'HOKEY-POKEY.'

Auckland Star, Volume XXIX, Issue 184, 6 August 1898, Page 3 (Supplement)

'HOKEY-POKEY.'

MILLIONS OF MICROBES,

(From Our Special Correspondent.)

LONDON, June 17, 189 S.

'Hokey-Pokey is a favourite cry in the London streets and wherever the Italian' vendor of ice creams is seen with his barrow, numerous small boys will be gathered around, no matter what the weather, licking with the deliberate enjoyment of the gourmand the bacteria laden ice creams. One lad has just died in Kentish town, and others are ill from the deleterious 'hokey-pokey.' Only last week, writes a representative of the ■St.-James' Gazette/ my attention was called to ice cream dangers from-a rather different standpoint—that o-f the authorities themselves. In St. Olave's district, -South war k, a. vendor was summoned for adulteration, and the magistrate dismissed the case on the ground that the Act(Food and Drugs Act)did not apply.- Whether the Public Health Act could be used is doubtful, and the position therefore is that these unwashed immigrants can deal in death at a halfpenny a glass and that all the power of the British Constitution cannot touch them. 'DEATH IN THE POT.' To ascertain whether death really does lurk in the leaden or zinc pots of the ice cream barrow, I have consulted three witnesses-the clerk to the St. Saviour's (South wark) Guardians; Dr. Harris, medical officer of health for Islington; and Dr Klein, the great bacteriologist. The first of these gentlemen has written to the Home Secretary, officially drawing his attention to the situation, and he generally confirms me as to the legal difficulties in the way of dealing with these foreign poison sellers. Dr. Harris went more deeply into it from the scientific point of view. The materials used are he told me, generally fairly satisfactory, even the eggs being passably fresh. The dangers lie (1) in the surroundings where the stuff is made and kept- (2) in the water used- for washing glasses, etc.; and (3) in the towels and rags for the same purpose. I may pass over a. case of food being actually seized under the bed of a patient suffering from acute typhus, as exceptional; but it is unhappily common for these Italians, whose homes and persons are foul and whose habits are filthy, to keep the ice cream from day to day in their domestic ■ dens. Dr. Harris, , too,, made another . unpleasant revelation. Egg shells unbroken, have a marketable value as targets in rifle galleries. Theice cream maker, therefore, never breaks an egg- but blows it with his mouth, regardless of the fact that his lips are often infected with terrible diseases.

BILLIONS Of 1 BACILLI.

As to the microbes and bacilli, let Dr. Klein's report, which lies before me, speak. He had under examination 6 sam-ples-four of water and two of cream ices—taken from barrows in North London. In No. 1 sample the microscope showed a large number of almost uncountable colonies of bacteria in a fraction of a droplet. 'The number of colonies of bac. coli (a normal Inhabitant of excremental matter) is not inferior to to that obtained from sewage.' No. 2 contains an enormous number of Bacteria: l-200th part of one cubic centimetre used for plate cultivation, yielded several thousand colonies.' Among these were bac. coli again, the microbe of putrid decomposition (proteus vulg.) — and sundry sewage microbes, 'from wfiich says Dr. Klein, 'I conclude that this sample was practically the same as sewage.' In No. 3 the predominating microbe was the microbe of putrid decomposition; and in No. 4 a streptococcus of which the analyst could not at the moment say what the species was, as the examination was not finished. Sample 5, which Dr. Klein describes as 'a thick yellowish white gluey material,' was rich in our old friend bac. coli, and another beast closely resembling the bacillus of typhoid—'at any rate it belonged to the same family.' The last sample, 'a yellow frothy soft material of the consistency of thick paste' is equally happy in being inhabited by 'an extraordinary number of colonies' of ,the putrid decomposition microbe, and a non-lique-fying bacillus of the typhoid family*