Galway In Days Gone By

Forestalling at fairs

At the weekly meeting of Galway Urban Council, the Chairman, Mr. M. McDonogh mentioned the practice of forestalling at fairs. In connection with the September fair, which was to be held on Tuesday, the fair really took place on the two previous days.

It was an abuse that should be strongly condemned. It was unjust and unfair to people who waited for the day of the fair and who arrived on the advertised day, only to find that they had nothing to get.

Mr. Griffin said that if they had power to prosecute, they should do so. Forestalling had a most injurious effect on the fair.

Chairman: Of course, we have power to prosecute.

Mr. Silke: It is most unjust to the public, as well as buyers and sellers.

The Chairman’s suggestion, that the Council would take steps to prosecute parties who infringed the rules of the Fairs’ Committee, was ordered to be sent to the different almanacs.

1939

Hitler unpopular

Herr Adolf Hitler is the most unpopular man in Connemara at the moment, for he has ruined the tourist trade, which for the past month was the best for many years. There was an almost complete evacuation of the area by tourists during the weekend, and the flight continues even at the moment of writing.

One would think that Connemara was going to be the first objective of the German bombers. The local telegraph messengers all over Connemara had a busy time last week delivering telegrams to the hotels.

Every telegram was followed by feverish activity on the part of one or other of the tourist parties. There was a hurried packing of luggage, followed by a hurried meal, and someone’s happy holiday was brought to an abrupt ending.

In a jam

In dismissing a food and drugs prosecution for having for sale jam which on analysis was deficient in fruit contents against Mr. Michael Cahill (Cahill and Co., Ballinasloe, Galway and Tuam), Mr. T.G. O’Sullivan, Acting District Justice, said the prosecution and the public had his full sympathy but there was no legislative standard laid down regarding jam, and he dismissed the case.

He hoped the matter would go to a higher court, he added, but he could not do what the prosecution were asking him to do, to assume the duties of the legislature and make regulations regarding the standard at which jams should be sold to the public.

Guard Burke, food and drugs inspector, Ballinasloe, deposed to purchasing a pot of jam labelled ‘strawberry and apple’ from Cahill’s premises in Ballinasloe. He sent it to the public analyst, Mr. Thorpe, and the certificate showed that it did not contain fifty per cent fruit, or fifty per cent of the first named on the label, ‘strawberry’.

He maintained, therefore, that the jam was deficient and did not purport to be what it was labelled and sold as.

On hearing further evidence and quoted cases from law reports, the Justice said he was dismissing the case but the prosecution and the public had his full sympathy. He hoped the case would go further, but he could not assume the duties of the State legislative and fix a standard.

On the evidence, he dismissed the prosecution on the merits. The law would become chaotic if District Justices and Judges were to be allowed to fix up standards in these cases.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.