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63
upon as being due to an improvement in our methods of sampling,
rather than to a sudden lapse of the honesty of Fulham
tradesmen. The system of purchasing unofficial samples has
been continued, and 299 were taken without the formalities
prescribed by the Act. of which 73 or 24.4 per cent. were condemned.
Further experience has confirmed the views I
expressed last year, that it is the well known regular customer
who is victimised at many shops. Another method of fraudulent
trading that has been detected is that of the itinerant vendor
who goes from house to house and professes to sell butter which
has been sent up to him direct from farmers in the country.
The Inspector obtained from customers samples of "butter"
which had been purchased as Devonshire butter from a man
of the above description, all of which on analysis proved to be
margarine. The vendor when asked by the customer for his
address gave a false one, but after considerable trouble was
eventually traced to a house in Battersea, and on his next visit
an official sample was taken at a customer's house, and this
being returned as margarine a summons was taken out and a
penalty of £10 inflicted.
It was ascertained that the defendant had been in business
in this way for some years, during the whole of which he had
been selling margarine got up in an attractive style at the price
of, and as, pure Devonshire butter.
Another man, who was found to be carrying on the same
fraud, apparently obtained information that the Inspector was
on his track, and stopped doing business in Fulham before an
official sample could be procured.
Although the number of samples taken in Fulham has been
increased of late years, it is still decidedly inadequate when the
number of provision dealers is considered. Thus there are
upwards of 300 milk sellers registered in Fulham, and there are
others from adjoining districts who trade here, all of whom
should be sampled at least, twice a year. At present the Council
have only arranged for the analysis for 550 samples during the
year ending March 29th, 1906, and as upwards of 500 were