IS “BERMALINE” BREAD?

Rangitikei Advocate and Manawatu Argus, Volume XXXIII, Issue 9100, 20 March 1908, Page 7

IS “B E R MAL INE ” BREAD?

Is “bermaline” bread?; and If not, why not?. The question was put to theucArbitration Court on Wednesday. A firm of pastrycooks, which makes small quantities of “bermaline” and milk bread, was brought before the court on two informations, with a view to testing the question whether the firm was amenable to the bakers’ award. Mr Kellow (president of the New Zealand Master Bakers’ Association) appeared for the pastrycooks, and endeavoured to show that ‘‘bermaline” was not bread; neither was “milk bread” bread. The court was obviously getting into a tangle, and Mr Andrew Collins (who was at one time a master baker) stepped into the witness-box to shed light on the position. His evidence chiefly consisted of a reminder to the court that it had settled the point at Palmerston North two years ago. The president promptly intimated that the court had no desire or necessity to be reminded of its decisions by a witness, and^ pointedly asked the inspector why he thought it was necessary to put a ‘‘witness” in the box to quote a decision of the court? Mr Collins retired to the body of the court quite oblivions'"to the gentle rebuke. Meantime Mr Kellow had quietly insinuated a loaf of “bermaline” on the judge’s desk. “Try it. your Honor,” he pleaded: “I would like you to try thsiit loaf.” “Try it?” responded Mr Justice Sim in absolute bewilderment. “What way?”' “Eat it!” Mr Kellow pathetically requested. The roar of laughter which followed was drowned by a stentorian demand for “silence!” But Mr Samuel Brown, the employers’ representative on the court, was not averse to experimenting with the “hennaline” loaf. He modestly broke a piece off, smelt it and lasted it, without discovering a solution of the difficulty. Aa a last resort, and in view of the fact that the bakers’ dispute Is to be heard at the present sittings of the court, the case was ordered to stand down. “Bermaline” may yet be proved to be a vegetable. —Post.