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61
The difficulty experienced in ensuring that the milk supply
of the borough was in the hands of satisfactory dealers is illustrated
by the following circumstances in which the Council removed one
dairyman from the Register and refused registration of four applicants
during the year 1934. The dairyman, having been convicted of
various offences in connection with his business, was given an
opportunity to appear before the Public Health Committee and his
name was removed from the Register. Before the statutory period
of 21 days, within which he could appeal against the Council's
decision, had expired, an application for registration was received
from a brother of the dairyman whose name had been removed
from the Register. This applicant was informed that the Committee
proposed to refuse registration in his case. He appeared before
the Committee but failed to impress the Committee in his favour
and his application was refused. He continued to carry on the
business whilst an application for registration was made by another
brother who, on being invited to appear before the Committee to
show cause why his application should not be refused, did not
appear and so his application was rejected. Next came an application
from a man who had for some time been employed by these
brothers. His application appeared to indicate that he had taken
over the business, whereas investigation showed that he was merely
acting as an agent for the original applicant. He also failed to
attend before the Public Health Committee to support his application,
which was refused. Finally, a fourth application was received
from another employee of the firm, whose application was dealt
with in the same way as the others had been. Thus it will be seen
that for several months the firm had been carrying on the business
of a dairyman in the borough despite the efforts of the Council to
prevent this. Other authorities experienced a similar difficulty.
Ability to identify milk suppliers from their milk bottles has
always been regarded by the Council as a matter of importance and it
was for this reason that in 1934 legal action was taken against a
milkman whose two milk barrows were found to contain 166 bottles,
of which only four bore the name of this dairyman, the remainder
bearing the names or trade marks of other dealers. Section 6 of the
Milk and Dairies (Consolidation) Act, 1915, provided that:—
"Every person who himself or by his servant in any highway
or place of public resort sells milk from a vehicle or from
a can or from other receptacle shall have conspicuously inscribed
on the vehicle or receptacle his name and address,
and in default shall be liable on summary conviction to a
fine not exceeding two pounds.''
If, therefore, a dairyman sold milk from a vehicle or from a
receptacle which was not inscribed with his name and address it
was quite clear that an offence was committed, but where milk