Rensselaer Republican, Volume 19, Number 13, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 December 1886 — CATTLE PLAGUE IS RAGING. [ARTICLE]

CATTLE PLAGUE IS RAGING.

Thousands of Cases Discovered by the Expert Veterinarians. [Chicago dispatch.] The work of appraising cattle at the Phoenix Distillery was completed yesterday. Two hundred and twenty-nine animals were appraised at an average valuation of $26. The commission will visit Schufeldt’s establishmerit to-day, and begin upon the-900 head confined there. It now seems probable that all of next week will be required to finish the work at the distilleries, and that no slaughtering will be done for some time yet. It is becoming daily more apparent that the disease is much more widespread than was at first supposed. The expert veterinarians who are at work among the milchcows stabled throughout the city are constantly discovering cases in the most un-looked-for places, and between 2,000 and 3,000 suspected cases are kuo.'. n to exist in this county. A prominent member of the commission said last night that, in his opinion, the disease was now so firmly rooted here that it could not be eradicated. “The State has refused to pay for diseased animals,” said he, “and as a consequence poor people who happen to possess one or two edws will conceal the fact of the existence of the disease from the authorities until whole herds become affected. If the State would agree to pay for the diseased cattle, as it should do, and taka hold of the matter in earnest, we might yet stamp out the disease. But as matters now look our State is doomed to see its cattle interests ruined.”