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extraneous water which, to the extent of 20 per cent., was found in
the milk. In this case the vendor was only ordered to pay the costs.
Certain matters in connection with the adulteration of butter call
for special mention. It is not generally known that a firm of dishonest
scoundrels have lately started a thriving peripatetic business
in adulterated butter in London. The agents of the firm drive round
from house to house in small carts and supply householders with
magarine under the name of ''country butter," charging 1s. per
pound. The fraudulent trading is very difficult to deal with effectively.
It is not easy to secure a sample according to the procedure
prescribed by the sale of Food and Drugs Acts, and when after the
exercise of some ingenuity a sample has been properly taken, the
salesman gives a wrong name and address and is only captured, if at
all, after the expenditure of a good deal of time and energy which
can ill be spared from other work. Moreover, it is the practice of
the firm continually to change their salesmen so that it is practically
impossible to obtain a second conviction. The real name of the firm
never, of course, appears in Court. The persons prosecuted are
merely salesmen, but they always contend that they are trading on
their own account. The present law against adulteration is quite
inadequate to cope with this form of butter adulteration, and it is to
be hoped that the Bill introduced by the Government this Session
will give the Government Departments and local authorities effective
powers to protect the public from fraud of this kind. There is much
need of special powers to deal with itinerant vendors who give false
names and addresses. Powers of this kind are particularly needed
in Hampstead on Bank Holidays.
During the summer of 1906 certain statements were made with
great publicity in reference to American tinned meat, and the Health
Committee ordered that twelve samples of tinned and potted meat
should betaken, six for bacteriological and six for chemical examination.
Six samples, three American and three British, were sent for bacteriological
examination to the Lister Institute of Preventive Medicine, and
all were certified to be practically sterile, the few organisms found,
all of which were harmless, being stated to be probably due to accidental
contamination. Six samples, three American and three
British, were examined chemically by the Public Analyst, who
certified that all were free from chemical preservatives except one