BILL PRESENTED. FIRST READING. (Hansard, 29 April 1887)

§ LORD MOUNT-TEMPLE
said, he was induced to call attention to the regulations for the prevention of rabies and hydrophobia, because they occasioned great annoyance to people of all classes, and particularly to the poor, who appreciated the companionship of their four-footed friends more vividly than the upper classes, who had more human friends in the country. These regulations were without any effective adequate results. The opposition of public opinion in London had emancipated the dogs from the gagging of their jaws, which was now inflicted in many districts of the country. In one county one dog suspected of rabies ran about biting men, boys, and sheep, and was killed. The dog did not injure the men or the boys, but called forth an order in Council to gag every other dog in the county for a long, indefinite period. He drew away the police from their important duties to watch fox unmuzzled dogs in the roads, and to summon innocent persons to be punished because their dogs jumped over a garden fence into a highway to bark at the police. Muzzling was a barbarous 323 blunder, and a failure. The rabid dogs could not be muzzled, for their impulse was to seek solitude or darkness in the early stages of the disorder, and the few that were muzzled had such violent strength that they tore off the muzzles with their paws. Nature had provided a preliminary period of incubation between the early stages and the complete outburst of the disorder, during which the dog ought to be kept in confinement, and be killed if the rabies became manifest. So the only dogs that were muzzled were the innocent and healthy dogs. He considered the present method of muzzling both injurious to the dogs and inefficient for the purpose of preventing the spread of the disease. The principle upon which he had proceeded in framing Ms Bill was to place a responsibility upon the owner of the dog, who should have presented to him such a statement of the premonitory symptoms of rabies as were set forth in one of the Orders issued by the Agricultural Department of the Council. In addition to the present register of persons who had paid the dog-tax and obtained a licence, there ought to be a register of the dogs themselves as well as of the owners. When the tax was paid he proposed that there should be given to the owner of the dog a badge bearing a number, which should be placed on the collar of the animal. This number being registered could always be seen, and if a dog was found wandering about in the streets or roads without a collar, it would be primâ facie evidence that the animal was ownerless, when it might be taken up by the police. The Bill did not propose to interfere with any of the existing police regulations, but placed it within the power of the authorities to adopt the method of registration he had described and placing the responsibility upon the dog owner as an alternative for the muzzle. This would obviate the great amount of cruelty which was inflicted by the animals having to wear muzzles which did not fit them. A small amount of expense would be thrown upon the costs of the Police, but that would be more than covered by the gain to the Exchequer of the great increase of the Dog Tax, when an obligation had been enforced upon every owner of a dog to obtain a license. It was probable that the tax was not actually received at; present from more than half the persons who kept dogs. This Bill was restricted 324 to the Metropolis, where the most efficient organization of police was found, but it might be afterwards extended all over England.

§ THE LORD PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL (Viscount CRANBROOK)
said, he was very willing that every feasible moans whereby a dangerous disease might become less prevalent, if not stamped out altogether, should be adopted, but he was not prepared to admit that the muzzle had been so painful and ineffective as the noble Lord believed. In 1885 rabies rose to so great a height in the Metropolis that one veterinary surgeon alone had no less than 77cases before him; besides which 28 people died in and close to London from hydrophobia. Now, after the police regulations with regard to the muzzling of dogs, or leading them by a string, were put in force, the number of cases in the Metropolis fell to two, and that, he submitted, was a strong indication that the police rules had done a great deal to mitigate the disease. Rabies being a disease only communicated by saliva, it was a remarkable fact that in certain parts of the country where the people kept fighting dogs the disease was constantly prevalent. Looking abroad he found that in Berlin rabies and hydrophobia formerly prevailed to a very great extent, and for nine years the whole of the dogs in the City were put in muzzles, and so rigidly was the law carried into effect that during the whole of that period not one human being was attacked by hydrophobia. Nor did he believe himself that the muzzle was injurious to the dog. At the present moment there was the remarkable case of the deer in Richmond Park, among which rabies had broken out. That outbreak must be due to some afflicted dog having bitten one or more deer, these in turn communicating the malady by the saliva from one to another, because they might be seen tearing their own flesh, the others then coming and licking the place where the flesh had been torn away, the result being that a number of the deer had had to be put to death, and the others put under control lest the disease should spread. He would not seek 325 to interfere with the noble Lord laying his Bill on the Table, because he would be glad to have advantage taken of every method by which this painful disease might be prevented. The whole subject was one in which the more they could come to accurate conclusions the better; but he was sure, from the reports made to him, that the best authorities were strongly of opinion that the disease might be stamped out altogether by a system of muzzling being universally adopted and carried out for a sufficient length of time.

THE EARL OF KIMBERLEY
said, that he was not an enemy of dogs, but he was a greater friend of men, and he agreed with the noble Viscount that there was no real objection to the use of the muzzle. He could not understand why people allowed their fondness for their dogs to go so far that, because of the suffering which they said was inflicted on dogs by muzzling, they were prepared to run the frightful risk of spreading the disease or, at least, of preventing its mitigation. He was thoroughly convinced from what he had heard that if proper precautions were taken for a sufficient time we should practically get rid of the disease. Even taking the lowest ground, the consequence of such steps would be that they would relieve the whole dog race from a frightful torture. He hoped that both in the Metropolis and throughout the country the authorities would not be deterred by the outcry of those who did not like to see their pet dogs in what they considered a painful position from carrying out such regulations.