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means of enabling the analyst to say that if he got below a certain
figure there was the presumption that something needed to be
inquired into. In this case the moment it was shown the butter was
made in Siberia the standard went by the board. The volatile fatty
acids were discovered by the Reichert-Wollny figure, and the
percentages of these differed very much. When they came to deal
with Siberian butter analysts had to come to quite a different standard,
for in the winter months the butter went down and down far below
the figure stated here. In a case of this sort, where the interests
involved were so serious, the prosecution should make out their case
without the possibility of an error. Here there was but a presumption
that the butter was adulterated, and the difference between 23.9 and
24 was a close shave.
Mr. Robert Charles Davison, the defendant, said he bought 25 lbs.
of this butter from Messrs. Coombs Bros. He sold the butter as he
bought it. The traveller told him it was Siberian. William C. Neal,
in the service of the Anglo-Continental Produce Company, Ltd., spoke
as to the arrival on June 18 of the parcel of Siberian butter, of which
ten casks were sent to Coombs Bros. The casks were sent straight
from the ship to them. Edward John Horsey, in the employ of
Coombs Bros., who prepared the 25 lbs. of butter for Mr. Davison and
sent it away, said he opened a cask in order to get at it. They had
no machinery on their premises for mixing the butters.
Mr. H. Esmann, the managing director of the Anglo-Continental
Produce Company, Ltd., of Great Tower Street, E.G., said he had
been connected with the butter trade for many years. The casks
were never opened except to sample them. They had no machinery
or means at the wharf to mix butter. They did not deal in margarine.
On June 18th they sold twenty casks of butter to Messrs.
Coombs, ten of them Siberian butter consigned by a firm at Moscow.
He was personally acquainted with Siberian dairies; this butter came
from the mountains between Siberia and China, where it was very hot
in the summer and very cold in the winter. Storage was limited, and
dairies were managed in a primitive way. There was no means of
mixing butter with animal fat in Siberia. Margarine in Russia was
only manufactured in Government factories: it was not imported; if
it was it would cost more than butter. He was the defendant at
Thames Police Court, where it was said the butter was adulterated
with 10 per cent., but the summons was dismissed. There the
Reichert-Wollny figure was 22.1, being lower than in this case.
Having regard to the large business they did in Siberian butter, if
the standard adopted in this case was followed it would seriously
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