No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 89 



LICENSES AND PLACARDS MUST BE DISPLAYED. 



Complaints are reaching this office to the effect that certain parties selling 

 renovated butter and oleomargarine neglect to properly display the required 

 placards announcing that such products are being sold or served at their re- 

 spective business places. The laws specifically provide that every restaurant 

 proprietor or boarding-house keeper who furnishes such articles with meals 

 must be licensed and display cards stating that such imitation dairy products 

 are being served to the guests or boarders. Dealers selling such goods must 

 also place the license certificates and signs, showing that they are selling such 

 goods, in a conspicuous place in the place of business, room, or storeroom, 

 where such product is authorized to be sold. 



The special agents of the Dairy and Food Division have been instructed to 

 make a careful investigation throughout their districts and to report all delin- 

 quents. The regular license certificate and cards must always be placed so 

 that they can readily be seen by the patrons as well as the State officials who 

 may have occasion to visit the dealers. The matter of distinctly branding 

 each and every package or parcel containing oleomargarine or renovated butter 

 before handing or delivering the same to a customer, dare not be ignored, and 

 dealers who do not strictly comply with this provision of the laws are amen- 

 able to arrest and the imposition of a heavy fine. 



DUTIES OF CONSTABLES DEFINED BY DAIRY LAWS. 



It is the duty of constables to assist in the proper enforcement of the oleo- 

 margarine and renovated butter laws of Pennsylvania. Every constable in 

 any city, borough, ward or township, having knowledge of any violations of 

 the aforesaid acts is in duty bound, either upon his own initiative, or whenever 

 requested so to do by the Dairy and Food Commissioner, his agents or attor- 

 neys, or by any citizen of the Commonwealth, to make report to the Court of 

 Quarter Sessions of the proper county, as part of his quarterly report, of the 

 name of every person, firm or corporation known by him to have violated any 

 of the provisions of these acts, and of the names of all witnesses furnished 

 to said constable whose testimony it is alleged will sustain and prove the fact 

 of such violation. The acts further provide that it shall be the duty of the 

 judge of the said court to make inquiry of all constables at the time of making 

 the quarterly returns as to whether they have knowledge, and whether any 

 notice has been given to them, respectively, of any violations of this act, in 

 accordance with the terms and meaning of these laws. Where violations are 

 reported, the district attorney shall be instructed to have prompt measures 

 instituted to secure the early indictment and pimishment of the offenders. 



In one or two instances, such violations were reported, and the courts 

 imposed the usual sentence; but the Dairy and Food authorities desire a still 

 closer co-operation in the difficult work of stamping out entirely violations 

 of the oleomargarine and renovated butter acts. 



OLEOMARGARINE PROHIBITED IN CHARITABLE AND PENAL INSTI- 

 TUTIONS. 



The Michigan boards of control of the State prisons, in a spirit of economy, 

 desired to use oleomargarine in the place of butter, estimating a yearly saving 

 of at least $40,000. This apparent saving appealed to the boards, and they were 

 preparing to take action when some rural legislator called th.eir attention to 

 the fact that a law had been passed and was still in force making it a felony 

 to use oleomargarine or similar products in State charitable institutions. This 

 being the case, the management of many institutions wisely decided not to 

 use the substitute for butter. 



A similar law is upon the Pennsylvania statutes, and that it is being fully 

 enforced, oleomargarine dealers will readily testify. The legality of the act 

 was disputed, but the courts and the Attorney General sustained its validity 

 and the sale of oleom.argarine to such institutions is therefore strictly pro- 

 hibited. Officials who had been guilty of serving certain institutions with 

 oleomargarine were convicted and fined, although they made a strong defense 

 in court. 



Knowledge had reached the Dairy and Food Bureau to the effect that some 

 of the largest public institutions were secretly making contracts for large quan- 

 tities of oleomargarine for the use of the inmates, but these contracts were 

 annulled before the delivery of the goods, consequently no prosecution was 

 possible. They are under surveillance, but it is not at all probable that the 

 contracts will be carried out. The official list shows that there are about 500 

 institutions in Pennsylvania receiving more or less State aid, and all of these 

 are under the ban in consequence of the prohibitory regulation, and cannot 

 legally feed oleomargarine to the Inmate*. 



