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165
notice for lime-washing, cleansing, and purifying the premises.
Section 5 increases the stringency of Section 3 of the principal
Act in respect of overcrowding. Section 18 prohibits the employment
of a woman in a factory or workshop within four weeks after
she has given birth to a child.
Factory legislation being thus to the front, I submitted to
your Vestry that an attempt should be made to improve the law
with respect to
THE REGULATION OF BAKEHOUSES.
I called attention to the fact that the Factory and Workshop
Act, 1878, by repealing the Bakehouse Regulation Act, 1863, had
transferred the duty of supervising bakehouses from the Sanitary
Authority to Factory Inspectors, who neglected duties they were
physically unable to discharge, the result being that the bakehouses
in many parts of the Metropolis fell into an extremely unsatisfactory
condition. The representations made to the Government of the
day, mainly at the instance of your Vestry, under circumstances
fully set out in my Annual Report for 1882 (pp. 133-148 inclusive),
had the desired effect of undoing the mischief wrought by the Act
of 1878; viz., by re-transference of the duty of supervising bakehouses
from Factory Inspectors to the Sanitary Authorities, under
the provisions of the Factory and Workshop Amendment Act,
1883. By this Act, the Vestries and District Boards were again
made the "Local Authority," so far as relates to cleanliness,
ventilation, over-crowding, and other sanitary conditions of bakehouses,
with power 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 my annual report for 1881,
wherein (at page 112) I said:—
"What really is required, is a proper Bakehouse Regulation Act,
providing for the licensing of bakehouses, and conferring on Sanitary
Authorities the power, which they should be obliged to exercise, of
regulating the trade by Bye-laws, uniform for the Metropolis, dealing
with—