Friday, June 2, 2006

  • 100 years ago
    Inquiries showed that the Local Government Board were alive to the necessity of safeguarding the British consumers of American preserved meats from the danger of unwholesome consignments getting onto the market. The supplies of canned meat that were exported to this country by the United States had all been submitted to the inspection of the Bureau of Animal Industry in New York, and the cases all bore labels certifying that they had been passed by the inspectors. The carcase of every beast as it came along passed under the critical eye of these inspectors, who would be quick to detect signs of disease. Once the carcase had passed the inspector it was not submitted to examination again; it went into the factory to be turned into canned meat, box meat, potted meat, meat extract, etc. It was impracticable, added a British official, to make any very effective inspection of canned meat on its arrival in this country. Only a protracted analytical examination with the microscope and chemical experiments could determine if the meat were from a diseased carcase. "In these circumstances, what are the Board to do?" asked the official. "We cannot issue instructions to prohibit the importation of all preserved meats; nor can we order our sanitary inspectors to condemn all the canned meat from America because a novel has been written describing practices in the factories."
  • 50 years ago
    They were telling a whale of a tale in Scarborough this morning, but it was a true one, for a 30-feet black whale became almost stranded by the tide in Scarborough's south bay. The whale dived and spouted, rolled in the water and gathered a fair-sized crowd, who watched its antics from the sea front and harbour. In rowing boats, a couple of fishermen cautiously kept track of it as it headed seawards in ever-increasing circles. The whale left as breezily as it had arrived, in a good temper, blowing water. As it swam out and became smaller, its size steadily increased as people who had seen it told the tale to their friends. Old fishermen could not remember seeing a whale in the south bay before, but they thought it might have got into the bay looking for salmon.
  • 25 years ago
    There could be few people who wouldn't have a tinge of regret if bus conductors disappeared altogether. And this was just what was happening. At the present rate of progress, there would be no such thing as a bus conductor, with a few isolated exceptions, in five years' time. Pressure of competition, rising wage bills and costs, and falling numbers of passengers combined to persuade bus companies to go over to OMO buses one-man operation.