Galway In Days Gone By

1920

Watered down charges

At Galway Petty Sessions on Monday, before Mr. Kilbride, R.M., Sergeant McCaffrey charged Patk Ussher, Wood-quay, Galway, with selling buttermilk containing water. Mr. George Nicolls, Solr., appeared for the defendant.

Complainant said that on November 24 he purchased buttermilk from defendant which, on being analysed, was found to contain 35 per cent. of added water, exclusive of 25 per cent. allowed for churning.

Mr. Nicolls said that the defendant only got the buttermilk from other parties in the Moycullen district, and re-sold it. He did not get any guarantee from the person he bought the milk from, but he (Mr. Nicolls) understood that the sergeant had taken a sample of buttermilk from that person, but the result of the analysis was not known yet.

Defendant sold the buttermilk exactly as he got it. He was a well-known man in the town, and held a responsible position, and everybody knew he was not the sort of man that would commit a fraud.

Complainant stated that after receiving the summons defendant came to him on an evening when the person he bought the milk from was in his house with more, and asked him (the sergeant) to go and take a sample from her. Witness did so and sent it to the analyst, but had not yet got the result.

Mr. Kilbride said that even though defendant did not tamper with the milk it could not affect the offence with which he was charged – that of selling milk with added water. By having another sample of the milk analysed would, of course, clear the defendant of any allegation of fraud.

Sergeant McCaffrey said he did not allege that the defendant tampered with the milk.

Mr. Nicolls said it would be no use questioning the analyst’s certificate, though that might be done as he saw from a report of a case in Dublin that the certificate of three different analysts varied.

Mr. Kilbride said it was too bad to have people paying dear for milk a large percentage of which was water. He fined the defendant £1 and 10s. 6d. costs.

Immodest clothing

A league of St. Brigid will be started on January 10, to give Irishwomen an opportunity of uniting in protest against inroads of foreign immodest fashions.

It is proposed that the centres for joining the League should at first be the educational convents all over Ireland. No subscriptions are required, but each member will be asked to make the following promise in Church or Oratory: “For the glory of God and the honour of Erin, I promise to avoid in my own person all impropriety in the matter of dress and to maintain and hand down the traditional and proverbial purity and modesty of Irish womanhood.”

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.

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