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42 SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS ACTS.
Unsound Food.—In addition to the quantities already reported as destroyed at
slaughterhouses and elsewhere, 174.103 lbs. of foodstuffs (77*7 tons) were destroyed as unfit
for consumption, an increase of 610 per cent, above the quantity destroyed during 1909-13
(10'8 tons). Table 22 gives a classified summary of the foods destroyed. In 1914, 1,312 lbs.
of foodstuffs were found at a private house, after the death of the occupier, in a state unfit
for human consumption and were destroyed.

Almost the whole of the foodstuffs destroyed in transit were so dealt with at the request of
the Great Western Railway Company.
If the above returns form a fair sample of the foodstuffs lost through causes which
should have been obviated, it can only be remarked that such loss was not only regrettable
but almost blameworthy. After so long an interval it is impossible to assign any cause for
the loss.

V.—SALE OF FOOD AND DRUGS ACTS.
Samples Taken.—The usual number (600) of samples were taken under the Acts in the
course of each of the five years, the number of adulterated samples in any year varying from
43 in 1917 to 64 in 1915. The percentages of samples reported to be adulterated in each of
the last ten years are shown below.

The proportion of adulterated samples fell in the second period by 12'5 per cent. A
classified summary of the samples taken during 1914-18 will be found in Table XVI.,
Appendix.
Milk.—The samples of milk—i.e., new milk—constituted more than half of the total
samples taken, numbering in 1914-18, 1,694 (56'4 per cent.), and in 1909-13, 1,515 (50'5), the
adulterated samples numbering 192 (1T3 per cent.) in the former period and 156 (10'2 per
cent.) in the latter. The annual numbers and percentages are given below.