View report page

53
was nothing in the Act to justify such a contention, and the
Court held that the appellants believed the warranty to be
true, and the appeal was therefore allowed and the conviction
quashed, with costs against the Borough Council.
Particulars of this case were forwarded by the Borough
Council to the Local Government Board and the Board of
Agriculture, with the intimation that they were satisfied that
it is useless in future to institute proceedings with regard to
false warranties in milk cases with any likelihood of success,
unless the existing provisions of the Sale of Food and Drugs
Acts relating thereto are considerably amended and
strengthened, and that, pending such amendment, they
do not propose to prosecute in respect of false warranties
in milk cases. Under the law as it stands, the
Local Authority must take proceedings against the vendor
of the milk, and on being met with a warranty must proceed
in turn against the wholesale dealer and farmer, being
in each case met with evidence they have no means either of
testing or rebutting, and the responsibility for the adulteration
is eventually placed upon the cow, and although the
milk has undoubtedly been tampered with no one is punished,
and, in spite of the expense they incur, the Local Authority
is unable to effectively protect the public. The simplest
course would be to make the person actually selling the adulterated
milk responsible and liable to conviction for such sale,
and if he has obtained a warranty from the person who
supplied him, he should be entitled to recover damages
against such person for any loss he may sustain owing to the
conviction, provided he proves that he sold the milk in the
same condition as he received it.
Another case in which the proceedings taken by the Council
in respect of adulterated milk failed was one in which an
itinerant vendor of milk, on being overtaken by the Inspector,
whom he had endeavoured to evade, informed him that he
was not selling milk but " milk and water," and a sample was
D 2