HC Deb 23 June 1898 vol 59 cc1222-3
SIR H. MAXWELL (Wigton)

I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to recent deaths of children owing, as is alleged, to their having eaten so-called "ice creams" sold by Italians in. the streets; whether he is aware that several samples of these creams have been reported on by Dr. Klein to the effect that all of them were swarming with colonies of the bacilli characteristic either of sewage matter or putrescence, or both; whether, in addition, attention has been, drawn to the danger of mouth-to-mouth infection to children sucking ices successively out of the same glass; and whether the provisions of the Public Health Acts and the Food and Drugs Acts are inefficient to control or prohibit the sale of poisonous compounds such as these ices?

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD (Mr. H. CHAPLIN,) Lincolnshire, Sleaford

My attention has been drawn to this subject, and I am aware of the fact that two children recently suffered from vomiting and diarrhœa after eating ice cream, one of them dying, and that the coroner's jury attributed the death to the consumption of ice creams. I understand that Dr. Klein in 1894 made some investigations for one of the London vestries of specimens of water and ice cream submitted to him, and that he discovered numerous organisms. As to the third question, the practice referred to is obviously objectionable, but I have no evidence of actual' mischief having resulted. I am advised that these ices would come within the provisions of the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, section 47, and also under the Public Health Acts Amendment Act, 1890, where that Act has been adopted. But I am making further inquiries into the circumstances of these lamentable occurrences, and if it should prove to me necessary I shall have to consider whether any, and what, alterations of the law may be desirable.

SIR H. MAXWELL

May I ask the right honourable Gentleman whether he has considered the question of regarding these so-called ice creams as dairy products, and therefore subjecting the premises in which they are prepared to inspection in the same way as dairies?

THE PRESIDENT OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT BOARD

I should be sorry to regard them as in the nature of dairies, but there is no doubt from what I know that the conditions under which these ices are produced are discreditable in the extreme.

MR. J. LOWTHER (Kent, Thanet)

Is the right honourable Gentleman aware that these articles are made and purveyed by aliens?

[No Reply.]