Town MiJh. 
letter of one recently in the trade who has had the host oppor- 
tunity of forming an opinion. He says : — 
" I suppose it is allowed on all sides that the London milk trade is not what 
it should be, and that very little pure milk is sold, especially to the pooi'. 
Before attempting to remedy this great evil the causes must be ascertained. 
With the poor, milk is a necessary more than a luxury ; and, if pure, it is a most 
valuable article of food. As sold to the poor it yields a much greater 
profit than to the upper classes, as the former nearly always 'fetch' it them- 
selves, and thereby save the milkman the expense of distribution, which at a 
West-end shop costs about Jd. a quart for a wide-sj^read business, and 
id. for a compact one: and besides this, the rent in a poor district is so 
much lower. But in spite of all this the poor are the worst served, and the 
reason is that the trade among them has fallen into the hands of such very 
* small' men, who sell so little, that the business cannot yield a maintenance 
without help from the ' cow with the iron tail.' These same small men cannot 
contract with a country farmer for his milk, and therefore are in the hands of 
the wholesale dealers. The wholesale dealers, again, give only so low a price 
to the farmer that he in his turn, to make it pay, must add a little water. 
" And if you go below the labouring class to paupers : they are treated worst 
of all. We have tendered for five or six workhouses at a price which would 
have given us a profit of less than one farthing a quart, and yet we have not been 
accepted. Tenders of Is. M. a barn gallon (8 quarts) have been accepted, or 
4c?. a barn gallon less than our milk now costs us at our shop ; and we are 
only paying the market value of pure milk in large quantities. We have had 
men in attendance at the opening of the tenders, and it was evident that it was 
all settled beforehand who was to have the contracts, as the outsiders knew 
well before it was announced. The fact that a dealer offered to buy a large 
quantity of our ' skim,' avowedly to supjily a workhouse contract for ' new,' 
shows what the paupers really get. 
" Next, as regards the upper." classes, the expense of distribution is so great 
that only a very small margin is left for profit on each quart ; but, on the other 
hand, the businesses are generally large. The bar to the sale of pure milk among 
the better classes is the system of percentages to servants. They all expect 
5 per cent, on the gross amount of their master's bills, and this is just about 
what would be net profit on an honestly-conducted West-end business. If 
this is not paid the milkman is ' worked out.' So, to avoid this unpleasant 
process, he commences by adding water sufficient to pay this tax, and as that 
seems to jiay well he soon doubles the quantity. We lose two or three 
customers a week from the servants, but we continually get more new ones, as 
•pwre milk will draw in spite of all this, 
" The different causes which I have enumerated above have gradually made 
the milk trade one of the most dishonest in London, and I believe few in it now 
ever make the effort to be honest. 
" I have forgotten to mention one of the most rascally tricks of it, which 
deserves exposure. I mean the selling cream in quantities short of imperial 
measiu'e. When we began our business we were forced to have cream-cans 
of correct measure made on i)urpose, as tlie tinman assured us that no dairy- 
man in London sold cream except in measures 25 per cent, short, and conse- 
quently he had no others. We have found this to be true by measuring 
the cans of many other dealers. The milk, however, is sold in proper 
measures." 
I now turn to what may be called the agricultural side of my 
subject. 
