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Damaged Coffee and Cocoa.
Information was received on January 2nd from the Medical Officer
of Health of the Port of London that 20,000 bags of coffee and 2,150 bags
of cocoa damaged by river water had been removed from the sunken S.S.
"Caravellas" which had been in collision with another steamer at a spot
in the Thames two miles below Greenwich, and that the coffee and cocoa
were to be landed at the West Kent Wharf. Samples of the coffee were
taken and roasted, and an infusion made. It was considered that the
high temperature of roasting had completely destroyed all sewage
contamination, and that the coffee when roasted would be sound and fit
for human food. Some portion of this cargo had been landed in
Bermondsey, and there seized and samples taken before a Magistrate.
It was decided by the Magistrate that the coffee had been rightly seized
and was unsound in its raw state, but that it was in a state of being
prepared for sale, which state was not completed until after the process
of roasting had taken place. The Magistrate further stated that when
the coffee was roasted he considered that it would be sound and fit for
human food. He therefore refused to condemn it. In the case of the
cocoa, which was roasted and prepared, no more objection could be
taken to it than with the case of the coffee. A summons had been
previously carried out before the Magistrate for its condemnation, but,
after the decision in the Bermondsey seizure, it was withdrawn and the
cocoa allowed to be removed for sale. At market the cocoa and coffee
fetched very nearly the usual prices paid for such articles.