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289
[1910
A similar definition would probably be suitable for English cheeses,
but of course the Food Department of the Local Government Board would
consider this point.
But why stop short at defining cheese when every one of our foods
requires a definition? What of cocoa? What of bread? What of
jam? What of meat extracts? What of sausages? What of potted
meats? What of condensed milk? What of alcoholic beverages? What
of malt extract?
I can tell the Committee that if there had been a definition of
Irish whiskey and of Scotch whiskey there never would have been a
whiskey prosecution, and a Royal Commission, which, whatever may be
said of it was the means of eliciting a very strong opinion from the
distinguished analysts who gave evidence of the great difficulty they were
placed in through being compelled to form their own standard of purity
for foods which they analysed so that the Royal Commissioners reported to
the Government that "practically all the local officers who gave evidence
laid stress on the anomalous position in which the authorities and their
public analysts are placed in matters of this kind as a result of the conditions
imposed upon them by the Sale of Foods and Drugs Acts."
If we look at the state of the jam trade to-day we will find that a
very considerable proportion of the jams contain large percentages of
glucose, while I will venture to assert that nearly every man, woman and
child in the country imagine they are made by boiling fruits with sugar.
Similar sophistications are taking place with respect to other foods,
so that one never knows now-a-days when a prosecution is undertaken
what mine may be sprung. Indeed, it may be that the defendants may
boldly put forward the plea that what has been done is "the custom of
the trade," which in the eyes of lawyers covers a multitude of offences,
although the public may all the time have imagined they are getting
under a specific name the same article that they knew in their childhood,
and which their parents and grand-parents before them had consumed.
Other countries, and even our Colonies, have laid down, or are
laying down, standards of purity, but this country of ours, which has
grown supine in so many things, is doing practically nothing. John Bull
requires wakening up.
I am,
Your obedient servant,
A E. HARRIS,
Medical Officer of Health.
Town Hall, Islington, N.,
January 3rd, 1910.
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