View report page

Improvements in ventilation were instituted the Borough Council
would make representations to the London County Council when
the licences were under consideration.
The result of the Committee's action resulted in amelioration,
especially in the smaller establishments, where the existing means
where much open to question.
Food.
The milk supply has presented no change except in the gradual
absorption of the smaller dealer by the larger firms. From the
health point this has its advantages in the easier way of inspecting
and ensuring the best conditions in supply and distribution, but it
tends to eliminate competition and to promote the formation of
organisations which can dominate the whole field of milk production
and sale. Municipal trading has well-recognised drawbacks, but
they are not so groat as to put on one side the power it would put
into the hands of the public and its representatives to prevent an
unreasonable price for milk, which might easily come about if the
supply were to be controlled by some gigantic trust. The cleanliness
of the milk still leaves much to be desired. The few comparatively
simple requirements in the way of protecting it in the process
of milking and conveyance have not yet been brought home to the
farmer and his men. It is true that the contamination has often
no specific nature, and it is only occasionally that we get an
epidemic, but the danger is always with us; and the large use made
of condensed milk by those who live in the worst conditions is likely
enough the explanation for such outbreaks being no more frequent
than they are.
To those who drink much fresh milk the nature of the
tamination, if they only knew it, would do not a little to put them
off.
Up to April, 1920, the arrangements made during the war
whereby the Sanitary Inspectors took it in turns to procure samples
under the Sale of food and Drugs Acts continued in force. The
Committee, however, came to the conclusion that the Acts would be
more efficiently administered if the pre-war practice of having one
Inspector for this duty were re-established. Applications were
invited from among the Inspectors, and as a result Mr. G. T. Dewey,
who has been in the service of the Council as a Sanitary Inspector
over twenty years, was appointed. Whatever may be the result, it
lias certainly worked for the benefit of the general sanitary inspection
of the Borough, which was often prejudiced by the time taken
in watching and detecting offenders who were particularly apt at
evading the provisions of the Food and Drugs Acts. In pre war
days it was found that when persons became known to shopkeepers
as regular customers, they were more likely to be served with
adulterated articles than the chance customer, who, as likely as not,
might be the agent of the Inspector, Hence informal sampling was
then carried out on a fairly extensive scale, and the practice has
once more come into vogue.
"Eighty-three informal and 1,115 official samples were takers
during this period. The former consisted of butter, 27; margarine,