View report page

41
A), but at the same time it comprises some large quantities, notably on 19th
April, 1,000 tons of sundry unsound food stuffs, salvage goods, at the West India
Dock ; on the 26th April, 3,500 cocoanuts at the London Dock ; 17th June,
1,181 carcasses and sundry pieces of mutton, ex s.s. "Langton Grange" ; 4th
July, 54 tons of dates at the Millwall Dock; 25th July, 17,643 carcasses of
mutton and lamb, ex s.s. "Rangatira"; 6th September, 18,399 carcasses,
32,381 pieces of mutton, and 2,229 quarters of beef, ex s.s. "Niwaru."
I take the opportunity here of calling attention to the difficulty of dealing
with enormous quantities of unsound meat. It is, of course, impossible to
convey before a Magistrate a huge quantity, such, for instance, as that dealt
with on the " Niwaru " ; on the other hand, it is equally impossible to see the
whole of the bad meat in the ship at once, although there is good reason for
believing that the visible portion represents but a small part of the whole
amount which is bad. It is, further, quite out of the question to discharge a
large quantity of bad meat and store it for the purpose of being viewed by
a Magistrate, as by the time the last of the meat has been discharged, the
condition of the first portion would be past description, and a serious nuisance
would exist.
To this must be added the fact that the whole cost of dealing with it would
fall upon the Port Sanitary Authority. There would be considerable loss of
time, and the Port Sanitary Authority would have to abate the nuisance
which would inevitably arise. Under these circumstances the sections of the
Public Health Act dealing with unsound food are found to be unworkable,
and reliance has to be placed upon those sections which deal with a nuisance
existing or likely to arise. Fortunately there is in most cases a great probability
of a serious nuisance arising from a discharge of a large cargo of unsound
meat, and in the case of the s.s. "Niwaru " the persons interested in the cargo
concurred in the view of your Medical Officer as to the likelihood of a
nuisance, and the shipowners sent the ship to sea, where the bad meat was
discharged in the North Sea at a distance from land under the superintendence
of Inspector Spadaccini.