“Previous to using the hold again for live freight, a current of air should be admitted through it to remove the chlorine.
“Many recommend the use of charcoal; but it is not alone more difficult of application, but it is much less of a disinfectant than a deodoriser. Charcoal will not, like the chlorides, decompose the matter of disease. If the damp matter of glanders, or sheep-pox, be well mixed with a strong solution of chloride of lime, it will seldom produce bad effects by inoculation; but if pure charcoal of any kind be used, the contagious principle of the diseased matter is not at all diminished in its virulence—quite the contrary; similar results are found if cow-pox be the matter used in the experiment.
“The cost of the readiest materials for the production of chlorine gas is very trifling. The salt is not ¼d. per pound; black oxide of manganese but 4d. per pound; and sulphuric acid 1½d. per pound. These are the retail prices. A couple of pounds weight of each would suffice for a large-sized hold.
“The attention of the customs, shipowners, and veterinary inspectors is directed to the above disinfecting means.
(Signed)
“Hugh Ferguson,
Her Majesty’s Veterinary Surgeon,
Principal Government Veterinary Inspector, Ireland.”
FOOTNOTES
[1] It may be well to let my readers know how I became experienced on the road. In the days when coaching was in its perfection (and when many country gentlemen indulged in their fancy for the use of the “ribbons”), I became, during a long interval from service, deeply and actively concerned in a coaching establishment of the first order; and those who, some years since, travelling between Dublin and Killarney via Limerick (a distance of about 185 miles), may have happened to hear coachmen and helpers talking of the “Captain,” will recognise in the writer the individual thus referred to, who was also in partnership with the famous Bianconi in the staging on the Killarney line. Several years spent in such a school will probably be considered a good apprenticeship to the study of one branch of the subject herein treated upon—viz., the management of horses on the road.
[2] The soubriquet by which the Author is known in his regiment.