WEEKEND WEB: Separate the wheat from the chaff
Alfred Freeman was charged with using wheat for a purpose other than for the manufacture of food.
Freeman, of Holbeach, pleaded not guilty to the charge at Holbeach Police court.
Supt Burton conducted the prosecution and Mr J C Harrisson was for the defence. The proceedings were taken under the Defence of the Realm Act andthe contention of the prosecution that the flour in question, which was used for pig food.
It was fit for human consumption if mixed with other flour.
Inspector Page said on the date mentioned, he visited Freeman’s premises and saw the meal in a bin and also corn in a pig trough. he took a fair sample and divided it into three and left one with Freeman.
George Clow, corn factor, in the employ of Messrs Birch & Son, Spalding, said that the sample of flour the police produced, taken a month ago, was in good condition and suitable for human consumption and quite fair for making bread if mixed withother flour.
There was no other ingredient and would pass for ordinary standard flour.
Mr Brown, a baker of Holbeach, said he thought the sample was food for human consumption and Mr Herbert Arthur White, baker of Spalding, corroborated the evidence given.
The defence was that the flour had been sold by Dr Sutcliffe, of Long Sutton, (who had used some of it for bread and found it to be uneatable) to Mr Edward Jenkins, baker, of Long Sutton.
Mr Jenkins, said he baked pure Hovis bread and used this for about a week and received such complaints from is customers, who refused to have an more brown bread, that he sold it to Freeman, who was in the habit of purchasing offals of him for pig food.
The Bench retired and onreturning, the chairman said they had carefully considered the case amd the evidence as so conflicting the charge was dismissed.
PICTURE: Many of the casualties in the great German Offensive ae happily ‘light’ cases. Here are three of our wounded men leaving a Casualty Clearing Station just behind the battle front.