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23
BAKEHOUSES.
By section 17 of the Factory and Workshop Act, passed August
25th, 1883, it is directed that the provisions of sections 3, 33, 34, and
35 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, shall, as regards retail
bakehouses, be enforced by the local authority of the district in which
the retail bakehouse is situated, and not by an inspector under the
Factory and AVorkshop Act, 1878; for this purpose the Medical
Officer of Health of the local authority is to have and exercise all such
powers of entry, inspection, taking legal proceedings, and otherwise
as an inspector under the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878.
Section 3 of the Act of 1878 directs that the bakehouse "shall be
kept in a cleanly state, and free from effluvia arising from any drain,
privy, or other nuisance," that it "shall not be overcrowded while
work is carried on therein," and that "it shall be ventilated so as to
render harmless all gases and dust" generated in the course of the
manufacturing process.
Sections 33 and 34 require "the periodical cleansing of the bakehouse."
Section 35 requires "the proper separation from the bakehouse of
any room on the same level used as a sleeping-place."
By section 15 of the Act of 1883 it is provided, with regard to
bakehouses occupied for the first time after the first day of June,
1883, that "no water-closet, earth-closet, privy, or ash-pit shall be
within or communicate directly with the bakehouse;" that "any
cistern for supplying water to the bake-house shall be separate and
distinct from any cistern for supplying water to a water-closet; and
that no drain or pipe for carrying off foecal or sewage matter shall
have an opening within the bakehouse,"
Unfortunately, existing bakehouses where this condition of things
obtains cannot be attacked under this section, but section 3 of the 1878
Act applies as quoted above; and section 16 gives power to the
magistrate to fine the occupier of any bakehouse (whether the same
was or was not so used before the passing of this Act), whose premises
are in such a state as to be on sanitary grounds unfit for use as a
bakehouse; and I should certainly consider that any bakehouse would
be unfit for use when the regulations of section 15 were not complied
with.