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gardens. The Londoner now knows little or nothing of the sources from which his food supply is
derived. Indeed, as a latter day Quarterly Reviewer has remarked (" Quarterly Review," 1899), there
has been manifested in the last half century " a tendency to transfer from London nearly every process
of food preparation that can be carried on elsewhere." In many cases the change has presumably been
greatly to the Londoner's advantage as regards quality, as it undoubtedly has been as regards price,
but the removal of the place of origin or manufacture beyond any control London can directly exercise,
emphasizes the importance of examination of the food when it enters London, and this in increasing
degree as years pass by and the amount brought from without approximates more and more closely to the
total quantity consumed. It is not, of course (it may be reiterated), for a moment suggested that it is
desirable the officers of London health authorities should make detailed examination of every carcase
or tin of food coming into London; but that such inspection as is at present made amounts to the merest
occasional and random sampling needs to be insisted upon. The impression might certainly be created
on reading the proceedings at the Local Government Board inquiry of 1903, that something like a
"ten per cent, examination" for food inspection purposes; of articles coming into the Port of London
was, as a rule, then made. Such an estimate would, of course, be altogether wide of the mark. I
learn that two men working ten hours a day can examine 120 cases, each containing 48 one-pound tins
of salmon, daily. Again, Dr. Collingridge, in a report to the Port Sanitary Authority for the half-year
ending 30th June, 1897, pp. 21 and 22, has dealt with the rate of examination of carcases. Taking as
data the figures given by Dr. Collingridge for carcases and my own figures for tinned goods, it may be
demonstrated without any very elaborate calculation, that even under the most advantageous circumstances,
the existing food inspecting staff in London would need to be multiplied ten or twenty
times over were anything like a " ten per cent, examination " contemplated.
It is important to note here that among the difficulties in the way of adequate inspection,
that of providing a sufficient staff of inspectors is by no means one of the most formidable. There is
the initial difficulty that the examination of goods in a ship's hold or during transference from the ship
to lighters is practically an impossibility, and thus, in fact, the very first essential for examination is
a locus in quo. As far as possible the warehouses of the dock companies and the riverside warehouses
have been utilised in the past for the purpose of making inspection, but difficulties have from time
to time arisen with regard to such use, and as matters stand, the right to examine food there is at any
time open to be disputed. Given, however, a place in which to inspect, there must then be made available
the labour necessary for the manipulation, incidental to inspection, of packages of goods, and there
must also be provision made which would enable the inspector to purchase from the owner such articles
as must inevitably be rendered unfit for consumption, e.g., tinned foods, as the result of being opened
for examination. The use of public money for such a purpose as that last mentioned finds its parallel in
the procedure under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts.
Under existing circumstances the preliminary essentials are lacking, and the inspector with
expert knowledge perforce spends the greater part of his time in following goods from place to place,
in endeavouring, by favour of wharfingers, docrc managers, lightermen, warehouse employes, etc., to
obtain assistance in examination, and in securing by tact and resourcefulness opportunities of satisfying
himself of the soundness of goods, and thus, as it were, achieving by diplomacy that for which no legal
right can be claimed.
The root of the matter has not, however, yet been reached ; the inspection of food in the Port
cannot be divorced from food inspection in London generally. The entry into London of unsound
food can only be prevented by ensuring that the several component inspecting agencies each play their
part in one co-ordinated general scheme of inspection. The present system constitutes posts of observation
it is true, but these are so isolated from one another that the dealer in unsound food readily learns
how to avoid them, and it is, indeed, obvious that inasmuch as the fraudulent trader will not on his
own initiative court inspection of his goods, there is need of a system which will bring the inspector to
the goods of the fraudulent trader. Many illustiations of this need might be given, but it will suffice
to cite a particularly striking instance which occurred some two years ago. A number of carcases of
frozen mutton were damaged before reaching London owing to a breakdown of refrigerating machinery.
They were not straightway brought to Smithfield, as in the ordinary course, but were taken direct from a
London railway station to a cold store, and were only seized, quite by accident, as it were, in part at
the coldstore and in part at a retail butcher's premises in Stepney, their ultimate destination. Even if
inspection at markets afforded a complete safeguard against the passage through them of unsound
meat, it is obvious, in the light of an occurrence such as this, that as long as no general supervision
over food supplies arriving in London by rail and by road, as well as by river, exists, protection is
incomplete. It is worthy of note, too, in this connection that even the meat supplied direct to consignees
in the City itself, and not passing through Smithfield, escapes inspection.
It has been suggested that complete surveillance exercised at all the ports would constitute a
sufficient safeguard, but this would only touch the question of the condition of foreign meat on
importation, and in no way limit the despatch by rail or road of such meat, or of home-killed meat,
which may have become unsound. It is clear, therefore, that nothing short of a complete systeinatised
scheme of inspection would meet the case. Experience gained with regard to the diversion of the unsound
meat trade into channels which afford security against liability to seizure, finds its parallel in the
case of other foods, and, indeed, it is not to be supposed that the fairly close supervision exercised
in certain boroughs over food supplies would not tend to discourage the despatch of doubtful consignments
to those boroughs and create a prejudice in some minds in favour of modes of entry into the
county which do not involve risk of seizure.
The first outcome, therefore, of the pioneer work done in London in connection with food