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32
WORKSHOPS.
At the beginning of the year there were 178 workshops and
workplaces where women are employed on my list: and to these
347 visits have been paid; 42 have been removed, in some cases
owing to the fact that the business has been discontinued, or in
others that the premises have become a factory. There has been
such a scarcity of work during the period under consideration that
it is no unusual thing to find that where outsiders had been previously
employed the little work now obtainable can be done by
members of the family—or even by only one of them.
•
The condition of the workrooms in this Borough is on the
whole fair, and the employers are generally very ready to meet the
wishes of the Sanitary Authority. The great difficulty appears to
be with regard to ventilation, and this is often the fault of the
employees. Fresh air is, more often than not, called "a draught"—
so the purity of the atmosphere is sacrificed for its warmth, and
where ample means of ventilation exist there is no attempt (and
even great objection) to using them. And they will light the gas
to warm the room whenever the temperature is below a comfortable
degree, regardless, and often in ignorance, of the fact that the
impurity of the air is thereby seriously increased. The number of
unventilated gas stoves used for heating irons is decreasing, as
wherever found, it is required that flues be provided.
One thousand three hundred and two women and young
female persons are employed in the women's workshops in this
Borough ; and they are engaged in the following trades:—