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Milk.
This year has seen an enormous increase in the sale of sterilized
milk in the district. The present position is that we, who have
fought for and succeeded in large measure in raising the Milkshops
to a satisfactory standard, are faced with the determined efforts of
the vendors of sterilized milk to degrade the premises from which
milk can be sold to a depth such we hoped never to see again.
Every little general store, no matter how dirty, dusty or smelly
is being approached to sell sterilized milk in bottles and so long
as this bottle is intact we have little power to stop the sale or even
to say how it shall be stored. The only thing is that we can insist
on the registration of the milk seller. There is a vast difference
between a tin of milk which can be cleaned outside before being
opened and the sterilized milk bottle with its rubber stopper with
a deep recess round the neck of the bottle which accumulates all
the dust and dirt blown upon or settling on it, which immediately
contaminates the contents when the bottle is opened and the contents
decanted over the dusty dirty rim. By persistent effort we
had raised up a class of vendor who was realizing the vital necessity
of the clean handling of milk, and taking an intelligent interest
in the production and distribution of an article as clean and safe
as it could reasonably be made. Now is seen the lamentable spectacle
of firms who have been classed as pioneers in the clean milk
trade, forced by the exigencies of competition to enter into this
retrogressive market. The occurrence recently of a real old
fashioned case of scurvy, fed entirely on bottled sterilized milk,