No. 356.
Sir Edward
Thornton to Mr. Blaine.
Washington, March 10,
1881. (Received March 10.)
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your note of yesterday’s date upon the subject of the report
made by the acting British [Page 582]
consul at Philadelphia concerning hog cholera. As there still seems to
be a misunderstanding, I am obliged to repeat that the report in
question referred to Illinois and not to Ohio.
As soon as I heard of the alleged incorrectness of the statement made by
Mr. Crump, I directed Her Majesty’s consul at Philadelphia to inquire
into the matter and to inform me upon what authority the assertion was
made that 700,000 hogs had died in Illinois during the year 1880.
Captain Clipperton replied, first by telegraph and then by post, that the
report was made on good authority from Chicago. I was not satisfied with
this explanation, and called for further details. I have now the honor
to inclose copy of a letter which I have just received from Captain
Clipperton.
In the mean time I have had access to a pamphlet entitled “Illinois crops
for 1880,” published by the Illinois department of agriculture, from
which it appears that the loss of hogs by disease in Illinois during
1880 was 227,259. It is evident, therefore, that Mr. Crump’s report of
the loss was greatly exaggerated, though, in view of the loss above
mentioned, it can hardly be said that it is wholly without
foundation.
I received on Saturday night the resolution of the Cincinnati Chamber of
Commerce, of which a copy was inclosed in your note of yesterday. On
Sunday morning I dispatched a telegram to Earl Granville, informing him
that the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce had denied Mr. Crump’s report of
December last, and declared that the hogs of the whole West have been,
during last year, singularly free from disease of all kinds.
I have, &c.,
[Inclosure.]
Mr. Clipperton
to Sir Edward
Thornton.
British Consulate,
Philadelphia, March 9,
1881.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your dispatch No. 7, of the 8th instant, and with
reference to your dispatch No. 6, of the 6th instant, relating to
Mr. Crump’s sanitary report to Her Majesty’s principal secretary of
state for foreign affairs for the month of December last, and in
reply to inform you that the report of about 700,000 hogs having
died in the State of Illinois in the year 1880 was sent to him by
the vice-consul stationed at Chicago.
Upon further inquiry upon this subject, I learn that the reports
furnished the public are more or less of an estimated character, and
should be accepted in that light.
The report of the agricultural department of the State of Illinois
for 1878, vol. 16, pp. 377 and 378, under the head of “hog cholera,”
the number of hogs in the State is assessed at 3,334,920,and the
losses by diseases at 474,758 head, or 14 per cent. of the whole
stock, and the pecuniary loss laid down at $1,438,589. Vol. 17, p.
383, of the same publication, quotes the number of hogs and pigs
which died of cholera from May 1, 1878, to May 1, 1879, to have
amounted to the enormous figure of 1,391,422. In one county alone
(Warren) 59,544 head died. At pp. 544,545, the mortality to the 1st
of May, 1880, is placed at 182,577. There appear to be no later
published reports, at least I have not been able to procure any.
When it is taken into consideration that hundreds of thousands of
young pigs are littered after the taking of the census in April,
amongst which there must necessarily be more or less mortality from
swine disease, and that the figures are so very large (1,391,422 for
the previous year), it is not improbable that the number quoted for
1880, viz, 700,000, is very little, if any, in excess of the actual
mortality.
I beg to call your attention to the remarks of the Commissioner of
Agriculture in his report for 1878, (p. 24), which are as
follows:
“For less than half the territory of the United States, they show
annual losses amounting to $10,091,483 in swine.
“These figures indicate that the loss of farm animals throughout the
United States [Page 583] annually
aggregate, the sum of $30,000,000 or more. As at least two-thirds of
this amount seem to be sustained in the loss of the swine from
affections which appear to be but little understood by the farmer
and stock raiser, I regarded the subject of sufficient importance to
call for an appropriation,” &c. “In addition to the saving of so
vast an amount of property, the health of our people demands the
completion of this work, as it is a noteworthy but lamentable fact
that many herds of hogs are shipped to the nearest market, or are
slaughtered by the owners for marketable purposes as soon as the
disease makes its appearance among them.”
I have, &c.,
