The Wurst Tragedy

MANNERS & MORALS

John Bohling, a German-born, 40-year-old New York metalworker, was just off the Gripsholm from his first visit to Germany in 23 years. While visiting relatives on a farm near Bremen, a childhood love had been rekindled in his heart. Now he stood uneasily beside his trunk in the customs shed on Manhattan's Pier 97. John Bohling's passion was illicit in America, and he knew it.

Customs Inspector William F. White measured the outside of the trunk, then the inside. "You got a false bottom in there," White accused.

The jig was up. "Yes, I have," Bohling confessed.

White pounced, "What's in there?"

In a faraway voice, the shattered Bohling replied: "Mettwurst."

A dockworker tore the false bottom out. White reached into the trunk and pulled out 8 Ibs. of fine Mettwurst, a German pork boloney, homemade by Bohling's relatives. White ripped the sausages to shreds, looking for dope or diamonds. There was only Mettwurst. The Department of Agriculture man confiscated it all pursuant to Bureau of Animal Industry Order No. 373, which forbids the importing of uncertified meat from countries infested with foot-and-mouth disease.*

Saddened John Bohling stood on the dock, a lonely figure of a man crushed by the pains of modern government. "I love Mettwurst" he whispered after the vanishing shreds.

* Canada's livestock industry currently faces a major crisis because of foot-and-mouth disease. A German immigrant who had worked on an infected farm in Germany apparently carried the infection in on his clothes (TIME, March 10).

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