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11
White pepper may be largely composed of rice
powder. Mustard may be half flour, sago the flower
or seed of an entirely different plant. Olive oil need
not necessarily have any connection with olives, and in
many other cases cheaper articles are substituted for the
article asked for, provided some sort of Notice is given
to the purchaser. The Notice may be most obscure,
and need not go into any details as to how much of the
lower priced substitute the "mixture" contains.
Practical law requires no nonsense of that sort.
With the mere morality, cheating or non-cheating point of
view, the Health Officer is not concerned, but when this peculiar
system of trading in food is carried to such an extent that the
health of his district becomes prejudiced, it is time to ask all
fair minded men if such a system shall be allowed to continue.
There can be no dispute that the heavy death rate amongst
young children is largely to be attributed to this legalised system
of permitting fraudulent dealers to protect themselves by label,
or this so called Notice. I refer now specially to the question of
"Adulterated Milk." To a very large extent this is the only
food children, invalids and aged persons can possibly take.
()bviously, it is most essential that each and all of these should
have this food free from all adulteration and possible impurities,
but even here the legal mind is not on the side of health.
These tradesmen's vehicles may be covered with legends, that
"Special Cows are kept for Invalids and Children," or his vessels
may blazen abroad that hoary fable, "Pure Milk, as the Cow
gives it," but it all means nothing. The special cow is the same
old iron handle, and the product of the beast is anything of all
degrees from good milk to milky water coloured up with "Annatto"
to give it that rich creamy appearance that gulls the public so
completely.
The law allows the vendor of this pernicious stuff to escape
"Scot free," providing he keeps a sufficiently sharp look out for
any strange or chance customer to whom he will say "I cannot