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149
On these people, the bulk of whom are women, the pressure is
very great. The married woman homeworker with a family often
depends on what she makes in the intervals of housework to
provide food and clothing for the children, and when the husband
falls out of work she becomes the sole support of the family.
In a district like Finsbury it is quite rare to find a woman
working for pin-money.
Under the Trade Boards Act a minimum rate of 3d. per hour
has been fixed for box-making.
The prices paid in Finsbury for making card-board boxes
ranged from 9d. per gross for making boxes for Christmas cards,
to 3s. 9d. per gross for making large perfumery boxes and bottle
cases.
Most of the box-makers were being paid from 1s. It 1s. 9d.
per gross. The average earnings of the homeworker box-makers,
not dependent upon the work, amounted to 4s. 6d. per week.
Three box-makers, entirely dependent, earned 12s. 6d. per week
Bakehouses.—At the end of 1911 the total number of bakehouses
in the Borough was 60, of which 24 are above ground and
36 below ground.
All the bakehouses are periodically inspected; in 1911 the
number of visits paid was one hundred and eleven.
Notices for cleansing and dilapidations were issued in 13
instances. These were all complied with.
At one visit of inspection the baker was found taking cakes out
of the oven with hands very much soiled with coal and grease.
The floor of the bakehouse and the utensils were all dirty,
There was no water supply.
In another bakehouse the premises and utensils were clean, but
the walls were covered with cob-webs.
There was one prosecution. Mr. G. Clerico, 35, Lloyd's Row,
was prosecuted for having deposited and in preparation for sale,