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Condiments and Spices.—Mustard, 1 case, weighing 3 qrs. 12 lbs.
Sundries.—Starch flour, 234 bags, weighing 22 tons 10 cwts. 3 qrs. 14 lbs.
On the 11th April. 6,003 cases of dried fruit salad and 404 cases of raisins, which
had been damaged by fire and water, were seized by one of your Inspectors.
Efforts were made to sort the goods and to dispose of them for animal food, but
without success. Therefore it became necessary to destroy the whole parcel, weighing
about 160 tons, by burning.
On the 17th April a vessel arrived from the Persian Gulf with about 138,000 boxes
of dates. The dates were found to be in a bad condition, and were seized by one of
your Food Inspectors
The owners wished to be allowed to dispose of the goods, on the understanding
that any found by the buyers to be unsound were to be returned and allowed for or
replaced.
Your Medical Officer could not agree to that proposal, as doubtless it would have
resulted in many unsound dates being sold to the public, and he recommended that the
goods should be distributed amongst various districts and sorted under the supervision
of the Medical Officers of those districts before they were offered for sale.
The owners, however, did not see their way to adopt the suggestion, and the whole
of the goods were eventually sorted in the dock under the supervision of your
Inspectors, who were engaged upon the work for about six months, with the result
that:—
53,365 boxes were passed as fit for human consumption.
81,871 „ „ rejected as unfit for human consumption.
Arrangements were made for those rejected as unfit for human consumption to
be disposed of for the purposes of distillation and cattle food, subject to the actual
users giving to your Medical Officer a written guarantee that none of the dates would
be used for human food and specifying :—
1. The purpose for which they would be used.
2. The address at which they would be used.
In all cases where dates were released under such guarantees, the Medical Officers
of Health of the districts to which the dates were removed were informed of the facts.
The unsound dates were distributed about the country in small quantities, and at
the end of the year 1,332 tons had been released under guarantees.
On the 4th June 9,772 boxes and 15 tons of loose dates, which arrived during
May, were also seized by one of your Inspectors. These were dealt with in the same
way as those referred to above.
The distribution of the dates necessitated the writing of several thousands of
letters, and at the end of the year large quantities of the dates remained at the docks
to be disposed of.
In May 5,286 cases of sausages from Australia were discharged from a vessel and
placed in the Victoria Dock Cold Store, where they were found by one of your Food
Inspectors to be in a mouldy condition.
On your Medical Officer's suggestion they were sorted. The sorting was completed
on the 17th June, and resulted in :—
1,888 cases being passed as fit for human consumption.
3,398 „ „ rejected as unfit for human consumption.