Science and the Criminal

by C. Ainsworth Mitchell

As was mentioned above, the whole tendency of recent legal decisions is towards enforcing this standard. For instance, in a case in which there had been “an appeal to the cow,” it was held by the present Lord Chief Justice that: “If, however, the article produced, although it is produced by the cow, is the result of an abnormal condition of things arising either from disease, or, as here, from unsound treatment of the cow, I think that does amount to evidence upon which the magistrates can find the article is not of the nature, substance, and quality of the article demanded.”

A want of system characterises the whole administration of the Food and Drugs Act, and many of the local authorities are unwilling to see that an adequate number of samples are taken.

For instance, only a few years ago, Lancashire, with a population of over a million and a half, was content with 1,755 samples, or one to each 10,000 people, while in Essex, with a population of over half a million, the samples taken were 686.

In Bury St. Edmunds no samples at all were taken during the four years ending 1899, and a similar lax administration of the law in many other places might be cited.

Some places pride themselves upon their freedom from adulteration, because out of the paltry number of samples taken by the inspectors, a quarter of the number or less may have been adulterated.

Even when the limited number of samples is properly taken, there is often a scandalous inadequacy and frequent inequalities in the amount of fine inflicted.

For instance, a milkman was fined one shilling at Margate for the sale of watered milk—a fine grossly inadequate to take away temptation; while in other courts we find fines of a pound or more imposed for exactly the same offence.

The remedy for this would be to have a fixed scale of fines for each offence. Another direction in which legislation is needed is the protection of the middle-class buyer. At the present time a shopman runs little or no risk in selling adulterated food to private houses. And the greater the vigilance of the local authority in protecting the buyer over the counter, the greater is the temptation to the shopkeeper to make an illicit profit out of ordered goods. Some means might well be provided for the examination of purchases in transit.

As a rule, the public is apathetic in the matter of adulteration, and errors of judgment, frequently inevitable under the present system, on the part of the analyst have led to his being regarded as the natural enemy of the tradesman.

If some system of standardisation for food products were generally adopted, leaving the burden of proof of the genuineness of abnormal samples upon the seller, and if the element of chance in the administration of the law were reduced, this prejudice on the part of tradesmen in general would disappear, although with the dishonest dealer the public analyst would become more unpopular than in the past.