SEA-FISHERIES LABORATORY. 437 



and again in November, On most of these occasions I 

 made bacteriological analyses of mussels and sea-water 

 collected from the beds. 



The question of the contamination of the local 

 mussel beds has become an important one again, for these 

 reasons: — (1) The action of the Market Authorities and 

 Health Authorities in certain towns in excluding, or 

 attempting to exclude, mussels from certain localities. 

 In one case, that of Blackburn, this action has been 

 taken in virtue of special powers conferred on the local 

 authority by a local Act of Parliament. In other cases 

 the local authorities have apparently acted on the 

 assumption that sewage-contaminated shell-fish are to be 

 regarded as articles of food unfit for human consumption, 

 an assumption which, in my opinion, would be very 

 difficult to prove. (2) The action of the Fishmongers' 

 Company in causing analyses of the shell-fish from 

 various local sources. (3) The Report of the late Dr. 

 Bulstrode, in which reference is made to all the shell-fish 

 beds in the Lancashire and Western Sea-Fisheries 

 District. 



All these mussel beds to which reference is here 

 made have already been investigated— some of them very 

 fully. The question of their contamination, which has, 

 apparently, only recently been before the public health 

 authorities, is one with which the Committee has long 

 been familiar, and which they have vainly attempted to 

 bring before the notice of the Legislature during 

 successive Governments, so that it is necessary to explain 

 here why it is again brought before their notice. Also, I 

 wish to take the opportunity of discussing here the present 

 position of affairs as regards the significance of the 

 contamination of shell-fish by sewage matters : I mean 

 the general scientific question. 2a It is now almost ten 



