DISHONEST MILK.

Press, Volume LXVII, Issue 14099, 19 July 1911, Page 8

DISHONEST MILK.

' The persons who wero charged at the Magistrate's Cotlrt yesterday with selling milk to which water had been added may congratulate themselves on having escaped very lightly. One, who admitted that the milk he sold contained 20 per cent, of water, was fined £3, and in tho other case, in which the milk was adulterated to tho amount of only 11 per cent., the Bench thought the requirements of justice were mot by a, fine of £2. It waa I urged on behalf of ono of the def end- [ ants, if not of both of them, and was, no doubt, a mitigating circumstance, that the milk was bought from a third party. If this is so, an action for damages should lie against the supplier. But in any case that diid not affect the retail seller's liability. The Salo of Foods and Drugs Act re- , verses the old proverb, "Caveat [ emptor," or rather, it makes tho.warning applicable to the vendor as well as the purchaser. The latter has still te take care, in his own interest, that iho gets what he pays for and, as far as he can, that no adulterated stuff is palmed off on him; th© former has to remember that the law provides penalties for tho retailer of adulterated food, as well as for the adulterator. There can bo few worse offences against the community than the sale of food the nutritive value of which has been reduced without tho knowledge of the buyer, and this applies particularly to the sdle' of milk, so largely the food of infants and young children. Milkadulteration is, as a Sydney paper remarked tho other day, attack upon the cradle portion of the community, and it went on to deplore the ridiculous lenity with which some of the country magistrates of New South Wales treated the offence. In Sydney itself .where a few years ago this cruel form of fraud was rife, the magistrates i took full advantage of the powers given them hy the Pure Food Act of j 1908, and inflicted such fines upon fraudulent milk-vendors as convinced tho latter of the error of their ways. When they realised that it cost more to pay the fines than they could make by watering their milk, tbe latter practice wfls dropped. In the country, however, the grossest adulteration is penalised by a very moderate fine. The President', of tho Board of Health of New Soifih Wtiles quoted recently the case of ten milkmen, five in each of two neighbouring townships, who were charged with adding water te milk, In one batch of five sample?, the added water ranged from 12 J per cent, to almost 60 per cent., while in the ! other lot the adulteration represented j from 3.7 per cent, to 31 per cent, pf water. Two cases of the ten were dismi£sed because the magistrate, in face of the evidence of adulteration, expressed the opinion that the men were honest traders; seven of the defendants were fined £2 eaph, including one whose milk contained 20 per cent, ot water j the tenth map, who had added nearly of water, had to pay as much as £3, Tho fine is not, of course, the pnly penalty that a milkman convicted of such an offence has to pay; he must expect loss of custom among those >vho know of his offence. But that js hnrdly sufficient, for he can presumably dispose of his, milk .in other ways, We do not know how far the Australian fines we have quoted fall short of the maximum, which should have been Inflicted in some cases, but in New Zealand the maximum is pet at £20, and that i& not top high wb§B om ©on*J4ers

tho vital interests involved in the supply of pure food andpurejmili-