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Now, how this interval is spent by the journeymen, forms a very important
question in carrying out the provisions of this Act. The master baker admits
his workmen to the bakehouse before he retires to his rest, and it is not unusual
for the men to be locked within the precincts of the bakehouse for the night.
The sponge being set (according to the prevailing system of fermenting) requires
a certain time to rise. The operation being thus initiated the journeyman suspends
his labour, and drowsily collecting empty sacks to serve for rug and
pillow he lays himself down upon the troughs on which the bread is made, to
catch what sleep he can. It is this practice which the fifth section of the Act is
framed especially to disallow. It is during this time that the temperature of the
bakehouse is raised, the doors and windows are closed and all external air as far
as possible excluded, and thus enveloped in sacks and in a highly carbonized
atmosphere, the workman sleeps a sleep almost of death.
The temperature required for successful fermentation is about 70° of
Fahrenheit, but as the process is at present conducted in the generality of bakehouses,
everything is done by guess. The baker knows a certain warmth is
necessary for its accomplishment, but with a singular occultness of intelligence,
imagines it is necessary to stew the journeyman simultaneously with his flour.
No attempt whatever appears to be made to confine the increased temperature
to the troughs, or to collect the gases arising from the fermentation, and thus
protect the workmen from these most deleterious agents, but the object is rudely
accomplished by raising the heat of the entire apartment to the requisite pitch.
The section of the Act runs thus:—"No place on the same level with a bakehouse
situate in any city, town, or place, containing according to the last
census a population of more than five thousand persons, and forming part of the
same building, shall be used as a sleeping place, unless it is constructed as
follows; that is to say, unless it is effectually separated from the bakehouse by
a partition extending from the floor to the ceiling: unless there be an external
glazed window of at least nine superficial feet in area, of which, at the least four
and a half superficial feet are made to open for ventilation. And any person who
lets, occupies, or continues to let, or knowingly suffers to be occupied, any place
contrary to this Act, shall be liable for the first, offence to a penalty not
exceeding twenty shillings, and for every subsequent offence to a penalty not exceeding
five pounds."
An examination of the Bakehouses of the Fulham District has shewn, that,
although in the majority of instances separate sleeping rooms ostensibly exist,
there is in my opinion a wholesale infringement of what this statute is intended
to suppress, viz:—men using the bakehouse as a sleeping place during some
portion of the night. The interval between the setting of the sponge and
making up the dough, is, I believe, as a rule, thus occupied. It is also to be
observed that many of the sleeping rooms devoted to the journeyman's use, even
during his short hours of rest, are underground in close contiguity to the closet
and the bakehouse, by the heated gases of which their air is much contaminated,
so whilst resting from his toil he is still exposed to the exhausting
influence of impure air.
To carry out the spirit and the very objects of this Act will entail a patient
and persevering effort to abolish this injurious custom. Its importance cannot
be over rated when we consider that in this metropolis alone, the journeymen
bakers are not less in number than 12,000, and that the physical and social condition
of such a body must have some significance in its bearing on the common
weal. It is at present impossible to separate the question of night work from
its connection with this subject, but time and the hearty co-operation of the