Commonwealth v. Pflaum

Citations

• 236 Pa. 294
• 84 A. 842
• 1912 Pa. LEXIS 749

Syllabus

<p>Constitutional law — Title of act — Classification — Discrimination — Food law — Confectionery — Act of May 18, 1909, P. L. 580.</p> <p>1. The Aet of May 13, 1909, P. L. 520, entitled “An act relating to food; defining food; providing for the protection of the public health,” etc., is sufficiently comprehensive in the title to give notice of a prohibition against adding sulphur dioxide to confectionery, inasmuch as confectionery is a food.</p> <p>2. The fact that the act provides that in the preparation of dried fruits and molasses, sulphur dioxide may be used in quantities not detrimental to health, does not render the act unconstitutional as violating Art. Ill, Sec. 7, of the Constitution; nor is the act open to the objection of wrongful classification and discrimination because it relieves retail dealers from prosecution, where they sell under a guaranty signed by the manufacturer or a wholesale dealer.</p> <p>3. A person may be convicted under the Act of 1909 of selling confectionery to which sulphur dioxide has been added, where it appears that the sulphur dioxide was added to gelatine in the bleaching process, and that the gelatine was then added to other constituents to compose the confectionery which the defendant sold.</p>