View report page

178
last year, in a large number of instances the adulteration
was only a seemingly trivial one, more than half of
the watered samples containing amounts of added water
under 10 per cent. This must not be taken as indicating
an increase of honesty on the part of the milk vendors of
the District, but rather the reverse. As I had occasion
to write in a former report, "the wide prevalence of
"slight adulteration is an indication of deliberate and
"systematic fraud carried out by skilled adulterators,
"and as such is much more important than the very
"gross cases of sophistication, which are usually the first
"bungling attempts of a prentice hand."
It must be remembered that in these cases the
percentages of added water were calculated on the
assumption that the original milk before being tampered
with, was of the lowest possible quality which genuine
and normal milk is known to be.
Sixty-one samples of butter were examined, of which
it is satisfactory to record that only two were found to
contain foreign fat, to the extent of 90 per cent. in each
case, one of the samples further containing boracic acid.
A sample of a well known butter substitute, sold as
margarine, contained 53 per cent. of foreign fat. It
contained boracic acid, which was also present in no
less than 22 of the otherwise pure butters.
None of the remaining samples call for special
mention.
In all the more serious cases proceedings were
taken against the vendors, and as a rule, convictions