Report upon the law relating to the adulteration of food and suggestions as to its amendment / by Charles Alfred Swinburne.

  • Manchester and Salford Sanitary Association.
Date:
1862
Catalogue details

Licence: Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

Credit: Report upon the law relating to the adulteration of food and suggestions as to its amendment / by Charles Alfred Swinburne. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    6/8 (page 6)
    0 and then follow certain other clauses as to appeals under the act, application of fines, &c., more or less incidental to every act of a simi¬ lar nature and not affecting the main points, namely, the adulteration— its proof and its punishment. Having thus directed attention to the law as it now exists, it re¬ mains to show where the act for preventing adulteration of articles of food and drink fails, and how it may be amended. The first section of the present act embraces two descriptions of offences, the one the adulteration of articles of food or drink with in¬ gredients or materials injurious to the health, and the other the selling as pure or unadulterated articles which are adulterated. I am of opinion that a distinction should be made between the offence of selling an article which is adulterated with substances injurious to the health of the consumer, and an article which is adulterated, but which adul¬ teration is not injurious to the health ; and that, as the former offence is the more grave, the penalty should be in proportion. The present act fails signally in its operation, inasmuch as it requires the prose¬ cutor to prove that the adulterated article has been so adulterated with the knowledge of the vendor. This is morally impossible, for, in most instances, the vendor may not have adulterated the article at all, or only partially adulterated it, and in the event of the adultera¬ tion being that of the retail vendor, he will of course avoid giving any publicity to such adulteration. The act, therefore, to be of any force should not require such know¬ ledge of adulteration to be proved, but that the selling of an adul¬ terated article should be sufficient in itself to bring the vendor within the pale of the lawr. It may be urged, in opposition to this sug¬ gestion, that such a measure would entail much injustice upon persons selling such articles, who were themselves guiltless of the adultera¬ tion ; but the law might easily provide against such cases by giving the magistrate a discretion enabliug him to caution the offender upon a first or second conviction, and, if he was really innocent of the offence charged against him, he would of course look to the wholesale vendor of such article, and hold him accountable for such adulteration.