View report page

171
are small laundries, of which there are a considerable number. In
four instances it has been necessary to order more adequate
drainage.
(e) Provision of Suitable and Sufficient Sanitary Conveniences. —
In respect to this matter we have found it necessary to take considerable
action. Speaking of small workshops it must be said in
the first place that these sanitary conveniences are situated in the
back yards near the workshops as a rule, and do not gain in
suitability on that account ; in the second place, they were constructed
for the use of the residents in the house, at one time a
single family, and latterly several families living on the tenement
system, and now have to serve also as the sanitary convenience for
the workshop. Consequently we have one sanitary convenience,
not infrequently ill-situated, acting for the house and workshop.
This is undesirable, but it is impracticable in many cases to arrange
otherwise. It is obvious how this state of things has come to be.
One family in former days occupied the whole house and possessed
a workshop, say, on the ground floor or in the back yard. Prosperity
of trade necessitated the engagement of one or two additional
workers not belonging to the family. Sometimes such workers lived
in the house, in other cases they lived elsewhere. Eventually,
perhaps, the owner himself moved out and sub-let his house in
tenements, retaining the ground floor and the workshop. Thus we
have the present position : —a tenement house containing three or
four families, a workshop in the back yard, the employes of which
come in from other districts. The sanitary convenience acts for
both parties, the residents and non-resident workers. With regard
to large workshops the chief difficulty is due to the fact that whole
floors of, or rooms in, large buildings are let out without reference to,
or arrangements for, sanitary convenience accommodation as regards
the separation of sexes. In large firms owning entire buildings there
is generally ample provision.
In enforcing section 9 of the Act we have not been without
difficulties, which are not lessened by the facts that many of the
industries in these small workshops are seasonal, and that the trade
is occasionally in the hands of one family, both sons and daughters