men.

It is, as it appears to me, fairly argued by those who desire to see bakehouses placed under a system of inspection, that if slaughterhouses are inspected and subjected to regulations on sanitary grounds, there is quite as much reason, not only on sanitary grounds, but for the satisfaction of the public in such an important matter as that of the making of their daily bread, that bakehouses should be dealt with on a similar principle.

The power of the Nuisances Removal Act, 18 and 19 Vict. c. 121, being insufficient, I think it desirable that the powers which the sanitary inspector already has in certain cases, under the 11th section of the Act, to enter a bakehouse without notice, should be extended. That section enacts that "the local authority shall have power of entry " "to inspect or examine any corn, bread, or flour." And " for this purpose the local authority or their officer may from time to time enter the premises where "corn, bread, or flour is found, at all reasonable hours, or at all hours during which business is carried on in such premises, without notice." This power, which the inspector already possesses in regard to bread and flour, should be given to him as regards the bakehouse generally. Accordingly, I recommend :

1. That the sanitary inspector should have the power to enter any bakehouse at all reasonable hours, or at all hours during which business is carried on in the premises, without notice, to inspect and examine the ventilation, drainage, and general cleanliness of the bakehouse and premises, under the powers of and for the purposes of the Act 18 and 19 Vict.

c. 121.

2. That it should be enacted, that every bakehouse should be limewashed once at least within every successive period of six months, to date from the period when last limewashed. (See the Factories Act, 7 Vict. c. 15, ss. 18 and 58.)

3. Bakehouses, although often, as has been shown, containing sleepingplaces for the men, of a very close, dark, and unwholesome character, are not within the provisions of the Metropolis Local Management Act, 18 and 19 Vict. c. 120, s. 103, inasmuch as they are not "occupied separately as a dwelling." But it is very desirable, on sanitary grounds, and is much wished for by the men, that their sleeping places should be greatly improved, or forbidden to be used in their present state. So much, therefore, of the 103rd section of the above Act as is applicable to the circumstances of the case might with good effect be adopted. I accordingly recommend, 3rdly. That no place on the same level with a bakehouse shall be used as a sleeping place, unless it be effectually separated from the said bakehouse by a partition extending from the floor to the ceiling; or unless there be an external glazed window opening of at least nine superficial feet in area, of which at the least four and a half superficial feet must be made to open for ventilation. (See 18 and 19 Vict. c. 120, s. 103.)

4. It should be enacted that no premises to be hereafter newly constructed or rebuilt for the purpose of being used as a bakehouse should be used as such, unless they are provided with sufficient means for the admission of pure air, and the escape of vitiated air, to the satisfaction of the surveyor of the vestry of the parish or of the Board of Works of the district in which such bakehouse is situated. (See 18 and 19 Vict. c. 120, ss. 75, 81.)

5. If any person should employ a youth under the age of eighteen in a bakehouse between the hours of nine o'clock at night and five o'clock in the morning, or should obstruct any officer or other person acting under the

authority of the above-mentioned Acts or the proposed Act, or should neglect to comply with the requirements of this proposed Act in respect to any sleeping places on the same level with any bakehouse, or with the requirements of this proposed Act in respect to the ventilation of bakehouses to the satisfaction of the surveyor of the vestry and the Board of Works in which such bakehouse is situated, within fourteen days after notice in writing requiring him so to do, has been given to him by such vestry or board, every person so offending should forfeit and pay any sum not exceeding five pounds, and a further sum of not more than ten shillings a day during his default, or during his violation of the proposed Act. (See 18 and 19 Vict. c. 120, s. 100, and 18 and 19 Vict. c. 121, s. 14.)

6. Penalty for neglecting to limewash within the period required should be not less than three nor more than ten pounds, and not less than two pounds additional penalty for every month during which the occupier shall allow the said bakehouse to remain without being limewashed as aforesaid after being convicted of the offence. (See the Factories Act, 7 Vict. c. 15, ss. 18 and 58.)

7. The vestries and Boards of Works constituted and appointed under the above-mentioned Acts of 18 and 19 Vict. c. 121 (the Nuisances Removal Act), and the 18 and 19 Vict. c. 120 (the Metropolis Local Management Act), and the medical officers of health, sanitary inspectors, the district surveyors, and other officers acting under the appointment of the abovenamed vestries and boards, and the other persons named in the above Acts, should have the same powers and authorities for enforcing the provisions above-mentioned in respect to bakehouses as if bakehouses had been expressly named in the above-recited Acts, and as if the above provisions had been embodied in those Acts respectively, and the provisions relating to the recovery and application of penalties, and for appeal, in the said recited Acts, should be equally applicable to this proposed Act.

