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rooms so that, after running for one or two hours, the number of
organisms and dust particles in the air is enormously increased. They
therefore recommend that fans should not be used in this way.
Shafts and tubes for the purpose of bringing or taking off air should
be frequently cleansed, otherwise they may become receptacles for dirt,
which may be eventually carried into the air of the rooms.
Underground Workrooms.—In many instances underground rooms
now being used as workplaces were not constructed to be used for this
purpose. They were in some instances the cellars or the kitchens of an
ordinary dwelling-house, in others the storage cellars of shops to which
perhaps the vaults under the pavement may have been added to give
additional space and to obtain extra light through the glazed-over
intervening area.
Under such circumstances it is often difficult to procure structural
alterations which shall bring them up to a reasonable standard of
healthiness. The difficulties which are encountered relate to ventilation,
warmth, lighting, dampness, entrance of impure air from ground contaminated
by drains, coal-gas, &c., or from the direct connection of
sanitary conveniences therewith.
With the exception of lighting, there is a certain amount of legal
power to assist in improving these conditions. With two notable
exceptions there are no provisions requiring efficient lighting in the
Factory and Workshop or Public Health Acts relating to ordinary
dwellings, workshops and factories ; and even in the most recent Act —
the Housing and Town Planning Act, where stricter regulations are
made for underground places where people sleep, it is provided that a
closing order shall not prevent a room unfit for sleeping being used for
other purposes. The exceptions, it should be noted, are both in connection
with underground rooms. Section 101 in the former dealing
with bakehouses, and Section 96, London Health Act, dealing with
dwellings. In regard to dwellings, there is no doubt but that day-light
is demanded, as the size of the windows is specified. All workrooms,
in my opinion, should be efficiently lighted by daylight, or some legal
provision should be made for securing this. There are many workrooms,
work places and offices where artificial light is used continuously, and in
winter a person who spends the day in such a place is practically cut off
from sunlight, except on Sundays, for a considerable portion of the
year.
In the Factory and Workshops Act, 1901, it was thought desirable
for various reasons to legislate specially for one class of business carried
on underground, viz., bakehouses, and to require that no underground
bakehouse should after a certain date be used, unless certified by the