View report page

122
regards the food seized from the stall, the Magistrate did not consider
that a large consignment of similar unsound food at that
particular trader's address was necessarily intended for sale for
human consumption and the summons failed as regards that consignment
of unsound food. If, however, it had been compulsory
upon a food dealer to give notice of the possession by him of unsound
food it is obvious that the Poplar dealer, who had already attempted
to sell some of it, would not have given notice, and the Magistrate
would have been obliged to have convicted on that charge. In
consequence of this case and difficulties experienced in Hackney in
preventing unsound food going on the market after sorting, the
Hackney Borough Council adopted a recommendation which was a
slight extension of those recommended by Poplar in consequence of
their unsuccessful case already mentioned, and the London County
Council were requested to include in a General Powers Bill clauses
giving each metropolitan borough council, as the local sanitary
authority:—
1. Power to ensure that where a person has in his possession
any article of food which is unsound or unwholesome or
unfit for the food of man, he shall either:—
(i) by written notice to the sanitary authority specifying
such article, and containing a sufficient identification
of it, request its removal, whereupon the sanitary
authority shall cause it to be removed as if it were
trade refuse, or
(ii) by written notice to the sanitary authority specifying
such article and containing a sufficient identification
of it, state to what use the unsound food is to be put
and the address of its destination if it is to be removed
from the premises.
2. Power to seize and to take proceedings for unsound food
intended for human consumption upon non-compliance
with the conditions stated above.
3. Power to requisition the assistance of the police to obtain
verification of the names and addresses of itinerant vendors
and of vendors of unsound food exposed for sale which has
been seized by officers of a local authority.
If these are too drastic and inconvenient, from the wholesale
traders' point of view, possibly, as the first step towards preventing
"mixing a little bad in with the good," the advice one such trader
was overheard to give a hawker "if he wanted to get on," would
be a clause requiring notice of purchase for the purpose of sorting
or "making over," and in such instances dispensing with the
identification requirements mentioned above. Such notification
would be merely an extension of the principle of notification which