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MILK STANDARDS INQUIRY. 53
scientific experts were brought up to give evidence in favour of
such methods of manufacture, and to contest the propriety of
certifying that these vinegars contained "sulphuric acid," inasmuch
as the acid was combined with lime and other bases. It is obvious
that upon the same ground it might be denied that there is any
"copper" in coppered pickles, or any "gold" in a sovereign,
inasmuch as the "copper" does not exist in the metallic state, but is
combined with the pickles; and in the sovereign the gold is combined
with copper, and therefore exists only as an alloy. Equally well
it might be denied that there was any arsenic in those poisonous
beers, inasmuch as the arsenic existed in the beer in chemical
combination and not in the metallic form. The purely
technical fog thus raised, the penal nature of the statute, and the
long practice of this use of gypsum led the learned magistrate to
dismiss the cases; the defendants in each case paying their own
heavy costs, and the learned magistrate saying that the cases were
very proper ones to bring before him
THE MILK STANDARDS INQUIRY.
A large Blue Book has recently appeared from the Committee
appointed by the Board of Agriculture to report upon
Milk Standards and Regulations—under sec. 4 of the Sale of
Food and Drugs Act, 1899.
The Departmental Committee recommends:—
1. That the "Total Milk-Solids dried at 100° C." shall be
taken into account, and that, when the total milk-solids do not
amount to 12 per cent. of the milk, the presumption shall be
that the milk is not genuine, and the vendor be called upon
to defend himself against a prosecution.
2. That where the "total milk-solids'' fall below 12 per
cent., those milks, in which the amount of milk-fat falls below 3.25
per cent., shall be presumed to have had fat abstracted; and that
those milks in which the non-fatty solids fall below 8.5 per cent.
shall be presumed to have been watered In calculating the