CRIME DETECTORS

Greymouth Evening Star, 2 December 1929, Page 4

CRIME DETECTORS

CHEMISTS AND THE CUSTOMS.

An extraordinary record of researches made by one ofthe mostobscure yet none the less highly important departments of the State .is contained in the annual report of the British Government chemists. The Government chemist is Sir Robert Robertson, whose department is situated in a building which is daily passed by hundreds of Londoners, vers few of whom are aware of the btate work in progress there. Half a million samples of remarkable variety came before the chemist and his staff during- the year. They included foodstuffs of all kinds, the clothes of a murdered man, postage stamps, poison and material excavated from a ruined abbey. All other Government departments send articles to the chemist, the Colom ial Office imposing an additional task by sending candidates for posts in the colonies to be examined. in technical knowledge.

Large sums of money have been saved for the State through researches made for the Customs and Excise Departments. Dutiable percentages of alcohol were traced in herbal beer and ginger beer and illicitly distilled spirits were identified. Manufacturers received Refunds of nearly £8,000,000 during the year on wood fibres and hair which were found in tobacco offal. The forger and falsifier of accounts are not safe from the searching eye of the Government chemist.- Under the regulations relating to the duty on betting, approved account books must be kept by bookmakers in order that the amount of duty payable may be ascertained.

Bookmakers’ alterations in their entries were discovered when the books were submitted to the scrutiny of the chemist’s department, and in many cases even the original'...entries were uncovered.

The public has, in many cases, been saved from victimisation in the matter of adulterated foods and patent medicines; Some surprising disclosures were made in this fie)d >of research. For example, out of 800 samples of butter, fifteen were found to contain 50 per cent, of fat other than butterfat, while certain specimens of cheese revealed a proportion of more than 50 per cent, of water.

Valuable work was done by the laboratories in salvaging radium salt from discarded gun sights. About 510 milligrams, were recovered from the luminous paint, reconditioned and retubed for research purposes. As the price of radium is about £l2 a milligram, the department saved the country more than £6OOOl