanding occasional assertions
regarding observations of the disease among horses, sheep, and other
animals,--which pretended observations have not been well attested.

The infectious, or contagious nature of this virulent malady is
incontestibly substantiated by an overwhelming amount of evidence, which
cannot be adduced at full length here, but which may be classified under
the following heads: _first_, the constant spreading of the disease from
countries in which it rages to others which, previously to the
importation of diseased animals, had been perfectly free from it. This
may be proved in the case of England, into which country it was carried
in 1842, by affected animals from Holland. Twelve months after, it
spread from England to Scotland, by means of some cattle sold at
All-Hallow Fair, and it was only twelve months afterward that cattle
imported as far north as Inverness took the disease there. Lately, a cow
taken from England to Australia was observed to be diseased upon
landing, and the evil results were limited to her owner's stock, who
gave the alarm, and ensured an effectual remedy against a wider spread.
Besides, the recent importation of pleuro-pneumonia into the United
States from Holland appears to have awakened our agricultural press
generally, and to have convinced them of the stubborn fact that our
cattle have been decimated by a fearfully infectious, through probably
preventable, plague. A letter from this country to an English author
says: "Its (pleuro-pneumonia's) contagious character seems to be settled
beyond a doubt, though some of the V.S. practitioners deny it, which is
almost as reasonable as it would be to deny any other well-authenticated
historic fact. Every case of the disease is traceable to one of two
sources; either to Mr. Chenery's stock in Belmont (near Boston,
Massachusetts), into which the disease was introduced by his importation
of four Dutch cows from Holland, which arrived here the 23d of last May