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194
1899]
In the course of the year I have discovered and added to the registers 198 workshops
and laundries, with 229 work-rooms. During the last quarter of the year,
the number of registered workshops was decreased by fourteen. This is the first
occasion on which a decrease has taken place since the registers were opened, and
it is no doubt owing to the dulness of trade caused by the outbreak of the war. In
spite of dulness of trade, employers complain that they cannot get good workers.
It is supposed that numbers of the more intelligent girls who formerly worked
in workshops now go in for clerkships, on account of the shorter hours and better
pay.
One hundred and sixty-six workshops and laundries have been removed from
the Registers during the year, from various causes, such as the business being given
up or transferred to other premises, the introduction of gas or steam into laundries,
etc. Many laundry occupiers say they are compelled to have mechanical power
in their works owing'to the irregularity of the attendance of the workers. The
owners of large steam laundries also buy up the smaller businesses, and many places,
in which work used to be carried on, are now used as "receiving offices" only.
From a health point of view this is an advantage, as the work is done in specially
adapted premises, and not in dwelling houses.
I have reported to H.M. Inspectors of Factories and Workshops for the district
the addresses of 134 workshops and laundries, not previously visited by them.
Inspections.—I have during the year paid 3,373 visits, 1,894 of which were inspections
and 1,479 were re-inspections and calls. The inspections include visits
to workshops and laundries (in which I inspected 3,055 work-rooms), inspections
of the homes of female outworkers, the public conveniences for women, and of the
sanitary arrangements for women in factories and steam laundries. The re-inspections
include visits paid with regard to work being done under my supervision,
inquiries as to the employment of outworkers, the service of notices and distribution
of workroom cards, etc.
Overcrowding.—I found 14 workrooms overcrowded; in these, the overcrowding
was abated upon representations being made to the employers. In most cases the
overcrowding was caused by additional hands being employed in the beginning of
the busy season without extra rooms being provided.
I have distributed cards to be exhibited in 286 workrooms, stating the cubic
capacity of the rooms and the number of persons who may be employed in each.
Ventilation.—Three workrooms I found to be structurally insufficiently ventilated;
in these additional means of ventilation has been provided. Besides these,
I regret to say that I found, during the winter months, many workrooms where the
atmosphere was very unsatisfactory, owing to the fact that the windows and ventilators
were kept closed.
Cleanliness.—The walls and ceilings of seventy-five workrooms, which I found
in a dirty condition, have been cleansed and whitewashed during the year.
The cleanliness of the workshop generally varies with the nature of the trade
carried on in it; the standard of the first-class dressmaker and milliner being impossible
in the rag-picker's shed. Much, however, depends upon the individual
employers, some of whom train their work-people in habits of cleanliness and order,
which are not to be found in others of the same class.