Rensselaer Republican, Volume 13, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 April 1881 — The American Pork Market [ARTICLE]

The American Pork Market

The acting British Consul at Phibkdelphia has succeeded in arousing a gennine sensation by his false report to the home government respecting the prevalence of trichina among ■wine In this country. He alleges that 700,000 hogs died of cholera in 1880, in Illinois alone, and then recites two or three cases where death was produced by trichina from eating pork. He also alleges that butter and cheese are made from lard and grease taken from places where hogs die from cholera. The language of this report shows the consul to oe a man of great ignorance and easily imposed upon, A committee of the New York Produce exchange called upon him to ascertain his source of information, but he refused to disclose it. He seems not to know that cholera and trichina have no connection; that thousands die from each of the other diseases to which flesh, is heir, where one person dies from tricniniasls; that cnolera prevails mostly among young pigs, and is as natural to them as cholera infantum is to children; and finally, that swine were vastly more healthy in 1880 than they were in 1879 and for several previous years, while nothing injurious to the health of the British people had heretofore been experienced.

But all this exaggeration and misstatement, following on the heels of the unfriendly action taken by France on this same subject, and followed, as it is, by lying secret telegrams daily to the Liverpool Board of trade, reiterating the prevalence, and fatality of these diseases among American hogs, is not only calculated to create great alarm among the people of Great Britain, but deal a ruinous blow to the export trade in the pork products of this country. The importance of this trade can be best understood when it is known that the value of the annual food products exported from the United States in 1880 amounted to $162,200,000, and nearly one-third of this amount in value, in the shape of bacon, hams and salted pork, went to Great Britain alone. The people of those Islands are almost dependent on the United States for their supply of meats, and to cut off that supply would cause almost universal distress. It is, therefore, to be hoped that the truth will soon be made clear, and the pre udice excited be allowed to speedily subside.

The motive of these lying reports, however, is most reprehensible, and if it were guessed they had their origin in an effort to destroy the market for speculative purposes, the guess would probably not be far from the truth.— Hl. State Journal.