Helps to Honesty.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5068, 29 September 1894, Page 6

Helps to Honesty.

The Parisian tradesmen are probably just as honest as the tradesmen found in other parts of the world, but the municipal authorities of the gay city, remembering that prevention is better than cure, have adopted very searching measures to encourage and sustain the commercial morality of their fellow-townsmen. Nearly fourteen years ago a chemical laboratory waß established for the purpose of gratuitously testing any food stuffs that appeared to be adulterated. A purchaser who wants some particular commodity analysed takes it to the nearest commissionaire of police and obtains a receipt for it. If he only wishes to know whether the food is adulterated or not he does not pay anything ; but if he wants to have a list of the several materials out of which tbe article is composed, and the relative quantities of each, he must deposit a small fee. Every day these packets are collected, aud at the end of a few days they are returned, together with the report of their contents, to the several dep6ts, at which they are claimed by their owners. It the sample is correct there is an end to the matter. If it is adulterated in any sort of way, a couple of inspectors, armed with proper authority and sufficient evidence, visit the shop from which it was bought by the depositor, and seize all the goods they think fit to look upon with suspicion. The goods aro examined by the analytical department, and if a case ia made out the police institute

ri_-M"Mf*»«Mf-__WWM-W_M_-_M«^M M^ MMM^. M^ criminal proceedings against the offending shopkeeper. The punishment meted out tothe seller of adulterated goods rangeß from three months to two yearß' imprisonment, and a copy of the sentence is poßted up on his Bhop-door aa a standing warning to the publio to refrain from buying his goods. A law of this sort, rigorously carried out, conld hardly fail to awaken the conscience of the most dishonest tradesman.