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In the session 1862-63, an Act of Parliament was passed for the Better
Regulation of Bakehouses, providing for cleanliness and ventilation, and
prohibiting the employment by night of boys under eighteen years of age, and
forbidding any place on the bakehouse level to be used as a sleeping place
unless properly separated from the bakehouse itself. An' inspection of 56
bakehouses of St. Giles's under the powers of the Act was made with the
following results:
Bakeries—Forty eight.
Persons under eighteen years of age employed by night 0
„ „ employed by day (legally) 11
Sleeping room on bakehouse level complying with the law 1
„ „ not so complying 2
Bakehouse on level of street 6
„ underground 40
„ half underground 2
Bakehouse clean 28
„ requiring limewhiting 16
„ „ and otherwise dirty 4
Bakehouses well ventilated 39
„ capable of being ventilated but habitually kept
too close 6
Bakehouses badly ventilated 3
„ smelling of drains, &c. 4
Bakehouses lighted sufficiently from without 36
„ capable of being so lighted but habitually darkened 5
„ admitting little or no external light 7
Confectionaries—with no night nor early morning work—Eight.
Clean 4
Requiring limewhiting 4
Ventilation good 7
„ bad 1
On street level 4
Underground 4
In respect of every condition that infringed the law, notices have been served
upon the proprietors of the bakehouses, and numerous improvements have
been made in consequence.
Another enquiry whose results it is here of interest to put on record was
made in the summer of 1863, while small-pox was extensively prevalent in
London. 1986 children in the National and other elementary schools of St.
Giles's and Bloomsbury, and in the workhouse, were examined as to their
vaccination. These may be classified as follows:—
1868 with vaccine marks, 1 of whom was scarred by small-pox.
97 without vaccine marks, 34 of whom was scarred by small-pox.
21 with doubtful vaccine marks.
More than a third of unvaccinated persons, therefore, even at the age of
school schildren, had already been disfigured by small-pox, while of those
who had been vaccinated less than oue in a thousand had any marks of
small-pox.