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112
PUBLIC HEALTH (LONDON) ACT, 1891, AS AFFECTING
DISEASED MEAT.
In my Annual Report for 1904 I urged, without effect, the necessity for
seeking an amendment to the law as relating to the seizure of unsound meat.
During the year under review, the necessity for more stringent statutory
provisions for safeguarding the public from the danger attaching to the sale
and consumption of diseased meat has again been made abundantly clear.
Section 47 of the Public Health (London) Act, sub-section 2, enacts that:
"If it appears to a justice that any animal or article which has been
"seized, or is liable to be seized, under this section is diseased or unsound,
"or unwholesome, or unfit for the food of man, he shall condemn the
"same, and order it to be destroyed or so disposed of as to prevent it
"from being exposed for sale or used for the food of man; and the
"person to whom the same belongs, or did belong at the time of sale or
"exposure for sale, or deposit for the purpose of sale or of preparation
"for sale, or in whose possession or on whose premises the same was
"found, shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding
"fifty pounds for every animal, or article, or, if the article consists of
"fruit, vegetables, corn, bread or flour, for every parcel thereof so con"demned,
or, at the discretion of the court, without the infliction of
"a fine, to imprisonment for a term of not more than six months, with
"or without hard labour ";
and it is the wording of this section to which exception is taken.
In many cases the guilty party is rendered completely immune from
the consequences of their evil deeds, the owner escaping because he had no
knowledge, and the butcher because he is not the owner.
If the words "and the person or persons, if any, under whose control the
same was" were added after the word "belongs," both parties would be
rendered liable, and on the evidence the decision as to how the responsibility
should be apportioned could then be left in the hands of the Court.
The following are two illustrative instances that have arisen within the
limits of the City jurisdiction, and consideration thereof cannot but lead to
the conclusion that amendment of the Act in such a way as to ensure the
punishment of the right person is, in the interests of the public health, of
absolute necessity:—
Meat Case, No. 9.
In this case four pigs affected with Swine Fever were seized on the
8th December, 1909.
Investigation was made, and the City Solicitor having received the evidence,
advised that there was a legal difficulty, because the ownership was not in the consignor
of the pigs. It having appeared that the sender of the meat had been to