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36
Among other legal proceedings which during the year it was found
necessary to take is included a summons against a person for
EXPOSINC INFECTIOUS PATIENTS. exposing adopted child who was suffering from scarlet
fever. Upon the circumstances of the case being
brought to my notice by Mr. Boyce, I took the necessary
steps, and obtained the promise of the medical practitioner in whose
surgery the exposure occurred to support a case before a magistrate.
The child had also been exposed in a trap hired from a jobmaster
and the person in whose charge the child was acting as she had done
had rendered herself liable to a penalty of £5 under the Public
Health (London) Act of 1891. The case appeared to be such a wilful
one of exposure that the Committee ordered proceedings to be taken,
with the result that a fine of £1 with 12 s. 6d. costs was inflicted.
Arising out of the seizure of bad meat at Old Ford in the early
part of the year, proceedings were taken against the meat salesman
who had purveyed it to the local manufacturer, and after
BAD MEAT.
a hearing at the police-court the defendant was committed
for trial with the result that in February he was sentenced to three
months' hard labour at the County of London Sessions, the case being
described by Sir Forrest Fulton as a very bad one.
Another case occurred in August, when a second seizure was
made on the premises, 136, St. Stephen's Road. Proceedings were
taken at the Worship Street Police Court, and on August 11th Mr.
Hayden Corser said he had not the slightest doubt the meat seized
was unfit for food, and that but for the action of the sanitary officers
it would have been consumed by the public. A fine of £50 for each
of the three parcels of meat, or £150 in all, or in default three
months' hard labour, was the sentence passed on the defendant. The
penalty being recoverable by distraint, the defendant was given a week
in which to pay. On the 18th August he applied to the magistrate
for an extension of time. This was refused and the defendant
accordingly went to prison.