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59
CANNED LOBSTER.
A consignment of 124 cases of lobster, 44 cases, each containing 48 cans, was
the subject of considerable correspondence. The consignment showed four types
with every intermediate grade, on examination.
(1) The obviously blown can "tight swells" mostly with altered
and stinking contents. A variant on these is the obviously blown
without so obvious an alteration.
(2) The "springer" or "slack," where blowing has proceeded to
a degree which just overbalances the external air pressure by the gas of
internal decomposition.
These categories were stopped.
(3) The can in which there is an internal vacuum to all appearances,
but on puncture there is emission of gas. In these the strength of the
tin is masking early decomposition with gas formation.
(4) The good cans.
It was quite impossible to separate groups 3 and 4 unless by puncture of each tin.
I asked the consent of the consignees to destruction of groups 1 and 2; the
packers in the Dominion, which exported, asked delay in destruction and re-shipment
of the goods, writing: "What needs to be done is to give the goods a short
water bath, say twenty minutes and vent them and then stop them." They
further wrote: " we found the contents of excellent quality and not showing
the least sign of deterioration, the whole trouble is caused by the cans being too full."
Venting of decomposing canned goods as a proposal is primitive in the art
of canning and of course outside consideration in the practice of public health.
Destruction, however, was held over at the request of the overseas Dominion
concerned and with the agreement of the consignee, and two cases were released
to that government for their information and experiment. Re-shipment of the
whole seizure was requested by the Dominion government but was not permitted
as contrary to the policy adopted by your Worshipful Committee and unnecessary
to the determination of the faulty processing of the goods in manufacture.
TINNED CHERRIES.
A hundred cases, each containing 24 tins of cherries in syrup, were detained.
The cans showed on analysis (four samples) 68—148 parts per million Sulphur
Dioxide; this is well within the limits laid down in the "preservatives" regulations
about to come into force. There was a strong smell of sulphuretted hydrogen
on opening a sample and evidence that the tin of the container had been attacked.
In a few days after opening, the smell had entirely disappeared from the can,
leaving cherries apparently coloured with eosin, pretty and neither harmful nor
particularly useful as an article of diet.
The disgust which would be inevitable to the average buyer of one of these
cans, suggests that their release should only be made to a firm of manufacturers
of delicacies, of such standing as could ensure the airing of the contents on opening
of the cans. I asked for guarantees accordingly.

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