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OUTWORKERS.
Eighty-two outworkers' premises have been visited; of these, thirteen
were no longer occupied by outworkers; forty-one were workshops ;
eighteen domestic workshops, and at six premises the work is done
only at irregular intervals, and does not furnish the whole or principal
means of living to the family, and are therefore exempt from the provisions
of the Factory and Workshop Act; these were accordingly omitted from
the list of domestic workshops forwarded to the Home Office. Four
premises were found to be occupied by contractors employed by occupiers
of factories or workshops, by whom no work is carried on, but who give
work out to outworkers. It is important to notice that Sections 107,108,109
and 110 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1901, which relate to the keeping
and forwarding to the local authority of lists of outworkers, and to the
prohibition of work in unwholesome premises or where there is infectious
disease, apply to contractors equally with occupiers of factories or workshops.
SANITARY ACCOMMODATION IN OFFICES.
Complaints continue to be received of the want of suitable sanitary
accommodation for women clerks employed in offices. It is satisfactory
to be able to state that in every case dealt with the owners of the premises
have shown themselves willing to make such alterations and improvements
as were required to secure the necessary accommodation.
With regard to this question it is regrettable that the Section 38, Public
Health (London) Act, 1891, which relates to the provision of sanitary
accommodation in factories, workshops and workplaces, is less explicit than
the corresponding section of the Public Health Amendment Act, 1890.
Section 22 of the latter Act reads:—
"Every building used as a workshop or manufactory, or where
"persons are employed or intended to be employed in any trade or
"business, whether erected before or after the adoption of this part
"of the Act, in any district, shall be provided with sufficient and
"suitable accommodation in the way of sanitary conveniences, having
"regard to the number of persons employed in or in attendance at
"such building, and also where persons of both sexes are employed
"or in attendance, with proper separate accommodation for persons
"of each sex."
The expression "building . . . where persons are employed ... in any
trade or business "is replaced in the London Act by the vague term "workplace,"
of which there is no definition in the Act. But in the case of
Bennett v. Harding, 1900, 2 Q.B. 397, which was taken under Section 38,
Public Health (London) Act, 1891, it was held that the word "workplace"