IMPORTANT BUTTER CASE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLI, Issue 8538, 19 March 1908, Page 7

IMPORTANT BUTTER CASE.

LONDON. January 24.' At Croydon Police Court on Saturday, James Price, of Sydenham Iload, appeared in answer to 11 summonses charging him with unlawfully selling to the Croydon Board of Guardians casks of butter to which a trade mark was falsely applied within tho meaning of tho Merchandise Marks Act, 1887, such trade mark being the trade mark of tho Danish Butter Producers' Company, dulty registered. Mr Macmorran, K.C., and Mr Jionsoy appeared for tho prosecutioln, instructed by tiho solicitors to the Danish Government; Mr Geo. Elliott defended. , , ,

Mr Macmorran said that in September last the defendant entered rnto a contract \vith the guardians of the Croydon Union for the supply of goods, including Danish butter at Is per lb. Some casks were supplied. One of the officers, being rather doubtful as to whether tho butter was Danish, telephoned to the defendant tolling him that all subsequent deliveries must be in casks with the staves bearing the Danish butter brand. The Danish Government had registered in this country a trade mark. Every cask was made in a. certain way, and on tho butter itself was a label bearing the mark, which could not bo taken off without disturbing the butter. It was now contrary to the law of Denmark to export any butter not so marked, and it was also marked with the number of the dairy from which it came. Furthermore, the exporter put on the top of the casks shipping numbers, which as far as possible enabled the verv casks to be identified.

Mi* Fag-an. the workhouse infirmary steward, said the casks came marked. "Best selected dairy butter, XXX brand." There was, however, nothing to show that they came from Denmark, In the. delivery note and invoice the butter was described at "1111b Dart, butter." Mr Harold Faber. Agricultural Commissioner to the Danish Government,, in reply to Mr George Elliott, said it was a fact that Denmark ' imported large , quantities of Siberian butter. It, was not imported for the purpose- of sending it to England in Danish .casks. A dairy received a certain number of marked staves, and for every two it received it could export 1 cwt. of butter. The quantity of milk received by a dairy was recorded in a book, and if it exported Siberian butter in Danish casks the number of staves used, which wore officially supplied, .and for which 1 hoy had to account, would be in excess of the number accounted for by the quantity of buteer produced by the dairy. It was not customary to send the me.rked staves back to Denmark from this country. The defendant pleaded guiltv to two technical offences, whereupon the prosecution withdrew all imputations of fraud and the other summonses. For the two technical offences the defendnnt was fined £10 on each summons. £20 in all. and ordered to pay the costs of the prosecution.