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289
[1909
BUTTER AND MARGARINE.
Butter.—200 samples were purchased and analysed by the Public
Analyst, of which 25, or 12.5 per cent., were declared to be adulterated. In 1908
the percentage was 9.5, and in 1907, 6.2. This increase is due to the fact that the
inspector took 155 informal samples, of which he found 24 to be margarine, and
which subsequently he had purchased officially and submitted to the Public
Analyst, so that the actual amount of adulteration was 10.1 per cent.
Whatever way one looks at these figures, it is extremely unsatisfactory to find
so much adulteration of one of the prime foods. Nevertheless the inspector is
deserving of credit for the detection of it. It is not an easy process, for the
dealers who fraudulently substitute margarine for the genuine article are the
most cunning of all tradesmen, and are mainly of a nationality which one
does not desire to brand with dishonesty, and which may be described as
neither English, Irish nor Scotch. Knowing that they are carrying on a
nefarious trade, they are very wary; and, when a strange customer appears,
very frequently send someone into the street to see if he can spy the inspector
anywhere near. Hence it is absolutely essential to get an agent to make
purchases for some time at their shops before the official samples are
taken. Even then success is not always met with, because it happens not
infrequently that the genuine article is given, although margarine has been
substituted on several previous purchases. This seems to prove that even
with known customers they occasionally give pure butter for a change.
Sometimes it occurs that the agent is served by a new counter hand, who
invariably sells the genuine article, and who continues to do so until he or she,
for there are many women employed in the trade, knows the customer.
No instance has come to light during the year of sales by the men who,
driving their traps, called at houses professing to sell the finest dairy butter. One
or two of these gentlemen have been fined heavily in the country; and, indeed,
one was sent to prison for obtaining money under false pretences, which is
after all the best thing to do with this class of itinerant rogue, who, because of
his wanderings, is so difficult to serve with a summons. In Islington there is
at least one summons unserved for an offence committed a few years ago.
GROCERIES.
There were submitted to the Public Analyst 180 samples of foods included
under tnis heading, of which 51, or 28.3 per cent., were adulterated, as against
20.8 per cent. in the preceding year, and an average of 13.3 per cent. in the
preceding eighteen years.
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