View report page

133
BAKEHOUSES.
The duties formerly devolving on your Vestry as local
authority under the provisions of the Bakehouse Regulation
Act, 1863 (26 and 27 Vict. Cap. 40), were transferred to
Government Inspectors, January 1st, 1879, on the repeal of
that Act by the "Factory and Workshop Act, 1878" (41 Vict.
Cap. 16). The only reasonable surmise I can offer in explanation
of the transfer, is that as "young persons," i.e., persons
under 16 years of age, may not be lawfully employed in the
business of a baker, which is largely a nocturnal one, between
nine o'clock at night and five o'clock in the morning, such
persons may have been deemed in need of the protection
supposed to be afforded by the appointment of factory inspectors.
It cannot be doubted that the supervision of several thousand
bakehouses in the Metropolis, with the object of preserving
cleanliness and preventing nuisance, could be better carried out by
sanitary inspectors, a numerous body, than by so few as three
factory inspectors, presumably having no special experience in
sanitary matters; and it requires no great stretch of imagination
to suppose that the protection of youthful employes might have
been better secured, by enlisting, rather than by superseding, the
services of sanitary officials. At any rate the supersession of
these officers has been of no advantage to the employe's, for it is
the fact, speaking of this parish, and probably it is true of the
greater part of the metropolis, that official inspection of bakehouses
has been discontinued since the "duty" was handed
over to factory inspectors.
Actual inspection of bakehouses, however, has not ceased
in this parish, for, acting under my directions, the sanitary
inspectors have continued to exercise supervision over them
as a part of their routine duty, and in the past year 705 inspections
were made of our 146 bakehouses. (Vide Tables VI.
and VIa, Appendix)