View report page

16
SANITARY CHRONICLES, 1898.
also in part due to the general activity of the Metropolitan
and other authorities. Scarcely a day passes without
receiving a long list of questions from the Surveyor or
Medical Officer of Health of some other authority, requesting
information as to the Vestry's procedure in this or that
matter. Occasionally there is sufficient correspondence of
this nature to employ the whole time of a clerk in answering
such inquiries.
. The routine clerical work of the Sanitary Department
consists in conducting correspondence, in entering the
notifications in the register, and the complaints in the
complaint book, in issuing the notices of the Vestry,
recording the Minutes of the Sewers and Sanitary Committee,
and of various Sub-committees, copying Reports, and
a large number of other matters which defy tabulation.
The Clerical Staff to carry out these duties consist only of
two, viz., Mr. Curtis, senior, and Mr. Curtis, junior. The
writer can testify to their efficiency, diligence, and hard
work during 1896.
FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACTS.
The recent legislation on Factories and Workshops
has cast upon local authorities serious responsibilities,
especially in a district like St. Marylebone, in which so
large a number of the working female population are
engaged in the millinery trade. Up to the present time
125 workrooms are on the register. The list is each day
extending, and it seems probable that this represents only
a tenth of the total number. The register is a book in
which the address of the employer, the dimensions of the
rooms, the manner of lighting, ventilating, warming, the
dimensions and cubic capacity, and the legal limit of
occupation are entered.
The present 125 entries deal with a little over 2,000
employees, 1,883 of them being females engaged in either
dressmaking or matters closely allied to dressmaking.
The inspection of workshops has been undertaken by
Mr. Richard Phillips, and he has performed his duties with
zeal and discretion. On the first inspection the majority