26 FOOD LAWS OF THE UNITED KINGDOM. 



a notice by a label distinctly and legibly written or printed on or with the article or 

 drug, to the effect that the same is mixed. 



9. Abstraction of part of an article of food before sale. No person shall, with the intent 

 that the same may be sold in its altered state without notice, abstract from an article 

 of food any part of it so as to affect injuriously its quality, substance, or nature, and no 

 person shall sell any article so altered without making disclosure of the alteration, 

 under a penalty in each case not exceeding twenty pounds. 

 - 



PRINCIPAL OFFENSES. 



These offenses are well condensed by Bell, Scrivener, and Lloyd in 

 their book, The Sale of Food and Drugs Acts, 1875 to 1899, fourth 

 edition, on pages 32 et seq., of the introduction, which read as follows: 



PRINCIPAL OFFENCES. 



(1) (a) The mixing of injurious ingredients with any article of food or drug sold or 

 intended to be sold (sections 3 and 4). 



(b) The selling of any article so mixed (sections 3 and 4). 

 (2) (i) The selling of any article of food or drug which 



(a) is inferior in nature, substance, and quality to the article demanded by the 

 purchaser (section 6). 



(b) being a compounded article of food or drug, is not compounded in accordance 

 with the demands of the purchaser (section 7). 



(ii) (a) The abstraction from any article of food sold or intended to be sold or any 

 part of it, so as to affect injuriously its quality, nature or substance, without making 

 disclosure of the alteration (section 9). 



(b) The selling of any article so altered (section 9). 



The main differences between the two classes of offences are, that in the case of (1) it 

 must be shown that the article is injurious to health (or, if it be a drug, that its quality 

 or potency has been injuriously affected), whereas in the case of (2) the fact that the 

 addition, abstraction, or whatever it may have been was harmless, is immaterial; that 

 in the case of (1) guilty knowledge is an essential element of the offence, whereas in 

 (2) it is not; and that the penalty under (1) is, of course, much heavier. 



That offences of the first class are comparatively rare nowadays, is shown by the 

 following extract from the report of the Select Committee of 1894-1896: 



"There is reason to think that the adulteration of food with substances injurious 

 to health has diminished greatly during recent years. Proceedings have rarely been 

 taken under Section 3 of the Sale of Food and Drugs Act, 1875, in respect of this class 

 of offences. No doubt this may partly be accounted for by the fact that it would in 

 no case be an easy matter to obtain convictions under the section referred to, because 

 it is necessary to prove that the adulteration is dangerous to health, and that the 

 person charged with the adulteration has guilty knowledge of the same. Moreover, 

 it is to be borne in mind that the punishments which may be inflicted for offences of 

 this character are more severe than those imposed by the provisions of the Act which 

 relate to adulteration with harmless substances. But whatever may be the cause of 

 the diminution of this description of offences, it is satisfactory to note the same." 



For the second class of offences, section 6 is the all-important section, and under 

 it the bulk of the prosecutions under the Sale of Food and Drugs Acts are instituted. 

 Although its provisions have been made the subject matter of a number of reported 

 cases, the tendency of the decisions throughout has been to widen, rather than to 

 curtail, its scope. It is now well recognized that the primary object of these acts is 

 not so much the punishment of those who deserve to be punished, as the protection 

 of the public at large, and, therefore, the seller of an adulterated article is liable to '< 



