16 REPORT OF THE No. 55 



"BULK" MILK AT THE CORNER STORE. 



The great percentage of milk used in the city is delivered to the door of the 

 consumer in bottles conveyed in covered wagons, except in the case of hotels, res- 

 taurants and such large customers, who are supplied in cans'. In addition, how- 

 ever, milk is offered for sale in "bulk" at many stores. One such store visited was 

 neat and clean and sold only dairy products milk, cream, butter, etc. Such stores 

 are exceptions and as' a rule the milk is sold along with groceries, vegetables, fruit, 

 fish and all articles usually dispensed in a general purpose store. These stores 

 are located in such congested districts as "the Ward" and in the outskirts as 1 well. 

 In many cases an effort is made to keep the milk pail in a separate compartment 

 of a more or less cool refrigerator, but in others even this precaution was lacking. 

 The milk is dipped out in small quantities of pints and half pints and carried 

 away very frequently in open vessels. It can easily be seen that especially in the 

 hot weather this system may be a grave menace to health. Each time the dipper 

 goes into the pail, it is almost inevitable that it must carry contamination from 

 the odors and dust of the surrounding atmosphere, and it is not surprising that 

 the bacteria count of such milk invariably runs into the millions. Enquiry among 

 the dealers elicited the fact that the milk is kept for sale in small quantities not so 

 much because of profit as because of convenience to customers. People came in to 

 buy milk and remained to buy something else. The housewife who ran short of milk 

 in the evening, the extremely poor who could not afford to buy in large quantities, 

 alike found the corner grocery milk supply a convenience, and in appreciation of 

 this, or because of lack of knowledge, they were prepared to take the risk and inci- 

 dentally feed it to their infants. At the same time several expressed a willingness 

 to stop selling entirely if the prohibition was general. 



VIEWS OF RETAIL MILK DEALERS. 



An important factor in the milk question in Toronto is the retail milk dealers. 

 With very rare exceptions, they are not producers, but equally with the producers 

 they are the custodians of the health of the citizens in as far as that health may 

 be affected by the milk supply. Like the producer also, they have a large amount 

 of capital invested and are vitally concerned in the proper carrying on of the busi- 

 ness. Realizing that their experience would be of value, we took advantage of 

 every opportunity offered to acquaint ourselves with their side of the question. In 

 addition to discussing the matter informally with the proprietors and others at 

 many of the places visited, we conferred with the representatives of the Milk 

 Dealers' Section of the Retail Merchants' Association. The Committee was com- 

 posed as follows': R. W. Dockeray, Chairman; A. Anderson, R. H. Pill, J. B. 

 Dunlop, J. H. Lock and E. M. Trowern, Secretary. The questions of inspection, 

 standard, selling only in bottles in sbops, pasteurization and other points were dis- 

 cussed, and tho Committee later formally set down its views as" follows: 



"How would you suggest that a proper system of inspection should be carried 

 out and improvements made thereby? 



"We would suggest that each producer be licensed in the municipality to which 

 he sends the milk, for the purpose of keeping track of them, and that said license 

 be granted after an inspection has been made and a permit issued by the Medical 

 Health Officer of the municipality to which the milk is consigned, and if you deem 

 it advisable to place any more reasonable restrictions on the retail distributors' 

 premises, we offer no objection. The first step, however, is to see that the milk 



