Mr. SHERMAN. The ComAg would like very much indeed to report some measure of a practical character to counteract if iossible the cattle plague now prevailing in Europe; but we did not see that congress had authority to pass an effective measure. n GreatBritain, after various orders in council and various efforts to stop the progress of the cattle plague, they have recent y passed a very stringent law, embodied in this letter, authorizing certain districts, supposed to be infected, to be 1st inspected, and then, when they are pronounced infected, authorizing the destruction of cattle in those districts. Under it the officers or inspectors may enter any mans field, barn, or close and seize and summarily destroy cattle affected by oreven subject to the plague. It contains provisions for the destruction of hides, offal, hay, straw, or other mate rial likely to convey the infection. It requires the active assistance of justices of the once, constables, and the whole machinery O local laws and levies a local tax under the name of acattle rate. It is manifest if such a law is needed to accomplish the purpose we must appeal to the State authorities. That such severe measures are needed to accomplish the wished for result is shown, not only by this act of Parliament, but by the actual execution of similar measures in France, where by imme diate destruction of cattle infected they have checked the disease. The destruction which this disease has occasioned is much more fearful than I had any idea of untilI read this communication and recent communications from England. As a simple illustration of the destructiveness of this disease, I Will state that of 203, 350 cattle attacked in a short period of time in certain districts in GreatBritain, 89, 487 were killed, 120, 834died, and only 28, 656 recovered. There is great danger it is manifest that it is impending that this disease may come to this country. It has pursued very much the same march in Europe that the c olera hasdone, and it probabl will come here, notwithstanding all the e orts that may be made by the Government and people of the U.S. to exclude it. It.is an important subject for the States to consider whether measures ought not immediately to be adopted, founded upon the experience of other countries, to prevent the spread of the cattle plague. The letters of our consuls in Europe have recently contained authentic statements of its proress. Mr. Dudle, our consul at Liverpool, under date of Februar 2, 1866, writes that the plague is not confine to England and Scotland, but revailsou the Continent in Bel gium, Hollaii, Prussia, some of the German States, and in arts of Russia. In the same etter he says: " Inclosure No. 2 contains the returns madeto the authorities at London of the cases reportedin the kingdom during the wcck endingon the 27th of Janucry, as taken from the papers of to dn and 2 or 3 articles showing the thin“! of the plague in certain localities it hasvisited. n one there isiilist of personswho havesufferedin the parish of hurth enburg. with the number of cattle they have ouch lost, and the number left. In Cheshire.the county just across the river from Liverpool, up to last Mon day. 160.41cattle had died of the diseaso, 700had been killed. 5.247were under treatment and 1,245 had recovered. Upwardof ii.000wereburied in this county during the wick. From an article taken from the Scotsman, ii. Paper published in Edinburgh, it would appearthat the plague has entirely ceasedin that city. either havmg exhausted itself or else been stamped out. But the article goeson to say, The vastnessof the loss, however. that may be incurred beforethe diseaserunsitse oursein any district where it once makes entry is indicated by the fact that phont 4/5ths of all the cowsin Edinbiirgh, when hediseasebroke out here .dicr.lor have beenkilled. A8 fearful as is the mortflity. I fear it is ratherunder than overstated and manyothercountiesand towns have beenand are suffering by this terrible plague equally if not worse than there. All kinds of rome dies have beentried, but up to the present time no specifichas been found: and if vaccination fails. no preventive has beendise overed. abatementbut a still furt ier increaseof the disease for the week ending on the last Saturday. (Seein olosuraNo. 2.) The footings show 11, 145new cases, being an increase of 1.704casesover the PIQVIOHI. By the official returnsvou will seethat there isiio ll ll 1 week. Thus far there have been reported to The authorities 11!).710 cases.of which but 14,162 have recorcred: the rest have eitherdied of the disease, been killed, or are still under treatment." Mr. Abbott, consul at Sheffield, writes under date of February 17, 1866: “The rinderpestcontinues to spread and the mor tality to increase, notwithstanding the precautions which have beentaken to prevent the diffusion of the disease. For a time it was supposed that ine culation was a safeguard, but even this remedy seems to “havefailed. When Professor Gamzee addremed the social congress, in Octoberlast.hewas much ridiculed. not only in the discussionsin the congress but in the columns of the newspaperpress, of stringent measures which he recommended. "The exemptionof Ireland. the partial exemption of one or 2 of the Scottish counties, seemsto be due in the former case to a prohibition. which is rigidly enforced, of the importation of cattle into the island; and in the latter case, to the systemof crushing out the diseaseby the slaughter of cattle wherever it appears." The rinderpest revailed on the Continent for some time befgre it crossed the English Channel. In 1862, 152,000 cattle died with it in Austria. It spread over all southeastern Europe with an average of more than 75%. It was carried to England by an importation of Russian bollocks and already 200.000 very valuable cattle have perished. We cannot estimate the destruction of such a disease ifby probable contingency it should be brought to ourshores by anyone of the numer Ous vessels daily arriving from the infected regions. We do not underrate the importance of the subject or the immiiience of the danger. But the question with us was. whether we had any power under our system of government to pass such a law as that which has proved to be somewhat effective in England, because the operation of that law, alt on h very severe, has.stayed to some extent the cattle plague, and has prevented it from a reading into regions where it might possib y, but for these very severe measures, have spread. We could not see that under our form of government Congress has the power to order the summary destruction of the private property of individuals in the States, nor use the vast number of local officers to make it effective. We thought, therefore, the only thing we could do was to report a resolution for the publication of a number of copies of this letter, so that the information which it contains may be Generally distributed for what it is worth among the people of the several States. I am only sorry that the Legislatures of the different States did not take some action upon it before most of them adjourned. At any rate we thought it was a subject demanding immediate attention, and that if we could not do anything by law more than we have done in prohibiting the importation of foreign cattle and hides, we might invoke the attention of our countrymen to an imending peril.