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35
Annual Report of the Medical Officer of Health—1894.
(b) Proposition IV., touching the question of compensation for disturbance
of existing right to be considered by a Parliamentary Committee, was
rejected in toto. The remaining suggestions made by me to your committee
were: (1) That if any lasting practical outcome of the conference
was intended, and was of opinion that it was of paramount importance
to invite as chairman a man such as Mr. R. K. Causton, M.P. for West
Southwark, or Mr. John Burns, M.P., L.C.C.; (2) an offer was made
by me to write during my holiday a short and as lucid a report as
possible on the present state of the law relating to bakehouses, copies of
which I suggested might be advantageously distributed to the nonmedical
and non-legal delegates.
Neither of these suggestions was adopted.
Of the thirty-nine local authorities invited to attend the conference twenty-six
accepted. These bodies, according to the signatures inscribed in a book provided for
the purposes, were represented by fifty-one delegates. In addition to this number
your Vestry sent Messrs. Neville and Loeber and your Medical Officer of Health.
Amongst those present were fourteen medical officers, and a sanitary inspector sent
by Bermondsey in lieu of their medical adviser.
I was also able to identify twelve master bakers, but this number I have reason
to believe did not include all the master bakers present, to say nothing of other delegates
interested in the trade.
The following authorities neither returned any answer nor sent any delegates
in response to your Vestry's invitation:—Shoreditch, Mile End, Woolwich, Greenwich,
Hackney, Limehouse, St. Saviour's Southwark, and Plumstead.
Kensington and Paddington refused to take part in the conference on the plea
that the L.C.C, was already dealing with the question. The former Vestry, I understand,
addressed a circular letter to the Local Authorities of London informing them
that Kensington intended keeping away from your conference.
St. James's, Westminster, and Wandsworth also refused to attend on the ground
that in their opinion the present law was sufficient to secure the proper regulation of
bakehouses.
The Vestry of St. George's, Hanover Square, acknowledged your letter, but was
unrepresented at the conference. The presence and ripe experience of their medical
officer, Professor Corfield, one of the highest authorities on house sanitation, was thus
lost to the meeting.
The Lancet, in an article which appeared on April 7th, 1894, in reference to statements
made by Dr. Corfield, as well as by myself, says:—
"The Medical Officer of Health of St. George's, Hanover Square, one of the
richest quarters of London, stated before his Vestry that most of the bakehouses of
his district were underground. They were insufficiently ventilated, and though the
sanitary convenience did not actually open into the bakehouses, as was the case
formerly, still the latter were affected by the foul air. We have visited bakehouses
in both these districts (the two St. George's), and can confirm the accuracy of these
statements."
In the unavoidable absence from the conference of Dr. Bate, the medical officer of
St. Matthew, Bethnal Green, the chairman of the Sanitary Committee gave a favourable
account of the condition and conduct of the business of baking as he and his
committee judged it to be within Bethnal Green.
Dr. Bate, however, in his annual report for 1893 says:—
"The total number of bakehouses under inspection is 106; about a dozen others
were temporarily unoccupied at the time of my visit, and were therefore not inspected