Trade Frauds in Sheffield

Feilding Star, Volume VIII, Issue 69, 11 December 1886, Page 3

Trade Frauds in Sheffield

For some time past a committee of the Sheffield Town Council has been holding an enquiry into allegations of practices carried on by some local merchants and manufacturers calcul- j ated to seriously endanger the reputation of the town and to affect its trade. The result of twelve sittings is that they have adopted a report showing that every charge had been proved with the exception of two, upon which no evidence was offered. The proved allegations were that German cutlery and tools are largely imported into the warehouses of the If Sheffield merchants and manufacturers; that while some of these are again sent out as confessedly of German make, others are sent out as kSheffield ■ make by means of false descriptions on the goods themselves, or by cards or labels, and that large numbers of retail tradesmen and other consumers buy the German goods thus sent out under the impression they are Shtsfiiold made. Other allegations were that goods of a low quality were manufactured in Sheffield, and by means of false descriptions were represented to be of a quality they did not possess. These charges, too, the Committee will report to have been proved. In order to put a stop to such practices they have recommended the Council to petition in favor of Mr Mundella's Trade-mark Bill.