The Globe. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1876.

Globe, Volume VII, Issue 727, 18 October 1876, Page 2

The Globe. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 18, 1876.

The Diseased Sheep Bill, which has been read a second time in the House of Eepresentatives, on the motion of Mr. Eolleston, first saw daylight in the Upper House, where it caused considerable commotion. In the Representative Chamber, although the opponents of the measure were not ■very numerous, there was also some high talk against it. The Bill, which is very similar to the Ordinance in force in Canterbury, might be designated more plainly as a Scab Bill, i being one having for object the premention of that particular disease in

sheep. It contains some general provisions, which may or may not be brought into force in any district which might be proclaimed for that purpose. Under this new law, whenever scab should exist in any particular portion of Canterbury, that district would be proclaimed as infected, and be subjected to certain restrictions in order to confine the disease within its limits. Further, no sheep could be removed without being dipped, and when a scabby sheep was brought into a sale-yard, it would be destroyed. Provision is also made in the Bill for disinfecting sheep in sale-yards, and retaining them there until it was ascertained that they were thoroughly clean. In the case of scab existing on a run, the owner would be compelled to cease breeding sheep until he had got a clean certificate. But it is the high range of the penalties mentioned as following certain faults of omission or incapability to comply with the law, which arouse the indignation of some members. The penalty of £IOO for every month any diseased sheep, after a notice of six months, should remain in the owner’s possession, and of £lO a day for every ram not kept separate, was too much for some of the representatives of farming districts. It was urged that in many known cases no less a sum than £8650 per sheep a year might have to be paid. Then again, the owner of say twenty sheep would become as likely as one possessing a hundred thousand to the penalty of £IOO per month. Mr. Button took a very decided stand in opposing the Bill which, he said, was treating the possession of a scabby sheep as a crime. To him the measure appeared most inhuman, and would ruin innocent people. Mr. Vincent Pyke took an entirely gastronomic view of the case. He liked the Bill very much on culinary principles mainly. A New Zealand Judge had referred to the increase in crime through people eating fat mutton, what then would be the effect of eating scabby mutton ? He himself had suffered from eating fat mutton, and he dreaded the evil consequences of partaking of scabby meat. Mr. Fisher took the “ animal “ by the horns,” and sharply remarked that it was time strong measures be adopted to put down the curse of scab. For twenty years, he was aware, there had been one individual in Canterbury whose sheep had always been infected with scab, which were the curse of his neighbours, and who always managed to escape the penalties through legal technicalities. Ultimately, when the debate came to a conclusion, the second reading of the Bill was carried by a majority of 12, every Canterbury member voting for the Bill.