View report page

191
1 he police may take action themselves in suspicions cases by detention and arrest
without warrant of a magistrate, and an inspector under the Act may do anything
which the police may do, and in addition may enter any land or premises where he
thinks disease is, or has been, and may order any animal to be destroyed (Sec. 50).
The Metropolitan Board of Works, as the "local authority," has also very large
powers to prevent animals being moved when a diseased animal has been found, and
to kill suspected animals—a terrible power, which makes persons at once report their
own diseased animals in order to prevent the local authority intervening.
Thus a network of detective power has been organised during the last few years
to detect the disease, and a strong inducement has been created to force people to
report their own cases direct.
2. In addition to the police restrictions resulting from the above Act, any
person watering a glandered horse at a public trough is exposed to detection by the
owners and drivers of other horses using these troughs, whose interest it would clearly
be to give the offender into custody at once; and when it is known that more than
2,000 horses frequently drink at one trough in a single day, and that a large proportion
of these are driven by their owners—who are, in many cases, small tradesmen,
carriers, cabmen, and others, whose livelihood depends mainly upon the health of their
horses—it is manifest that a public trough is one of the last places to which a mail
would bring a glandered horse, as he would thereby almost infallibly expose himself
to certain detection and punishment.
3. The vast number of vans, waggons, and other vehicles bearing the names of
various railway companies, carriers, coal merchants, builders, and others, which may
be constantly seen crowding round the troughs, sufficiently prove that not only small
owners driving their own horses, as described in the preceding clause, but most of the
larger employers of horse-labour attach no importance to the allegation that they an
a source of danger, and this is further strengthened by the foot that in the published
list of the supporters of the Association the names of a very large number of horse
owners are to be found, many of whom in sending their contributions have said that