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27
enough money to purchase the full quantity; working
harder, means taking more food or losing strength.
What generally happens with the hard-working artizan
is this, his own strength is kept up, come what may;
the wife and children often fall short, or suffer from
inferior qualities of food. With regard to the new
"Adulteration of Food. Bill;" there are great defects
in it. The fines are much too high for obtaining convictions
without legal difficulty. The penalty appears
to depend upon adulteration of articles of food with
substances injurious to health. Milk therefore can be
adulterated by water with impunity; arrowroot and
flour can be used largely, as they now are, for adulterating
lard, cocoa, &c. Wine, beer and spirits, being
excisable articles, are exempted; tobacco being neither
food, nor drugs, nor poison, is not inclucled in the Bill,
and is sold largely adulterated. Neither can defects
with regard to fraudulent weights and measures be
taken cognizance of, as they ought to have been in a
properly constituted Act.
Meat, Fish, and Fruit destroyed.
A barrel and two pounds of plaice and whiting
were seized and condemned; one barrel of sprats; halfa
leg of mutton and two mutton chops. Complaints
were lodged against eight persons; in most instances
they returned the purchase money to those who had
bought meat unfit for food. Fruit shops and costermonger's
stalls are watched; and the proprietors
warned against selling bad fruit.
The Dead-house or Mortuary Register.
The number of bodies brought in the Dead-house
in Manor Place during the year was 38. Inquests were
held on 28; of these, post-mortem examinations were
made in the Dead-house in 25 cases.