Here’s a strange little story from 131 years ago. On Tuesday 5th December 1893, Blantyre man James Downs stood before the judge in Hamilton Sheriff Court. The charge? Selling “unsound” meat to the public.
The strange part however, was that James wasn’t a butcher, nor worked in a butchers. He owned his own premises, but was a grocer operating from his grocery shop on Stonefield Road.
On the 13th November, a month earlier, Blantyre Sanitary Inspector happened upon a strange smell coming from the grocery and called in. Having authority to inspect premises, to his astonishment, he found that Mr Downs had erected a wooden coffin shaped structure through a door at the back of his shop, inside of which was the carcass of a cow and upon sight clearly unfit for human consumption.
Mr Downs pleaded not guilty, stating that he had not sold any meat in the condition it had been found in, but the charge remained and the case adjourned to later in the month seeking more proof from customers who had consumed the meat. I can’t find any follow up story, so perhaps Mr Downs never went back to court and I suspect he would have been quick to dispose of things before the ‘story got out’.
AI imagines the scene.
