BAD STRAWBERRIES

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 139, 9 December 1921, Page 8

BAD STRAWBERRIES

-"MAKING TRADESMEN CAREFUL."

' About this time of the year strawberries command a high, price, but it is not always that the berries at the bottom of the chips are sound. ' At the Court this morning L. Clewer, fruiterer, of Willis-street, was charged! with.'selling unwholesome fruit.

. Evidence was called by the police that 'on a recent Monday a boy named Rit;;chie went to defendant's shop and, purchased for 2s a box of strawberries, •which were intended as a birthday present for his mother. When he got home it was found that the strawberries on the bottom of the box were bad, and the ;boy was sent back to change them.. One or two of the strawberries were changed, and the boy went home again with the box. The motner was not satisfied, and herself took the box back in the evening, but was met with a refusal to change them, so, she complained to the police, who laid the prosecution. • Mr. W. E. Leicester appeared for the defendant, and for the defence it was stated by Mrs. Clewer that the strawberries were perfectly sound when she 'first sold them early in the afternoon. ;The strawberries had come from Auckland, and -were kept in the ice chest over the week-end. , " I am very glad' that Mrs. Ritchie took the steps Bhe did," remarked Mr. F. K. Hunt, S.M., after hearing the evidence. " I wish more people would do the same. There is a natural obligation on people selling food to see that it is fit .to eat. Many people are too apt to pasa anything on to children, and the parents don't doanything.. I am quite satisfied ,that this box of strawberries jwas bad when it was sold.V

*■ Defendant -was fined £3, with £1< 6s "costs. "That will make tradesmen a little careful," observed his Worship.