The Southland Times. SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 1864.

Southland Times, Volume I, Issue 38, 27 August 1864, Page 2

The Southland Times. SATURDAY, AUGUST 27, 1864.

Although we have not very recently heard that pleuro-pneumonia is still continuing to spread rapidly in the Province, we are not inclined to allow the attention of the public to this matter to die away. In the Province of Otago the evil has assumed a gigantic magnitude : and, according to the report of Mr. Looie, the Chief Sheep Inspector, the precautions which the Government have taken, are utterly useless in checking its course. Mr. Louie's report is founded on -what he saw during a tour which he took a short time since at the instance of the Otago Government. He states that he was unable to devote the time necessary to make a very close examination, but he believes that if he had done so he would have been able to report a much greater extent of disease in the country he passed through. The principal point dwelt on by Mr. Logic is the impossibility of keeping the infected cattle from rambling away, and joining healthy herds, and thereby spreading the disease far and wide. " To show " how they stray, I may mention " that a few from the herd of Messrs. " Driver and Maclean, at the Deep " Stream, found their way to Messrs. " Mrjusox's, Maniototo, and fifteen or " sixteen from Mr. M'Glashax's diseased " lot, have joined Messrs. Campbell and " Lowe's, at the Dunstan, a distance of " eighty miles." He strongly recommends the Government to throw open ihe whole country, and establish pounds in each distrct, where stragglers might be impounded, "so that their owner " might have an opportunity of getting " them, and it would help to prevent the " disease from spreading so rapidly " through the Province." "We look on the regulations at present in force in the Province of Southland as of very litile use. No doubt those who drew them up considered that they were the best that could be devised, but it is notorious they have failed in affecting the object for which they were framed; and for the same reason that the declaring certain districts in Otago diseased has failed, viz., because of the impossibility of preventing the cattle from straying, | Owing, we suppose, to the financial state "of the Province, and also the unpleasant hitch existing between His Honor the Superintendent and the Provincial Council, nothing was done during the last session. Perhaps this was also attributable to the fact that no further information on the subject had been afforded, and that the members had in vain ransacked their brains for a remedy for what every one was willing to admit was inflicting great injury on the prospects of the Province. Whatever may be done in the future to prevent the spread of pleuro-pneumonia, or to banish it altogether from amongst our herds, it is certain that there is one duty which has not been so rigorously performed by the authorities as its urgency would seem to require. AYe allude to preventing the sale of diseased meat. It has been shown on good authority that much of the sickness prevalent in Dunedin is owing to the consumption of unwholesome animal food. The people, and the Government of Otago see clearly the necessity of using strong measures for keeping such meat out of the market. The papers teem with letters and articles on the subject, aid the Police Court and reports of the

Inspector furnish instances enough to prove that, whether through ignorance, carelessness, or wilfulness, the butchers are constantly 'supplying their customers with food scarcely safe to throw to a dbg. "We do not «ray:that the more respectable members of the trade would knowingly be parties to such disreputable proceedings ; but all are liable to mistakes, which in this case are likely to be followed by very serious consequences. The meat hitherto sold in Southland has apparently been of average character, and we are not aware of any case that has been proved, of a butcher selling beef which he knew to be diseased. But one very suspicious case has come under our notice, and without wishing to speak unjustly of these caterers for our daily wants, we have no reason to suppose that either their morality or their acuteness in detecting pleuro-pneumonia is of a higher order than the morality or acutenesa of the butchers of Dunedin. Setting aside the fact that there may be men who, for the sake of a little paltry gain would be quite willing to run the risk of poisoning a few of their fellow- creatures, we have still the disagreeable knowledge that pleuropneumonia exists very extensively in the Province; that it has been shown to be impossible to Jceep the infected cattle from straying into healthy _ herds ; that from these herds we are getting our daily supplies: and finally, that pleuro-pneu-monia is by no means an easy disease to detect in its early stages, and that it requires the services of an expert to do so with any certainty. There _ are no adequate* means for preventing the sale of diseased meat in Invercargill, and from what we have said above, it seems to us pretty certain that such sales do take place. If the legislation on this point is defective, there is no reason why we should sit down quietly under the infliction. "We may not have it in our power to do all that is wanted, but the evil can be ameliorated to a great extent if the provisions of the Acts bearing on the subject are rigorously put in force, until such time as the Provincial Council shall be able to take the matter in band. In an article on pleuro-pneumonia which appeared in this journal about two months ago, we recommended that the butchers of Invercargill should be cornpolled to slaughter in one public yard, to be declared by the Q-ovornment. This the 4th clause of the Slaugter-house Ordinance provides for. Power is therein given to the Governor to appoint, by proclamation, certain places in towns for the slaughtering of cattle, and a penalty for disregarding such proclamation is attached. Clause 19 of the same Act runs as follows :— " It shall be lawful " for the Bench of Magistrates of any " such district, if they shall see occasion " so to do, to prescribe the hours within " which any such cattle shall be slaugh- " tered, and to enforce any regulations so " to be made in that behalf, by a penalty " not exceeding £5." Having got so far, let us turn to the " Police Ordinance," and in the 10th section of the 3rd clause we find that every person " who shall sell " or expose for sale, or have in his pos- " session with intent to sell, any unwhole- " some meat, or who shall have in " his possession for the purpose of " slaughtering for sale as meat any " diseased animal unfit for human food," is liable to a penalty not less than ten shillings, nor exceeding five pounds. There is already, we' understand, some supervision of the slaughter houses for the purpose of stopping the sale of bad meat, but it is necessarily very imperfect, from the fact that the animals are slaughtered at different yards, and at any hour which may suit the convenience of the owner. Both these points should be altered. Some inconvienence may be occasioned to the butchers by putting in force the clauses to which we have alluded, but we have to set against that a great good done tothe public, which at present can never be certain, when sitting down to enjoy its matutinal beef-steak, that it is not about to indulge in a dose of deadly poison. These clauses do not effect all that is necessary, but the slaughtering in one yard at certain hours, and the presence of a competent inspector, would do much to mitigate the evil, and future legislation must accomplish the rest. A bill must be introduced providing for the thorough inspection of every beast slaughtered, before it is allowed to be exposed for sale ; and the penalty for impeding an inspector in the execution of bis duty by removing any portion of the body before it has been examined, must be heavy. The punishment for exj>osing unwholesome meat for sale should be imprisonment with hard labor. For ourselves we must confess that after all we have heard and read of the horrible consequences which sometimes arise from the consumption of bad meat, not always bad to the eye or palate, we entertain a wholesome horror of beef under the present system of slaughtering. These consequences are not always sudden. The effects of eating bad meat may not develope themselves very quickly, but they are none the less certain. To an adult, they are loss of health and strength ; to a child, they are death.