, and 26,135 been
killed in the attempt to stay it. By the end of August the disease had
been brought within very narrow limits, and was eventually stamped out
by the resolute slaughter of all infected animals. By November 24 the
number of diseased animals that had died or been killed was
209,332,[658] and the loss to the nation was reckoned at L3,000,000.
The disease was brought by animals exported from Russia, who came from
Revel, via the Baltic, to Hull. In 1872, cattle brought to the same
port infected the cattle of the East Riding of Yorkshire, but this
outbreak was checked before much damage had been done, and since 1877
there has been no trace of this dreaded disease in the kingdom. The
cattle plague, rinderpest, or steppe murrain, is said[659] to have
first appeared in England in 1665, the year of the Great Plague, and
reappeared in 1714, when it came from Holland, but did little damage,
being chiefly confined to the neighbourhood of London. The next
outbreak was in 1745, and lasted for twelve years, undoubtedly coming
from Holland; it is said to have caused such destruction among the
cattle, that much of the grass land in England was ploughed up and
planted with corn, so that the exports of grain increased largely. In
1769 it came again, but only affected a few localities, and
disappeared in 1771, not to return till 1865.

Foot and mouth disease was first observed in England in 1839,[660]
and it was malignant in 1840-1, when cattle, sheep, and pigs were
attacked as they were during the serious outbreak of 1871-2. In 1883
no less than 219,289 cattle were attacked, besides 217,492 sheep, and
24,332 pigs, when the disease was worse than it has ever been in
England. Since then, though there have been occasional outbreaks, it
has much abated. Another dread scourge of cattle, pleuro-pneumonia,
was at its worst in 1872, a most calamitous year in this respect, when
7,983 cattle were attacked. In 1890 the Board of Agriculture assumed
powers with respect to it under the Diseases of Animals Act of that
year, and their consequent action has been attended with great success
in getting rid of the disease.

At the end of this halcyon period farmers had to contend with a new
difficulty, the demand for higher wages by their labourers at the
instigation of Joseph Arch.[661] This famous agitator was born at
Barford in Warwickshire in 1826, and as a boy worked for neighbouring
farmers, educating himself in his spare time. The mi