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workshop premises. Otherwise it will be difficult for the Sanitary Authority
to control overcrowding, and in reference to this control, it is within the
power of an Inspector of Factories, but not within the power of a Sanitary
Authority's Officer, to direct that a notice shall be affixed in each workroom
as to the number of persons that may occupy it, in addition to the notice
required by Statute to be affixed at the entrance to the premises.
Section 29 of the Act of 1895 provides that any case of lead, phosphorus,
or arsenical poisoning, and of anthrax, contracted in any factory or workshop,
shall be notified by the medical attendant to the Chief Inspector of
Factories; that written notice of the case shall then be sent to the Factory
Inspector and to the Certifying Surgeon, and be regarded as an accident, of
which the latter is required to investigate the nature and cause. This
entirely new departure in the notification of disease will be carefully
watched both by the public and the medical profession. Washing conveniences
are also now required to be provided where lead, arsenic, or other poisonous
substances are used in any factory or workshop. Further, the occupier of a
factory or workshop is not allowed to employ any woman within four weeks
after childbirth. And, to complete the matter, an occupier of a factory or
workshop is liable to pay penal compensation to any person suffering injury
to health directly attributable to his neglect to observe any provision of the
Acts, or any special rule or requirement made under Section 8 of the Act of
1891.
The Act of 1895 also provides that the occupier of any place were wearing
apparel is made, cleaned, or repaired, or where it is given out for these purposes,
or any sub-contractor of the occupier, is liable to a maximum penalty
of ten pounds, if he allows any wearing apparel to be made, cleaned, or repaired
in any dwelling house or building occupied therewith, whilst any inmate is,
to his reasonable knowledge, suffering from scarlet fever or the small-pox.
This will apply to tailoring, dressmaking, millinery, etc., as well as to
laundrying, mangling, etc. It is rarely that an employer knows anything
of the health of other persons residing in the same houses as his employees.
He can only know of small-pox or scarlet fever if he be informed by his
employee, or by the Sanitary Authority, whose Officer again would in turn
have to be informed by the employee of the name and address of the
emplover, and there is no compulsion to disclose this, so that the working of
this section must depend mainly upon the goodwill of the employee, to whom
no provision of compensation for loss of employment is made. As Medical
Officers of Health are notified of all cases of scarlet fever and small-pox,
what is really required is to give specific power to Sanitary Authorities to
enforce removal to hospital of any cases of scarlet fever or small-pox occurring
in any house where wearing apparel continues to be made, cleaned, or repaired.
The last point is that Sanitary Authorities (in London, the County Council)
are required to furnish to factories employing more than forty persons
certificates that they are provided with means of escape in case of fire, and
to enforce such provision for means of escape.
It is impossible to refrain from expressing the hope that the complications
and cross references of factory and workshop legislation may, at no distant
date, be reduced to a simpler and less complex form by re-codification.