No. 353.
Mr. Evarts to Sir Edward Thornton.

Sir: I have the honor to call your attention to the report which reaches this Department, that the consul of Her Majesty at Philadelphia has recently cabled to his government that excessive mortality has prevailed among western swine during the past season, and that over 700,000 had died of hog cholera in Ohio alone.

The injurious effects which such a statement could not fail to cause to a large and profitable branch of American industry, if substantiated, has led this government to take the most active measures to investigate the truth of the rumor. The concurrent testimony of the authorities, both Federal and State, of the Western States, covering all the districts where swine are raised for a market, leads this Department to regard the rumor as not only without good basis, but as absolutely false. Neither infectious disease or unusual mortality from epidemic causes are known to have prevailed during the past two years; on the contrary, I receive the most positive assurances from all sources that the condition of the hogs in the West was never healthier than during that period.

In view of the natural alarm caused by the unverified statements of the consul at Philadelphia, and the irreparable damage which may ensue to wide-spread interests, without its immediate and positive contradiction, I hasten to bring the matter urgently to your attention, to the end that the denial of this hasty assertion may be so prompt and authoritative as to undo the harm already done.

I have, &c.,

WM. M. EVARTS.