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from stalls. These are regularly inspected at irregular periods
every week, including Sundays and Saturday nights. Several
seizures of diseased or unsound fish or food have been made
during 1902, and in some cases prosecution has followed. One
of the most difficult foods to inspect is shell-fish, and from time
to time information reaches the Department of illness attributed
to the consumption of shell-fish. A number of enquiries have
been made in such cases, and sometimes apparently clear evidence
is forthcoming incriminating the shell-fish. These are generally
obtained from Billingsgate or some near sea-side town. In some
cases undoubtedly shell-fish fattened at sewage outfalls become
contaminated and poisonous. In other cases the contamination
is derived from their storage. Hawkers and stall-holders
frequently keep their little stock of shell-fish in dirty buckets in
dirty yards, and in this way it is possible that they may become
polluted.
SALE OF FOOD & DRUGS ACTS.
Under the Bye-laws of the Borough Council, each Sanitary
Inspector acts, in his own sanitary district, as an Inspector under
the above Act. During the year 1902 the Inspectors collected
556 samples, of which 81 (or 14.6 per cent.) were adulterated.
There were 35 prosecutions under the Act, the aggregate amount
of fines aud costs inflicted being £113 19s. 6d. In 1901, 17 per
cent, of the samples were found to be adulterated, and there were
51 prosecutions.*
0 It may be interesting to note that, according to the report of the Local
Government Board, the percentage of adulterated samples of milk in the whole
of London during the year 1901 was 15.2.
The report also contains an extract from a memorial recently addressed to the
Board by one of the Dairy Trade Protection Societies, in which it was stated
that the quantity of milk received in the London area from outside is approxi—
mately 144,000 imperial gallons per day. "If this is correct," it is added, "and
if we assume that the samples taken for analysis in the Metropolis in 1901
correctly represent the quality of this outside milk supply, it seems that
Londoners pay, at 4d. per quart, at least £30,000 per annum for water which has
been added to the milk supplied to them."