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25
PENALTIES.
Every bakehouse in which there is a contravention of sections 3, 33, and 34 of
the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, which provides for the sanitary condition and
cleansing of the bakehouse, shall be deemed not to be kept in conformity with the
Act, and the occupier thereof is liable for default to a fine not exceeding Ten Pounds.
The use of a bakehouse for sleeping purposes, or of a room on the same level as
the bakehouse, insufficiently separated from it and insufficiently ventilated and
lighted, is punishable under the 35th section of the same Act by a fine not exceeding
Twenty Shillings for the first offence, and of a sum not exceeding Five Founds for
every subsequent offence.
An infringement of the 15th section of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1883,
which prohibits—
A direct communication between a water-closet, earth-closet, privy, or ashpit,
with a bakehouse;
The supply of water to a bakehouse from a cistern also supplying a watercloset;
The opening into a bakehouse of a drain carrying off fœcal or sewage matter;
is punishable by a fine not exceeding Forty Shillings, and a further fine not
exceeding Five Shillings for every day during which the infringement is continued
after a conviction.
The whole of the bakehouses, 137 in number, were visited, carefully
examined and reported upon to the Sanitary Committee; many of them
were found to be dirty, tho drainage and water supply arrangements
were defective, and the ventilation and lighting anything but
satisfactory.
The bread bakers were not the worst offenders; indeed, many of
these bakeries were in a fairly good condition; but the premises in the
occupation of pastry-cooks and confectioners were almost without
exception in bad order. Many of the pastry-cooks are also eatinghouse
keepers, and the underground premises in which the food
consumed in the shop above is manipulated are often filthy ill-ventilated
cellars, in many instances without windows and lighted by
gas only.
At first there was some doubt as to whether these eating-house
keepers could be dealt with under the Acts. In part II. of the
fourth schedule of the 1878 Act, the following occurs, "Bakehouses,"
that is to say any place in which are baked bread, biscuits, or confectionery,
from the baking or selling of which a profit is derived,"
and again, "The expression retail bakehouse means any bakehouse
or place the bread, biscuits, or confectionery baked in which are not
sold wholesale but by retail in some shop or place occupied together
with such bakehouse."