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56
It is the case also that once a week each officer reports fully with regard to
progress made with works called for by notices.
Nevertheless, there seemed to be occasion for discussing matters with the staff>
as a whole, from time to time, drawing their attention to, and hearing from them of
improvements made or required in connection with public health work.
At the end of the year only a few meetings had been held, but sufficient evidence
was obtained from these to show that good results were likely to follow. Each
member of the staff felt that he was put on his mettle, and that the work which he
was given to do was all the more important because it was not merely his own work,
but part of the whole work of the department.
All the members of the staff have most loyally co-operated to make the staff
meeting a success, and it seems certain that it has become definitely established as
part of the routine of the department.
PROTECTION OF THE FOOD SUPPLY.
The greater part of the important work under this head was again carried out by
Inspector George Smith, who in addition to inspecting food in all shops, etc.
throughout the Borough, acted as inspector under the Sale of Food and Drugs Act,
and inspected premises in which food was sold, stored or prepared, such as milk
shops, hotel and restaurant kitchens, bakehouses, tea-rooms, coffee shops, ice-cream
shops, slaughterhouses, cowhouses, etc.
Food Inspection.—As in the previous year, routine inspections of all food
premises and of the food in them were made by Inspector Smith. In making special
inspections on Saturday nights and Sundays, and at other times, assistance was
rendered by members of the staff of inspectors possessed of the necessary
qualifications and experience. At these inspections special attention is directed to
the meat and articles of food exposed on stalls in the various market streets.
During the year there was every evidence of a desire on the part of meat and
food vendors to make use of the knowledge of the food inspector and to take
advantage of the provisions of Section 47 (8) of the Public Health (London) Act,
1891, which empowers any person having any unsound article of food in his
possession to call upon the sanitary authority to remove it for destruction.
On a great many occasions the meat and food inspector was called in to examine
articles of food and to accept surrender of such as were unsound or unwholesome, or
unfit for food.
Amongst the articles thus voluntarily surrendered were the following:—
Articles of food destroyed as unsound after voluntary surrender.
215 lbs. beef 14 turkeys
97 lbs. mutton 10 geese
75 legs pork 130 lbs. skate
Hind quarter of pork (tuberculous) 126 lbs. mackerel
6 pigs' heads (unsound) 112 lbs. haddock