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* This case is important because of the appeal by the Council against the
previous decision of the Magistrate in dismissing the case against a wholesaler
with costs against the Council on 27th April, 1931.
At the hearing of the appeal, Mr. J. Scholefield, K.C., for the Stepney
Borough Council, said that under the Food and Drugs Act proceedings had
been taken against the retailer of the ginger and he had been convicted. Afterwards
proceedings were started against the wholesaler and the complaint was
that the Magistrate had held that it was essential for success that there should
be a fresh sample purchased, the sample divided and analysed. Mr. FoxAndrewes,
K.C., for the respondent, argued that not only was a second sample
essential but that there was no evidence on which the Magistrate could find
that his client wilfully sold the ginger. He relied on the invoice description.
The Lord Chief Justice (Justices Avory and Hawke concurring), in giving
judgment, said that the allegation against the wholesaler was that he wilfully
disobeyed the Act because he took no steps to see that the ginger was free from
preservative but relied on the invoice description received from a vendor who
had made no analysis for four years. It was impossible to say there was no
evidence on which the Magistrate could find that the wholesaler was guilty of
wilful neglect. The Magistrate refused to convict because he thought that
before the wholesaler could be convicted the same process of taking samples and
having them analysed must be repeated. For that there was no warrant. The
appeal was upheld and the case remitted to the Magistrate with a direction to
convict, with the result set out above.
†This case, on page 52, was rather unusual, and I give a short account of
the action taken:—
In November a notice was served with regard to the dirty condition of the
room and contents belonging to a woman living by herself in a one-roomed flat.
The notice, not being complied with, she was summoned and after the third
hearing the Magistrate made an Order for the Council to remove the articles.
This removal was done on the 18th November under the supervision of a
Sanitary Inspector and with the assistance of eight men. Over two cartloads
of old paper, rags, jars, tins, were carted away by the Public Cleansing
Department. This large quantity must have been the accumulation of a good
number of years and reached from floor to ceiling, impeding light and ventilation
and rendering the room insanitary. Great publicity to this case was given
in the Press but the accounts were rather exaggerated.