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315
Trade Supervision.—All the cowsheds, slaughterhouses,
dairies, milk shops, and bake-houses have
been inspected at least twice during the year,
several of them more frequently.
Notices of new work-rooms are sent to the
Department by the Home Office pursuant to Sec.
26 of the Factory and Workshops Act, 1891, but
during 1899 only 4 such notices were received, a
number which suggests that the provisions of the
Act—so far as concerns the giving of such notices
by the occupiers of the work-rooms, to the Home
Office—are not actively carried out. The workrooms
were inspected, measured and entered on the
local register, which contained at the end of the
year 183 entries. Cards were issued for each workroom,
indicating the number of workers which such
room could lawfully accommodate. Such cards
were issued for 68 rooms, most of which were dealt
with by the Inspectors independently of the Home
Office Officials. Complaints of insanitary conditions
at 7 workrooms were received from the District
Inspector of Factories, and dealt with. The total
number of inspections of workplaces during the year
was 145, more than double the total of 1898 (67). It
cannot be questioned that the amount of supervision
is even now insufficient. At the present time workrooms,
as distinct from factories, are under triple control,
viz., that of the Officers of the Home Office, of