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sanitary conveniences, the workshops and workplaces in the Borough
are maintained in a satisfactory state. It has been necessary in
a few instances to stop home work on account of the presence
of dangerous infectious disease on the premises. A list of outworkers
employed is kept in the office, and the name a d places
of employment of all those out-workers who do not reside in the
Borough, have been forwarded to the Medical Officers of Health
of the respective Boroughs in which they work. There are at
present 137 workshops registered in the Borough.
During the year the whole of the Bakehouses of the Borough
were inspected on two occasions. There are at present in the
Borough 21 underground bakehouses and as these will have to
be certified by the Sanitary Authority as suitable in regard to
construction, light, ventilation and all other respects after the end
of this year, they have received special attention. The Government
of the day was evidently convinced in 1895 that underground
bakehouses were unsuitable places for the preparation of food,
because Section 27 of the Factory and Workshops Act of that year
prohibited their occupation unless they were actually in use before
January, 1896. An underground bakehouse is defined in the
Act as a bakehouse, any baking room of which is so situated that
the surface of the floor is more than three feet below the surface
of the footway of the adjoining street, or of the ground adjoining
or nearest to the room. With few exceptions the underground
bakehouses in the Borough are little more than the kitchen and
scullery of an ordinary dwelling house, adapted by the construction
of an oven under the footway of the adjoining street, very
imperfectly lighted and ventilated; and several of these premises,
owing also to other circumstances, cannot in their present condition,
be certified as suitable for the purposes of a business demanding
the utmost cleanliness. All underground bakehouses differ from
each other to some extent, but the first step which it is desirable
to make is to agree upon the absolute minimum requirements
for all underground bakehouses before they will be certified as
satisfactory. The Public Health Committee has given a