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86
The question has been asked, more than once,
whether your Vestry, by appointing special officers to inspect
workshops, workplaces, laundries, &c., were not interfering
with duties legally attaching to the office of the factory
inspectors appointed by the Secretary of State ? The answer
to this question is distinctly negative. There is nothing
conflicting in the duties of factory inspectors and those
devolving upon the inspectors of the sanitary authority. The
duties of the respective offices are reciprocal. One of the
duties devolving upon the medical officer of health under the
Public Health (London) Act, 1891 (sec. 27), is to give "written
notice to the factory inspector" of "any child, young person,
or woman, employed in a workshop," and this I have done,
since October, 1893, in a large number of instances, upon
information acquired for me by the women inspectors. I
report, moreover, to Her Majesty's Superintending Inspector
of Workshops, &c., every workshop and workplace newly
opened,or discovered by the inspector; and, reciprocally, that
gentleman forwards to me all notices he receives from persons
intimating intention to occupy premises as workshops or
workplaces. In like manner the Superintending Inspector
reports to me all cases of overcrowding discovered by his
assistants, and all cases of dirty and insanitary premises
observed by those officers, requiring to be dealt with under the
Acts; it being the duty of the sanitary authority to take steps
to secure the abatement of all such nuisances. The necessary
steps have been taken in many instances (since October, 1893)
by the Sanitary Committee, to which your Vestry have
entrusted the carrying out of the provisions of the Factory
and Workshop Acts, 1878 to 1895, and the Public Health
(London) Act, 1891. And to facilitate the discharge of these
duties the legislature has conferred on the sanitary authority and
their officers "all such powers of entry, inspection, taking
legal proceedings, or otherwise," as a factory inspector has
under the "principal Act," i.e., the Act of 1878. The powers of
the sanitary authority, in regard to the inspection and