QUESTION. OBSERVATIONS. (Hansard, 18 April 1887)

THE EARL OF MILLTOWN
, in rising to ask the Government, Why the Commissioner of Police has withdrawn the order which was in force last year, requiring dogs in the streets of the Metropolis to be either led or muzzled; and whether it is considered that there is less danger of hydrophobia now than when the order was in force; and, if so, 1102 why? said, That, according to the opinion of an eminent veterinary authority, hydrophobia would be exterminated if all dogs were kept for a sufficiently long time under proper control. In connection with the subject, he saw that a recent Metropolitan Police Return shewed that 1,245 stray dogs were taken to the Dogs' Home in the month of March, and that two dogs were destroyed which were undoubtedly suffering from rabies. The importance of the Regulations which had been relaxed was shown by the fact that last month there were no less than 65 persons bitten by dogs in London. The noble Earl concluded by asking the Question of which he had given notice.

§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Viscount CRANBROOK)
, in reply, said, he did not in the least underrate the disease to which the noble Earl had referred, as it was one of the greatest scourges which could afflict human beings or animals; but the course taken in this matter was this— The Metropolitan powers—which were still retained by the police with regard to ferocious and dangerous dogs, with a view to the extinction of rabies—had been transferred to the Privy Council, which had control over the question of contagious diseases in animals. Under that body, the Local Authorities throughout the whole of the country had been communicated with, and requested to make inquiries as to this disease, and were authorized to make stringent rules, if the police considered them necessary, for dealing with it; and in a great number of districts in the country very stringent rules had been laid down. He was asked if the Government had reason to think that the danger of hydrophobia was less now. They had very good reason for believing it to be so, as the Returns this year shewed that there had only been two cases of rabies—one on January 29, and the other on February 5. This was a very different state of things to that which was existing last year. The Metropolitan Board of Works was now the Local Authority, and it had full power to make such regulations as might be required to restrict the freedom of dogs in the streets, with a view to lessening the danger to which the noble Earl referred.

THE EARL OF MILLTOWN
said, that the Commissioner of Police still retained the power, under Statute, to order that 1103 dogs should, be muzzled in the Metropolitan area. If there should be one single case of death from hydrophobia in London, now that the order to which his Question referred had been withdrawn, a very serious responsibility indeed would rest upon the Commissioners of Police.