The Governor of Ohio, Columbus:

SIR: - The State Board of Live Stock Commissioners submit herewith its report for the year just closed.

From the fact that this Board has had no funds at its disposal since the adjournment of the last General Assembly, the Board has been able to do very little toward the execution of those duties and obligations which its members are under oath to perform.

In several instances, where contagious diseases were reported, veterinary surgeons have gone to see the sick animals after a full understanding that the Board could not pay them this year, or ever, unless an appropriation should again be made for this work by the General Assembly.

In most instances the necessity was hard upon us to reply to requests. for aid that it could not be given by reason of lack of funds.

For several years this Board employed an inspector at the Cincinnati stock yards whose business it was to watch the shipment of southern cattle during the closed season, and to see that the laws and regulations in this regard were obeyed. For two years this great entry port for Texas fever has been unguarded-no funds. From time to time two members of this Board, Dr. Shields, and Mr. Miller, have visited the stock yards at Cincinnati and Cleveland — at their personal expense to see whether the stock yards people were complying with the law.

The Board has met in regular monthly sessions, given personal attention to reported occurrences of contagious diseases, answered a rather voluminous correspondence, all at its own expense.

In one outbreak of Texas fever, which will be detailed later, the Emergency Board authorized the expenditure of public funds sufficient to meet the requirements of that case.

At every session of the General Assembly for several years back, bills have been introduced proposing to abolish this Board and transfer its functions to the State Board of Agriculture. The last session was no exception. Such a bill was introduced in the House of Representatives, and, when on its passage, was decisively defeated. This scheme having thus been beaten in the open, snake-in-the-grass tactics were resorted to, and the next move was to cripple this Board by depriving it of the funds

necessary to carry on its work. This was accomplish through the Finance Committee of the House of Representatives. This committee, a creature of the House, knowing the will of its crator to be not to abolish this Board, defeated its creator's will by switching the ordinary appropriation for this Board to another. This was done easily enough, for the Finance Committee reports the appropriation bills at a time so near adjournment that there is little time for study and discussion by the House, and a trick of this kind would be- and was easily overlooked. When the appropriation bills were in the Senate Finance Committee, the present secretary of this Board appeared before that committee. He was courteously received and listened to a marked contrast to the treatment accorded by the House Finance Committee. Upon presentation of the facts in the case the Senate Committee unanimously voted to amend the House bill and restore to this Board its usual allowance.

But between dark and daylight something happened; this amendment was not made, and for a year and a half there has been no inspection, quarantine, or other protection possible for the live stock interests of the state, except that spoken of above as being done at the personal expense of members of this Board. Neither the financial interests of stock growers, nor any considerations of public health as affected by disease among our domestic animals, deterred these tricksters from the commission of this crime: their end had been gained. This Board alone in this state has any authority in dealing with contagious and infectious diseases among animals, but has not had the means to exercise its functions.

The stock owners who have suffered loss from this state of affairs should be very grateful to the statesmen, their servants, by whom it was brought about.

When the appropriation for this Board, which was made at the 'egislative session of 1898, lapsed into the state treasury there were several bills for services rendered prior to that time which had not been presented or paid. Some provision should be made for them.

In view of the widespread prevalence of tuberculosis among the horned cattle, and its rapid increase in the dairy herds especially, a far larger appropriation than the state has ever made should be provided for a Board having authority under the law to regulate the movement and use of such diseased animals. Within these last two years glanders has been far more frequently reported than formerly. The appearance of true anthrax charbon, malignant pustule-in New York State, in eastern and western provinces of Canada and in some of our own more easterly northwestern states, all make it seem hardly less than criminal to continue the present state of things.

The losses to stock owners from these three diseases are very large, where no control can be had. In addition, all three are communicable

to mankind; all three are usually fatal in men as in animals, and no one of the three is a very desirable way of leaving this world.

The sudden appearance of anthrax in the north is truly alarming. This disease has long existed among sheep and cattle in the southern parishes of Louisiana, but so far as we know has not often been seen in the northern states.

In this great State of Ohio there is no restriction on the traffic in diseased animals of any kind. No cattle for breeding, dairy or grazing purposes can pass from Ohio into Pennsylvania, unless accompanied by a certificate, of recent date, setting forth the fact that the tuberculosis. test gave no reaction.

But all kinds of tuberculous cows can come from Pennsylvania into Ohio and they do come and the traffic must be profitable, but without regard to consequences. At the last session of the General Assembly a bill was introduced, copied in general after the Pennsylvania law. But the present financial gains of stock raisers outbalanced the future losses among their own or their purchasers' herds, and the consequences to the men and women engaged with the dairy herds were not considered for an instant. The political influence of a single live hustler in the traffic in diseased animals present or prospective — counts for more than the lives and health of any number of men and women or helpless babies who die of tuberculosis: these latter do not vote.

The beginning of the effort to rid this state of bovine tuberculosis cannot be made too soon. The job will be a large and an expensive one. It has cost the State of Massachusetts more than half a million dollars to get rid of this scourge; now, the cost of keeping it out is not large. The longer the way is open for the entry of tuberculous cattle into Ohio, the more it will cost to clear it out when that work is undertaken. And until it is undertaken it will remain true, to the disgrace of this state, that in Ohio the profits of traffic in and with diseased animals weigh more with the General Assembly than human life; it will be true that human life is of less value than property interests, and far less carefully guarded.

If this work is to be undertaken, it should be entrusted to a body whose record has been clean and free from suspicion of jobbery, and to which scientific skill and not political usefulness will determine the appointment of its agents. Fifty thousand dollars would be a very meagre appropriation upon which to begin such a work, especially in view of the fact that for several years Massachusetts spent three hundred thousand dollars annually.

Koch's recent assertion that bovine and human tuberculosis are not intercommunicable does not carry conviction to those of us who remember the skyrocket-and-stick exploitation of his tuberculin as a cure for tuberculosis. Leaving out of consideration the human health and life. side of the problem, the loss from this disease in money value of cattle is very large in this state and is constantly increasing.