In 1889 food standards needed improving. In December of that year Johnson Rose, a butcher of Spalding was prosecuted for selling unfit meat and, being unable to pay the £10 fine, was sentenced to six weeks gaol with hard labour at Lincoln prison. The meat was described thus, “It was of a very bad odour the greater portion of it being a bluish grey. It was moist – it was not set. It was very soft and it gave off a very foul odour. It was beef.”
The defendant did himself no favours by admitting that he had sold about 60lbs of meat off the same animal and eaten some himself. He then produced some of the meat to show the magistrate how good it was, but the smell was so overpowering that he was ordered to remove it from the room.
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