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9
The Limit is that point of poverty in milk-solids below which
we condemn the milk as adulterated. If we allow a downward
variation such as to give the purchaser 90% of the milksolids
to which, on the standard of 12.50% milk-solids, he is
entitled; we deduct 1.25 from 12.50%, which gives a milk
containing 11.25% of milk-solids. This allows the vendor to
add 10 quarts of water to 90 quarts of 12.50% milk. Below
this limit we condemn the milk as adulterated. Then a milk
having been condemned as adulterated, What standard are we to
compare it with for the purpose of calculating the percentage
of added water? Are we to compare it with an average milk
of 12.50% milk-solids? Or, shall we take up with the
theory that the adulterator buys a milk just above that point
of poverty at which it will be condemned, and then proceeds to
secure his own conviction by adding a paltry 3% more of water
to a milk of 11.25% milk-solids? This theory is ridiculous.
What the adulterator does is to buy of a respectable firm of
milk merchants a milk such as that which contained 13.08%
of milk-solids. He then waters this down until its milk-solids
are diluted to a point between 11.25 and 11.50%, which is just
the limit at which an adulterator, if cleverly defended, can
defeat a prosecution and leave the local authority to pay all the
costs. Sometimes, especially on Sundays, the adulterator is
tempted to add a little more water, and, should a sample
of this blend be taken, he gets caught. That is the real
history of milk adulteration. If 11.25% be adopted, not only
as the limit but also as the standard, which by some confusion
of thought is often done, the Magistrate gets a certificate that
the sample contains "not less than 3% of added water."
Should the said standard be properly set out in the certificate
the true significance of the facts may still be pointed out to the
Magistrate. But, if the standard be not set out, the prosecution
is defeated or is stultified. In that case the Local Authority
is not only left to pay all the costs, but it is paralysed by the
aspersion of an officious severity.
Upon the question whether a milk should be judged by the
percentage of its milk-solids in the aggregate—or in one part
only, and without setting off to the vendor's credit any excess
that may be found in other of the milk-solids, some further
facts have to be considered.
In a milk deficient in fat but otherwise excellent, we debit
the deficiency in fat to the milk-seller. Thereupon, the law
charges him with a criminal offence—that of abstracting the
cream. Yet that deficiency in fat may arise from mere carelessness
in a milk-server who gives to one customer an excess of
cream and to another a deficiency. Such deficiency in fat may