The Waikato Times. THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1879.

Waikato Times, Volume XIII, Issue 1039, 20 February 1879, Page 2

The Waikato Times.

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 1879.

Equal and exact justioe to all men, Of whatever state or persuasion, religious or political. * * * * * * Here shall the Press the People's right maintain, Unawed by uifloenco and snbribed by gain.

Every settler cannot be expected to provide himself with a copy of the Sheep Act, although those keeping a uunibei 1 of sheep, would, perhaps act wisely if they did so. Very many in this district, we are informed, are totally unacquainted with the provisions of the Act passed in ttie session of 1878, and as ignorance of those provisions may entail both trouble and expense, we very willingly travel over again the sumo ground of information which we afforded to our readers some months ago, when the Act was about to come into force. To print the Bill in exfcenso would occupy the whole of our columns. We shall therefore content ourselves with drawing attention to the more important and stringent portions of the measure, the nature of which it is desirable should be known by all owners of sheep. According to Clause 15 of the A.cb, it shall be kwiul for any^ Inspector of Sheep, when he considers it necessary to decide satisfactorily on the condition of any sheep, to call on their owner to make a declaration according- to Schedule B of the Acr, and Clause IS fixea the penalty for neglect or refusal to mak© §ucb declaration or for making * false one. The declaration to ba made is in the following form !-* "I, —, of —, da hereby solemnly declare- that I havo made, to the best of my belief, a muster of all the sheep in ray charge, and that my sheep, marked —, being — in number, now being at —, have not within three monihs been mixed with any infected sheep, nor depastured on any run, nor placed in any yard, enclosure, carriage or truck in which there were any iufected she*»p and 1 make this solemn declaration conscientiously believing the same to be tru9. i The Act provides for the imposition of a rate upon all sheep, which will be levied annually to the extent of two shillings for eveiy hundred shQ3p or ft'ucticnnl part of a hundred sheep or lambs owned by any pprson on bha last day of May in each yetiil. This rate will be payable on the Ist day of September in each year, aud unless then paid may be sued for and recovered in any Court of competent jurisdiction. In Qr<tei:

to ascertain, exactly what sheep a sattler pos.seses, clause 21 of the Act provides that every owner of sheep shcill, between the fust and tbiertieth day of June in every year, deliver or cause to be delivered to the Chief Inspector a written return of the ft amber of sheep and lambs of each sex exeeeding three months old owned by him on the thirty-first day of May preceding-, specifying in such returns the ear-mavks and brands upon such sheep. Every person re. fusing or neglecting" to deliver or cause to be delivered suah return as aforesaid shall be liable to a peualty not exceeding twenty pounds. The Chief Inspector shall, in the month oi July in every year, transmit to the Colonial Treasurer a statement, compiled from the vetur&s furnished in pursuance of this section, of the whole nnraber of sheep and lambs within his district. A schedale is appended to the Act showing the form in which such return must be i made. The provisions for the regulation of iufccted sheep do not materially differ from those of preceding Acts, until we come to section 33, which gives the Inspector tho power of cleaning, at tus owner's expense, sheep which the owner has failed to clean after reasonable notice. Power 19 g-iven in the Act to the Governor to declare, by notice in the ' Gazette ' which districts are clean and which infected districts, and clause 40, which has been gazetted for general information, provides a penalty of not less than JBIO, or moro than JglOO against any person who introduces by land, sheep from a clean district into any other district, clean or infected, or from oae infected district into another infected district, unless he shall hold a clean certificate for such sheep, and unless he shall have given to tho Inspector of the district into which they are to be introduced, at least seven days notice, stating in such notice the number of sheep, and tha point at which, aud the day on which ib is intended they shall cross the boundary oi the district. Section 57 will not apply very generally to this district ; still, we miy as well draw atteution to the fact, that any occupier of any run (a ran means any sheep station, or farm or other land) exceeding 500 acres in extent, and not substantially fenced, must give 24 hours notice to the occupiers of all the adjoining runs, of his [intention to do so, before yarding his sheep, for the purpose of dipping or dressing, cutting and tailing, or shearing, or removal from the run. Section 68 provides for the treatment of sheep infected with lice, and gives to the Inspector similar powers, as in the case of scab.