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94
FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACT, 1895.
The Factory and Workshop Act, 1895, came into operation
on January 1st, 1896. An abstract of the principal
provisions of the Act was given in the annual report for
1895, pages 70-74. The duties of the Sanitary Authority
thereunder, and, indeed, under the Factory and Workshop
Acts generally, are set out in the report of the Sanitary
Committee, at page 97. Reference to this report will
show that factory legislation has imposed on Sanitary
Authorities throughout the Kingdom serious responsibilities.
An effort to cope with these responsibilities was made by your
Vestry, in October, 1893, by the appointment of two ladies as
Inspector of Workshops, Workplaces and Laundries, where
women are employed. Both of these ladies, Miss Deane and
Miss Squire, have since been appointed, by successive Home
Secretaries, to the even more responsible position of Factory
Inspectors under the Home Office. Miss Deane's successor,
Miss Duncan, ceased to hold office in July, 1895. This lady
has now been appointed to the office of Factory Inspector
by the Government of New South Wales. The appointment
she held in this parish has not been tilled. Miss Squire's
successor, Miss de Chaumont, does her best to carry out the
work for the entire parish. Her report for a period of 44
weeks in 1896, she having commenced work 1st March, will
be found at page 104.
With respect to the workshops, &c., where men only are
employed, nothing, practically, has been done to give effect to
legislation in any way comparable with the work so excellently
performed by the female Inspectors of workplaces
where women are employed. It is time that these establishments
should be taken in hand, but it cannot be done in any
effective way with the present limited and reduced staff of
Sanitary Inspectors, without letting other and more immediately
pressing work fall into arrear. We do not so much as