The exports of fresh beef for two years were less by 40,071,167 pounds, and by a value of $2,191,190.  The value of pork products decreased in the same time to the extent of $35,679,093.

    This shows a falling off of about $25,000,000 per annum for
    two years, as compared with the receipts for the two
    preceding years.

    CONTAGION TO BE AVERTED.

It should be known that the pleuro-pneumonia often mentioned as a scare or a myth by the thoughtless and optimist is a stern reality.  Its journeys and track of destruction among cattle have been as marked as that of small pox and cholera—­contagious diseases which have so tearfully decimated the human family.  Lung diseases of the modern type were known before the Christian era, and were considered by Columella and other Latin writers.  Australia resigned her great herds to flocks of sheep, as did South Africa, never yet recovered from the blow to her cattle industries.

England has been tardy in the publication of her losses by lung-fever, yet it is a fact which forbids secrecy that calamity has reached the enterprising breeders, and colossal fortunes have been swept away by the cattle-plague.  In our own country it has been no more the policy of secretive owners to publish facts than that of city authorities to proclaim the prevalence of small-pox in the town.  Still, startling facts have sprung from original sources of inquiry.  A town meeting is called in the State of Connecticut, terror-stricken owners in New Jersey, Maryland, and Pennsylvania meet for council.  Massachusetts had a Governor twenty years ago bold in telling truth, which led to searching investigations by experts and officers of the State.  With autocratic power they made a diagnosis of diseases, which led to the stamping out of the infection by law, and a truthful proclamation that the plague was stayed.

The sacrifice of 1,000 brutes at a cost to the Commonwealth of about $70,000 was a trivial sum compared to the perils that beset a State valuation of $7,000,000, for bovines, and the cattle of the Nation, numbering 40,000,000, and worth nearly $1,100,000,000.

The monarchies of the Old World have set us an example; even Denmark, Norway, and Sweden have pioneered for the world by sagacious acts and the stern enforcement of law in prevention.

    AN AMERICAN POLICY

worthy of us is not secrecy, but boldness—­sacrifice commensurate with exposure.  This will lead to the formulation of a bill by the Washington Convention, which Congress will enact in the interest of individuals, the State, and for the National protection.  If State-Rights theorists bring objections, the law may be so equitable to the States that its ratification may be asked on the ground of a just National policy and a right which inheres to the General Government under the Constitution in the