§ COLONEL KINGSCOTEasked the Vice President of the Council, Whether it is 175 the case that thirty-three fat cattle from Canada landed at Liverpool were brought by rail to Derby on the 9th June, and removed to a field within the borough; whether on the 10th instant the sanitary inspector of the borough and the veterinary inspector under the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act certified to three cattle of the lot being infected with foot and mouth disease, which three were slaughtered by their orders; whether thirteen of the remainder were subsequently slaughtered for food with the sanction of the local authority; whether it is true that on the 11th instant the same authority permitted the remaining seventeen head of cattle to be removed by rail to Nottingham; whether this is not contrary to the provisions of the Contagious Diseases (Animals) Act; whether inquiry will be made as to the state of the cattle when landed at Liverpool; and, whether they were passed by the Government inspector and allowed by him to be removed to Derby?
§ LORD GEORGE HAMILTONThe outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease at Derby was reported to us on June 12 as having occurred among American cattle, and an inquiry was immediately instituted. It appears that cattle from Canada were landed from the steamship Dominion at Liverpool on June 6. They were examined twice by the Inspector of the Privy Council on that day, and by the Inspector of the Local Authority on June 8 and 9, and found free from disease. Fourteen of these animals were purchased by a salesman in Liverpool and sent to Derby, where three were found by the Inspector of the Local Authority to be affected with foot-and-mouth disease on June 10. These animals were slaughtered, together with 24 others said to be of the same lot. If the animals were affected with foot-and-mouth disease, it must have been contracted between June 6 (the day of landing) and June 10; or if they had been infected in Canada, the disease would have been so far advanced during the voyage that it could not have escaped detection on landing. I am informed that certain animals of the same cargo were sent from Liverpool to Nottingham and also to London; but from the reports of the Inspectors it does not appear that any of them were affected by disease.