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257
[1908
Shop Inspection.— This includes the inspection of butchers' shops, fish shops, fruit
shops, sausage factories, and other premises where foodstuffs are sold or prepared for sale,
as well as stalls, barrows, etc., from which perishable foods are sold.
The approximate number of shops within the Borough is as follows, viz.: —
Butchers and provision dealers 250, fishmongers and fish fryers 116, greengrocers
and fruiterers 200. There are also 9 places where food-stuffs are prepared for sale, principally
from meat substances (sausage factories, etc.), where no retail business is transacted, and
also usually about 7 butchers' stalls, 6 fish stalls or barrows, and some 30 greengrocers and
fruit stalls, but the number of these fluctuate considerably.
To these a total of 13,148 visits have been made during the year, and the foodstuffs
generally have been of a satisfactory quality; but of necessity there must be a
certain percentage of unsoundness in all perishable foods, due to varying atmospheric conditions
and from the particulars of Table "B" appended, it wild be seen that the defects
found were due rather to decomposition than to disease or other inferiority.
Twelve summonses under Section 47 Public Health (London) Act 1891 were taken
out during the year, and in eleven of these, convictions were obtained, with varying fines
and costs, which totalled £37 18s. 6d. The particulars will be found in Table "B" below.
The remaining case was that in which a large quantity of tinned foodstuffs were
found on the premises of a canning company in a blown and unsound condition, but on the
case coming before the Magistrate, at the Clerkenwell Police Court, he found that they were
not intended for human consumption, and dismissed the summons. Further particulars of
unsound foods dealt with will also be found in Table "B," a large quantity of which was
examined by the request of the respective owners.
If, then, we deduct the weight of the latter, together with the unsound tinned foods
previously named, and also that of meat and organs voluntarily surrendered in slaughter
houses from the total amount of unsound foodstuffs dealt with, as shown at the end of this
report, I am sure you will agree that the amount intercepted which was apparently intended to
be sold for human food was only very small in comparison to the amount of foodstuffs required
to feed a population of nearly 350,000 inhabitants for one year, and that this is some proof
of the effectiveness of constant special supervision of the food supply.