PAINTED MEAT.

Gisborne Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1566, 23 September 1905, Page 4

PAINTED MEAT.

A San Francisco Police Magistrate told a butcher who was brought before him that he must choose once for all what trade he would follow—that of a butcher or that of a landscape artist; but that he must not mix the. two. The humorous rebuke was occasioned (writes the correspondent of the Age) by the discovery that he had painted his meat with dyes in order to make it look as if just; cut. A raid on the butchers was then ordered by the Board of Health, and of 147 samples of meat seized 122 were found to have been treated with some sort of preservative or dye.. In many places marked “preservaline’’and “ freezen” Were discovered, also liquids containing coal tar dyes. Sixteen of the samples had been treated with coal tar dye, 18 with starch and sodium sulphite, 6 with nitrates, and only 25 were pure moat products. The names of all the offending butchers were sent to the police authorities, with instructions to prosecute if the conditions did not change. In San Francisco many sanitary measures are taken that are notjthought of elsewhere. Forinstance, the Board of Education has recently prohibited the use of slates and pencils in the city schools. “ The übo of slates and pencils in|thepublic sohools,” states the Board, “ is recognised by the medical profession as injurious to the personal hygiene of the individual pupil, especially when, said slates and pencils come in contact with the lips, tongue, and oral cavity of the pupils ; and an interchange of slates and pencils among the different pupils is constantly taking place, by reason of which the germs of communicable diseases are. frequently transferred from pupil to pupil.” Lead pencils and paper will in future be used instead of slates and pencils.