CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26631, 29 November 1947, Page 7

CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH

HAGGIS FROM SCOTLAND CONSIGNMENT TO AMERICA NEW YORK, Nov. 27. The Department of Agriculture was back in the clans’ good graces to-day, when it rescinded an order for the destruction of a 71b haggis sent from Scotland by Lord Lovat for the Illinois St. Andrew’s Society’s annual feast of the haggis at Chicago on Saturday. The department's Bureau of Animal Husbandry had ordered the haggis to be burned after it arrived at La Guardia airfield, because it was feared it might bring foot and mouth disease to the United States. Furthermore, a bureau inspector raised the ire of Scots to feverpoint of saying it was unfit for animals to eat. Word of the fate threatening the haggis was flashed to Mr Bert Black, president of the St. Andrew’s Society in Chicago, to whom the shipment was consigned. , , , Mr Black sent a telegram of protest to the Department of Agriculture, and sent round a “ fiery cross ” calling on “ loyal Scotsmen all over the world to observe Frjday as a day of mourning, in protest against the sacrehgious burning of the haggis.” To-day, however, the department gave the haggis a clean bill of health, saying it had been properly processed and conformed with the regulations. (Yesterday it was stated that the haggis had been burned in the airfield incinerator, but it was later handed to the Bureau of Animal Husbandry and subjected to rigid inspection.)