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167
Unsound Fish.—The Sanitary Inspector for the NorthWest
District seized a quantity of herrings which were being
sold, at four-a-penny, in the public streets, by a " coster," who
admitted that he knew the fish to be bad, and that the
seizure was only what he had expected. The fish, which
had undergone putrefactive change, were in due course condemned
by the magistrate and destroyed. By direction of
the Sanitary Committee proceedings were taken against the
vendor, for the offence of exposing for sale an article of food
which was unwholesome and unfit for the food of man. The
offence not admitting of dispute, conviction necessarily
followed, but no fine was inflicted. Indeed, the sitting
magistrate made the benevolent suggestion, which was acted
on, that your Vestry should not apply for the costs incurred
by taking out the necessary summons. The defendant, after
the fish had been condemned, applied to me for a certificate
to enable him to recover the amount paid to the market
salesman for them. Had he made this application when he
found that he had bought stinking fish—at stinking fish
price—instead of exposing the fish for sale, he would have
received every assistance. But it was a little too much to
expect that the Sanitary Authority should condone a wilful
offence by assisting the wrong-doer. A new and valuable
provision is contained in the Public Health (London) Act,
1891, Sec. 47 (3), which renders the original vendor of an
article of food unfit for the use of man, liable to the fine and
imprisonment specified in sub-section (1), " unless he proves
that at the time he sold the said article, he did not know,
and had no reason to believe, that it was in such a condition."
Had the coster sold the bad fish ignorantly, we should have
tried to fix responsibility on the market salesman; but
whether it would have been possible to'prove guilty knowledge
on his part is more than I am able to say.
Unsound Meat.—Proceedings were taken against a
butcher, in Portobello Road, for the offence of exposing for