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170
None of the Gins were reported against, but the proportion of adulteration
found amongst the Rums, Brandies, and Whiskies was 7.0, 10.34, and 20.0
per cent. respectively.
Coffee adulteration has dropped from 9.0 per cent. in 1901 to 3.7 per cent.
last year.
Mustard has shown a remarkable improvement. In 1901, of 23 samples
13 per cent. were adulterated. Last year 28 were examined and all were
found genuine.
The six samples of "Sweets" examined were certified as being "genuine."
These were mixed sweets and taken with the object of ascertaining if paraffin
wax was present. In no instance was this found, but your Public Analyst
reports that most of them contained "Chocolate" from which the cacao butter
natural to the cocoa bean had been removed and replaced by cocoanut
stearin—the fat from the cocoanut deprived of its more readily fusible
portion, the cocoanut ole'in.
Had "Chocolate" been asked for by the Inspector, the vendors might have
been liable to a prosecution under Section 9 of the Sale of Food and Drugs
Act, 1875, which enacts that:—
"No person shall, with the intent that the same may be sold in its
"altered state without notice, abstract from an article of food any part
"of it so as to affect injuriously its quality, substance, or nature, and
"no person shall sell any article so altered without making disclosure
"of the alteration, under a penalty in each case not exceeding twenty
"pounds."
It would not be a good defence to plead that the material substituted was
non-injurious as an article of food—the character of the confection being
lowered in quality and nature by the substitution of a cheap and foreign
ingredient for a higher-priced natural one.
In July last, the following Circular Letter was addressed by the Home
Secretary to all Clerks to Justices of the Peace throughout the Country:—
A. 63,127-3.
24th July, 1902.
Sir,
I am directed by the Secretary of State to inform you that a Local
Authority charged with the enforcement of the provisions of the Sale of Food
and Drugs Acts has recently called his attention to the inadequate penalties
imposed for breaches of these Statutes, and has represented that the efforts
made to suppress the abuses against which the Acts are aimed are thereby