Wolfarth to The Envoy Extraordinary and, February 27, 1881

Baron Haymerle to Mr. Kasson.

In pursuance of the respectful note of the 20th instant (No. 3339–7), the imperial and royal ministry for foreign affairs now has the honor to communicate to the envoy extraordinary and minister plenipotentiary of the United States of America, Mr. Kasson, the particulars reported to the ministry by the imperial and royal statthalterei at Lemberg, relative to the seizure and arrest of the naturalized American citizen, Jacob Erasmus.

At the end of last month the gendarmery post command in Zassow ascertained that Jacob Erasmus, landlord from Roja district, Pilzno, who three years previously emigrated to America, had returned to his native place, and was occupied in the recruiting of his countrymen for removal to America.

On the basis of this notification Erasmus was arrested in his own house, which the imperial and royal gendarmery found formally besieged by people from the whole vicinity, and was, by the imperial and royal district captaincy in Pilzno, delivered to the imperial and royal district court of the same place for official penal action.

The correspondence found in Erasmus’s possession exhibited evidence that he was charged by the attorney of the North German Lloyd, Carl Behmer, of Berlin, and by Carl Johan Klingenberg, ship agent of Bremen, to recruit in Galicia passengers for the voyage to America, for which service a compensation of 3 florins for each grown person and 1½ florins for each child was promised to him.

Inasmuch as Erasmus abode in Roja but a few days previous to his arrest, and, accordingly, by reason of the shortness of the time, could neither accomplish his mission nor cause any damage to the recruits, therefore the imperial and royal state prosecuting office in Tarno, to which the preliminary examination had by the imperial and royal district court of Pilzno been sent for the purpose of suggestion as to disposition of the case, found no tenable point for a further penal prosecution of Erasmus, and delivered the examination papers to the imperial and royal district captaincy in Pilzno, in the sense of the ministerial ordinance of September 30, 1857 (A. G. B. No. 198), for further official action in respect to the arrested party.

Hereupon Jacob Erasmus was condemned by the imperial and royal district captaincy in Pilzno, under sentence of the 17th instant, on account of unauthorized recruiting for America, based on the before-mentioned ministerial ordinance, to fourteen days’ confinement; and, since he had, under a naturalization certificate of the American Union, given proof of his status, it was forthwith decreed that he, as a foreigner, in the sense of paragraph 2 of the imperial law of 27th July, 1871 (St. G. B. No. 88), under peril of the consequences stated in paragraph 323 of the penal law, should be expelled from all the crown lands of the Austrian monarchy.

Erasmus has entered no appeal against this judgment, and immediately submitted to the punishment.

The undersigned avails himself, &c.

For the ministry of foreign affairs: