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147
the duty of inspection, and generally of carrying out the
bye-laws should be entrusted to the sanitary authorities, viz.,
the several vestries and district boards of works.
[Addendum.—I had the satisfaction, in my tenth report for
the current year (August 13, page 97), of reporting that the
views of your Vestry on the subject of Bakehouse supervision
had prevailed, a Government Bill, entitled "Factory and
Workshop Amendment," having been introduced, one of the
objects of which is to restore to Sanitary Authorities their
former position as "local authority," so far as relates to cleanliness,
ventilation, overcrowding, and other sanitary conditions of
bakehouses, viz., by enabling them to enforce Sections 3, 33, 34,
and 35 of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878. The recommendations
of your Vestry went considerably beyond this, being
substantially in agreement with the views expressed in myAnnual
Report for 1881*; but however desirable these recommendations,
it was obvious that, at so late a period of the Session, it
would have been useless to force them on the attention of
Parliament: indeed, it is almost too much to hope that the Bill
can be passed this year, as at the present writing (August 20)
it still awaits second reading in the Commons. I felt it my
duty, nevertheless, to request the consideration of the President of
the Local Government Board to two proposed amendments of
the Bill, as it stands, viz., (1) the insertion of words, in Section
19, to give the Inspector of Nuisances the same "powers of
entry," &c., as the Medical Officer of Health; and, (2) the
omission of words, in Section 17, which would appear to legalize,
by implication, the continuance, within or near existing bakehouses,
of water closets, ash-pits, dram-openings, &c.; although
such nuisances should satisfy "a court of summary jurisdiction"
that "a room or place used as a bakehouse "was" in such a state
as to be, on sanitary grounds, unfit for use or occupation as a bakehouse,"
and so the occupier might be liable to pains and penalties,
* Vide page 140, supra.