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135
The Regulation of Bakehouses.—In the "Report of the
Chief Inspector of Factories and Workshops to Her Majesty's
Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department," for
the year ended 31st October, 1881, there are some striking, but
rather general, observations by an Assistant Inspector on the
condition of Metropolitan Bakehouses, observations which conclusively
prove, if they prove anything, that the transfer of the
supervision of these "non-textile factories" from the Sanitary
Authorities to Factory Inspectors has not been to the public
advantage in a sanitary point of view. It is unnecessary to
reproduce here the unsavoury statements made in the Inspector's
report, and which I quoted (at page 109) in my Annual Report
for 1881. Suffice it to say that if the half were true
of the bakehouses as a whole, the sooner a sweeping remedy for
such a discreditable state of things is found the better. It may
be asked why any bakehouses should have been suffered to fall
into the deplorable condition implied by the terms of the
Report ? The answer would appear to be twofold: (1) any person
may setup a bakehouse anywhere; (2) systematic inspection
of bakehouses, in most of the Metropolitan Districts, has been
discontinued since the Factory Act came into operation in
January, 1879: official Inspectors do not inspect, and Sanitary
Inspectors have ceased to inspect. The publication of the
Factory Inspector's Report had the good effect of drawing
attention to the bakehouses and led, in many parts of the
Metropolis, to an inspection of them by Sanitary officials, with
the result of more or less occasion being found for the exercise
of powers conferred by the Nuisances Removal and Sanitary
Acts. In this parish the bakehouses, as already stated, have been
inspected, since the passing of the Factory and Workshop
Act, 1878, just the same as prior to the repeal of the Bakehouse
Regulation Act, 1863, and no practical difficulty has been
experienced in maintaining a fairly good sanitary condition of
the several premises. But it has been alleged that sanitary
officials have no right of entry into bakehouses: the high
authority of the Home Secretary has been cited for this opinion,