View report page

84
preservatives, at least four or five of the most commonly
employed antiseptic substances should be searched for
and, if found, the proportion must be determined.
This means a great amount of additional work,
and will certainly involve considerably larger samples
than have hitherto been purchased. In some instances
this will arouse suspicion on the part of the vendors
and tend to defeat the intentions of the Act, unless
special precautions are taken.
(3) The permitted preservatives, e.g., benzoic acid
and sulphurous acid, when in the presence of certain
foods, are difficult to detect and still more difficult to
estimate, and one of them, sulphurous acid, is more or
less fugitive and disputes between different analysts
and between the Public Analysts and the Government
Chemist may give rise to serious trouble. The responsibility
falling on the prosecuting authority will therefore
be greatly increased.
(4) In the same connection difficulty may arise
from the fact that some preservatives have been found
to occur naturally in the samples under examination
or may be unavoidably produced during the process
of manufacture, e.g., benzoic acid, boric acid, sulphurous
acid and formaldehyde. Fortunately, as far as
is known at present, only small proportions of these
have been so found, but before legal proceedings are
instituted discretion will be required to avoid possible
injustice to vendors."
Food Preparing Places.
There are known to be 103 food preparing places,
excluding bakehouses, in the Borough.
These are as follows :—One large biscuit and cake
factory, one large sauce factory, three pie shops,
seven restaurants, nine ham and beef shops and 82
eating houses or dining rooms.
These premises are under the supervision of the
woman sanitary inspector, Mrs. Davies, who made
300 visits of inspection during 1926, compared with