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work carried on therein, that are a nuisance, or injurious, or
dangerous to health, or so over-crowded while work is carried
on, as to be dangerous or prejudicial to the health of those employed
therein."
Under the Nuisances Removal Act, moreover, the local
authority, i.e., the Vestry and their officers, have a power of entry
for certain purposes of the Act, viz. :
(1) To ground proceedings when they have reasonable
grounds for believing that a nuisance exists on any private premises;
between 9 a.m. and 6 p.m; this power of entry being
extended by the Sanitary Act, 1866, so that it "may be exercised
at any hour when the business in respect of which the nuisance
arises is in progress, or is usually carried on."
(2) To examine premises where nuisances exist, &c.
(3) To remove or abate nuisance in case of non-compliance
with, or infringement of, the order of Justices; or to inspect any
. . . bread or flour; and for this purpose the local authority
"may enter at all reasonable hours, or at all hours duing which
business is carried-on, on such premises, without notice."
Action of Vestries, &c. —I have already stated that the
Assistant Inspector's Report had the good effect of drawing attention
to the bakehouses in many quarters. Your Vestry received
communications on the subject from the Vestries of St. Pancras,
Islington, Newington and Chelsea, and from the Lewisham
Board of Works. The Metropolitan Board of Works, always
alive to the duty of increasing its really great importance, took
it up, and the Home Secretary himself was both memorialized
and interviewed by the operative bakers in the interests of their
personal welfare. The observations of the right honourable
gentleman encourage us to hope that at no distant time the
subject of bakehouse regulation may be reconsidered in Parliament.
I propose, therefore, for future use, to place on record
a memorandum of the action recently taken with a view to
amendment of a confessedly faulty system.