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93
INSPECTION OF FOOD.
The sanitary inspector charged with the inspection of food landed at
the river bank and stored in the warehouses adjoining, has had up to
last year to inspect besides about a thousand houses lying to the north of
Southwark street. This house inspection took up considerable time and
hindered him very much in carrying out the more important part of his
duty, viz.:—the watching of food about to be landed at the wharves. On
the appointment of a new food inspector, which took place towards the
end of the year, the Council decided to remove ordinary house inspection
from his duties, and to make him responsible for food landed at the
wharves and stored in any part of the borough, together with the
sanitary condition of the wharves and warehouses on the river bank.
Although the food inspector is charged with the duty of searching for
unsound food in any part of the borough, the ordinary ward inspector is
not in any way relieved of a similar duty in his ward; the two officers in
that respect being expected to work together. It is thought that by so
doing the valuable information obtained by the food inspector at the
wharves may be of great service to the ward inspectors in the prevention
of the sale of unsound food in the borough. I am glad to be able to
report that this new arrangement is working very satisfactorily. During
the year it will be seen that immense quantities of foodstuffs have been
dealt with, and a considerable quantity of unsound food has been destroyed.
Important seizures have been made and heavy fines have been inflicted.
The powers now being sought by the London County Conncil in their
General Powers Bill of this year, in regard to the surrender of acknowledged
unsound food and the payment for removal, will be useful when
they come into force. They will prevent food admitted to be unsound being
removed by unsound food dealers, ostensibly for the purpose of feeding
chickens and such like, but really to be offered again for human consumption.
They will not help us, however, in regard to food in dispute as to
unsoundness. Nor can I see that they will in any way remove the
difficulty of entry, or the vexed question of the goods being in transit.
Although as a matter of fact we are allowed by the wharfingers to enter
wharves and seize unsound food, which the magistrate afterwards
condemns, we should be unable to do so if resisted. In a case of seizure
of a large quantity of tinned salmon which took place some time ago in
this borough, the summons was dismissed on the grounds (1) That the
goods were in transit; (2) That the wharfingers were neither vendors nor
owners; (3) That the goods were practically in bond. We have recently
had 10,000 unsound rabbits seized at the Cold Stores (Hanbury's Wharf),
also two cases of unsound oranges seized at St. Mary Overy Wharf,