MILK AND—POLLY.

Press, Volume LXV, Issue 13610, 20 December 1909, Page 8

MILK AND—POLLY.

TO THE EDITOR OF "THE PKEU." r Sir, —It is difficult, I know, for ton. dwellers to realise some of the conditions which govern life in the country;' : nevertheless, I -Hrould venture to «gl l. I gest that you might use your povwfal I influence in behalf of many of yoor rural readers by advocating their f>»"nV upon Parliament for at least commonsense legislation with respect to sanitary and hygienio matters. A nxst beneficent law for a city may be ma. 1 oppressive injustice when applied to a ' country district. It is actually go vtUv our miik supply laws. Take my case: My cow has gone $n end my neighbours refuse to supply - with milk because they are not uoautd suppliers. My family have, therefore . to use canned preserved milk imputed • from the other side of the woridTlet the district in which I live is * <!»» trict of butter factories and creamers* < and roost of the people are dairy ftp. mors. I am spending a shilling a£» on preserved milk —till my cow come* in again. '• '~ It is quite proper, of course, to rega* * iate the milk-supply for populous «a« "*-' tres by most stringent laws and regal*., " tions. This is necessary for the public - health. But it does seem absurd thatsmall and scattered country population! - should have to come under the aama "' restrictions—people whose food supply ' " system is totally different from that of . towns. Has it ever occurred to you. that "our babies," for whom the St»te I is manifesting so much concern jusb ' now, have in many country instances '*■ to depend upon canned Swiaj milk for life—and this in butter-producing di»- .■ tricts? And another strange anomaly »'■* is the fact that while-town milk sup. - = pliers are required! to be acrupulously ' clean in their business arrangement*,' country suppliers to.dairy-factories an- i allowed to send in milk from filthy *' stockyards, in some instances where " - foetid; matter and pigs are the environment. A law that makes it »'■ • penal offence for a farmer in a scattered ' - country district to either sell or gn»'"j milk to his neighbour is, verily, a ptae i of "grandmotherly" legislaiwn below *' the dignity of. enlightened and selfrespecting manhood.—Yours, etc. -I JUSTICE.