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118
and scrap meat has been adopted by Argentine, New Zealand and other
shippers. The whole subject is now being dealt with by the Local Government
Board, and the objections to its importation are fully discussed on
pp. 125-132.
Three Assistant Inspectors have been added to the staff during the year.
The following naval officers have received instruction in the examination of
meat, viz.:—The Assistant Director of Victualling, Whitehall ; seven Fleet
Paymasters; nine Staff Paymasters; ten Paymasters ; one Assistant Paymaster,
and a Fleet Paymaster of the Imperial Japanese Navy, to all of
whom, with two exceptions, certificates of competency have been issued.
In four instances the senders of bad meat were prosecuted, convictions
being obtained in each case. This is the smallest number for many years.
For details see p. 138.
DISEASED MEAT WITH VETERINARY CERTIFICATE.
On the 9th January, 1907, a consignment of 14 pigs, sent by a farmer at
Northolt, Middlesex, was received by a salesman in the Central Market, and
six of them found by your Inspectors to be tuberculous were consequently
seized and destroyed.
Accompanying these pigs was a Certificate signed by the County Veterinary
Inspector stating that he found them "free from symptoms of contagious or
infectious disease, and fit for human food," and that he had therefore
authorised their removal.
On the following day four other pigs from the same farm accompanied by a
similar Certificate from the same Veterinary Inspector arrived at the Market,
and of these three were condemned as tuberculous, and one as being in a
generally inflammatory and congested condition. These were consequently
destroyed as being unfit for food.
A third case of this kind occurred, when 11 carcases of pigs, out of a
consignment of 45 sent to the City Market, were found to be tuberculous,
and therefore seized and destroyed. These pigs were accompanied by a
permit signed by an officer of the Huntingdon Police authorising their
removal under the Swine Fever Order.
Upon enquiry it was found that the permit was granted on the strength of
a Certificate from a Veterinary Surgeon that the pigs were "perfectly free
from either a contagious or infectious disease and fit for human consumption."