Scope and Content: By various acts intended to regulate the inspection of goods sold in or exported from the Commonwealth, appointed public inspectors were required to submit annual reports to the state secretary.  The secretary maintained these filings and transcribed the returns in summary form. –Transcripts of the annual returns, 1801-1889 (v. 1-2),  include date of inspection and quantity and quality of each commodity.  Among the goods inspected are beef and pork, pot and pearl ashes, leather, gun powder, pickled and smoked fish (see below), and lumber.  Volumes also include transcripts of returns of turnpike and toll bridge corporations, ca. 1856-1868 and transcripts of returns from insurance companies, 1825-1882.  For other such transcripts see Transcripts of corporation returns ((M-Ar)165X).  Originals of some of the records in the series generally are found in Returns from public inspectors, 1801-1919 ((M-Ar)139X); Returns of turnpike and toll bridge corporations, 1801-1862 ((M-Ar)957X); and Returns of the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Company ((M-Ar)1049X). –Appendix (v. 3): St 1859, c 102 required the secretary to publish in newspapers annual returns of the inspector general of pickled and smoked fish. Transcripts for 1859-1877 returns provide no figures but reference these publications, as found here in a scrapbook of news clips, 1863-1896.
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