No. 454.
Mr. Pendleton to Mr. Bayard.
Legation of
the United States,
Berlin, April 2, 1888.
(Received April 16.)
No. 597.]
Sib: I inclose herewith clippings and translations
from the National Zeitung of the 28th ultimo. They are the only response
which I have seen in the Berlin papers to the public telegram touching the
message of the President to Congress recommending legislative measures in
regard to the exclusion of swine’s meat and the preparations thereof
exported from Germany and France.
I have, etc.,
[Inclosure 1 in No. 597.—National Zeitung,
March 28, 1888, morning edition.]
In a pressing manner the police presidency warns against the use of
uncooked swine flesh, and points out that only a thorough cooking
(roasting through and through) of the pieces of swine flesh, as of the
several preparations of swine meat (meat, blood and liver sausages,
dumpling, pickled meat, etc.) suffices to kill the possible existing
trichina and to exclude every injury to the health.
In order to make the thorough cooking or roasting of large thick pieces
(hams or neck joints) possible, it is recommended to make deep
incisions, about 8 centimeters apart, in the pieces of meat, in order
that in this wise the boiling heat may sufficiently have effect upon the
deep-lying layers of flesh.
[Inclosure 2 in No. 597—National Zeitung,
March 28, 1888, evening edition.]
It is telegraphed from Washington on the 27th March:
President Cleveland has sent a message to Congress, in which legislative
measures are recommended for the prevention of the importation of swine
and products of swine from France and Germany, inasmuch as, according to
reports of the American envoy in Berlin and the American consul at
Marseilles, a disease prevails among the swine in these countries which
makes the use of swine’s meat unhealthy.
In Germany it is not known that the danger from trichina—and this alone
can, be intended—has increased lately. On the contrary, the microscopic
examination for trichina increases more and more. One can see chat the
proposal of President Cleveland has rather to do with the establishment
of reprisals against the prohibition of American products of
swine-breeding than with a sanitary regulation. So far as German
prohibition is concerned, whilst in the beginning in America it was
referred
[Page 630]
to the protective
tariff-system tendencies, with time even these judges have come to admit
that the manner of slaughtering in America for exportation has offered
good grounds for it. Even in the technical works of Germany, concerning
the agricultural competition of North America, a while ago mentioned by
us, there are descriptions of that slaughtering, which support the
supposition that, with this wholesale business, sick or dead swine are
worked off for food. By the abolition of this evil the Americans will
sooner effect the removal of the German prohibition than by the threats
of reprisals. The German exportation to America consists mainly in the
finer kind of sausages, and in their manufacture in Germany the greatest
care is I taken.
