This was quite an unprecedented amount of sanitary legislation by Parliament in one year, and is very notable as showing the greater position health matters were assuming in the opinion of the nation, and the greater necessity Parliament felt itself under for dealing with them.
An improvement as regarded the food of the people of the metropolis was also commenced about this time.
The Corporation of the City of London had undertaken to carry out the provisions of Part III. of the Contagious Diseases Animals Act, 1869,[122] and had purchased the site of Deptford Dockyard for the purpose of a cattle market, and for the reception and slaughter of foreign cattle. The market was opened in 1871, and the system of inspection there inaugurated secured the good quality of a great portion of the meat consumed in London.
In the following year (1872) the purity of certain articles of the food and drink of the people engaged the attention of Parliament.
Under the Act of 1860 the Vestries and District Boards might each appoint an analyst, but the great majority of them availed themselves of the permissive character of the Act, and did not appoint one.
A sidelight is thrown upon the effect of this inaction of the local authorities by evidence given in 1862 by a master baker named W. Purvis. He said:--
"When the Act passed for preventing the adulteration of articles of food and drink there was an immediate apprehension among those bakers in the trade who adulterate their bread that they would be liable to have their bread frequently analysed, &c. But when it was found that no sufficient means were provided by the Act to meet the expenses of this kind of active and constant supervision (the purchaser having to pay the analyst), they became confident again, and have resumed their practice of adulteration without any fear of detection."[123]
It was felt now that some further move should be made, and Parliament added another Act for preventing the adulteration of food, drink, and drugs to the long list of those which had gone before.
"Whereas the practice of adulterating articles of food and drink and drugs for sale in fraud of Her Majesty's subjects, and to the great hurt of their health and danger to their lives, requires to be repressed by more effectual laws than those which are now in force for that purpose--