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1902]
184
Sanitary Improvements. During the same period I have served 346 notices for the abatement
of various nuisances, 440 workshops have been limewhited (including bakehouses), whilst 584 other
improvements were carried cut under my supervision, 16 w.c.'s have also been provided at various
factories and workshops, making a total for the seven years of 326 additional closets, these figures
alone show the vast improvements that have been made for the well being of the workers and again
on the other hand it shows the insanitary condition of the workshops of the Borough when I first
began to inspect them.
Restaurants, etc. Since my last annual report I have by your instruction visited a large number
of these places which include restaurants, dining rooms, tea rooms, fried fish shops, ham and beef
shops, pork butchers, and stewed eel shops, many of which I found in a dirty condition and without
any proper covered receptacle for dust or other refuse, such as bones and vegetable refuse. In some
instances w.c.'s were found to exist in close proximity to the preparation and cooking of food for
customers, which I am happy to say have been abolished, in other places the only ventilation to
w.c.'s has been into workplaces where food is prepared, in these places also great improvements
have been made in giving external ventilation to the closets.
I am Sir,
Your obedient servant,
GEORGE WEST,
Sanitary Inspector of Workshops.
Miss GRAY'S REPORT.
The Town Hall,
Islington.
23rd January, 1903.
To A. E. Harris, Esq.,
Medical Officer of Health.
Sir,
I have the honour of submitting for your consideration a report of my work during the year
1902.
Register.—At the end of the year there were on the register of work-places, in which females
are employed, a total of 1,084 workshops, work-places and laundries, containing 1,812 workrooms.
In the course of the year, 194 workshops, etc., with 269 workrooms, have been added
to the register, while 124 workshops have been removed from it. The number of women employed
in the workshops varies from one woman to two hundred, but in the majority there are
less than twenty employed. The tendency to convert the larger hand or "workshop" laundries
into "factory" laundries by the introduction of steam or gas engines still continues, but
the number of laundries in which two or three persons are employed remains the same.
The addresses of 124 workshops which had not previously been visited by H.M. Inspector
of Factories for the district, or in which the prescribed abstract of the Factory and Workshop
Act was not exhibited, have been forwarded to the Home Office.