It was proposed by several of the witnesses, that bakehouses should not only be inspected, but licensed and placed on the same footing as slaughterhouses.

of

The circumstances of bakehouses do not seem to me to place them in the same category as slaughterhouses in regard to the necessity of licensing them. A slaughterhouse, if neglected, will become a public nuisance, and injurious to the health of all persons living near it. near it. A dirty, ill-ventilated bakehouse is only injurious to the health of the persons working in it, or at furthest to the inmates of the house where it is. Inspection, the power ordering the improvements above pointed out, and a fine for non-compliance, would be sufficient for the protection of those most nearly concerned, namely, the workmen. And considering that one-half the bakehouses in London are probably both clean and sufficiently ventilated (though not always judiciously), it would be a needless annoyance to impose upon the proprietors of those the trouble of applying for and renewing their licence to sell bread from year to year.

I am now about to submit to you, in the interests of the journeymen, that it would be desirable that the provisions of the Act "for preventing the adulteration of articles of food," &c. (23 and 24 Vict. c. 84), should be made more effectual; and it need not be added that if this were done it would very much contribute to the satisfaction and advantage of the public also. I shall be unable to show the bearing of this question upon the present condition of the journeymen bakers, without referring to some par

ticulars in the past history and present state of the baking trade. The present condition of a large portion of the journeymen bakers in the metropolis is the direct result of the very active competition that exists in the trade, both among the men and among the masters. The causes of the overcrowded state of the labour market, which produces this competition for work among the men themselves, have been already pointed out. It remains to show what has produced the severe competition which prevails among a large class of the masters, and by what means it is sustained, to the injury of the men, and to the disadvantage, in some important particulars, of the public.

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The history of the baking trade of the metropolis is briefly this :-The regulation of bread and bakers by the assize is of earlier date than the first statute upon the subject, the 51 Henry III. stat. 1, A.D. 1266. This statute recites that "we have seen certain ordinances of the assize of bread," &c., " made in the times of our progenitors, sometimes kings of England;' and it is said to be "an exemplification of certain ordinances of assize made in the reign of King John." From the statute of Henry III. until the 8th Anne, c. 18 (1709), the price of bread was regulated by the price of wheat (irrespective of the price of flour), and the weight of the loaf was increased or diminished as the price of wheat rose or fell. The mode of "setting the assize" is thus described in the first-named Act:-"The bailiffs shall be commanded to " bring in all the bakers," &c. "First, they shall inquire the price of wheat and how the bakers' bread in the court do agree, that is, to wit, wastel and other bread after wheat of the best, or of the second, or of the third price; also, upon how much increase or decrease in the price of wheat a baker ought to change the assize and weight of his bread."

The principle on which the remuneration to the baker was estimated was from the earliest time as follows:-" And be it known that a baker may gain in every quarter of wheat, as is proved by the baker of the lord the king, 4d. and the bran, and two loaves for his advantage; for three servants, 1d.; for two boys, d.; for salt, d.; for kneading, d.; for candles, d.; for wood, 2d.; for bolting, 1d.

Nearly a century and a half later, A.D. 1497 (12 Henry VII.), "As the Book of Assize declareth, when the best wheat was sold at 78., the second at 6s. 6d., and the third at 6s. the quarter, the baker was allowed, for furnace and wood, 6d.; the miller, 4d.; two journeymen and his apprentices, 5d.; salt, yeast, candles, and sackbands, 2d.; himself, his horse, his wife, his dog, and his cat, 7d.; and the bran to his advantage."

Both the mode of setting the assize and the principle on which the price of bread was determined appears to have remained unchanged by legislation from those early periods until the time of Queen Anne. The statute 8 Anne c. 18 (A.D. 1709), recites the statute 51 Henry III., “and that many doubts and difficulties do daily arise in the construction thereof, whereby little or no observance hath in many places been made, either of the due assize or reasonable price of bread, and covetous and evil-disposed persons, taking advantage of the same, have, for their own gain and lucre, deceived and oppressed her Majesty's subjects, and more especially the poorer sort of people. For remedy whereof it enacts," that the lord mayor of the city of London, and the mayor or other chief magistrates of any other city, town, corporation, or borough, and two or more justices of the peace in such town and places where there shall be no mayor, &c., shall

ascertain and appoint the assize and weight of all sorts of bread to be sold by any baker or other person whatsoever, having respect to the price the grain, meal, or flour whereof such bread shall be made shall bear on the several public markets, &c., and making reasonable allowance to the bakers for their charges, ovens, and livelihoods." A table is then given of the weight that each kind of bread-white, wheaten, and household-must be, according to the price of wheat, and the allowance of the magistrates to the baker for baking; the latter varying from 1s. to 1s. 6d. per bushel of wheat.

By sect. 7, if any baker or seller of bread shall put into any bread any mixture of any other grain than what shall be appointed by the assize, he shall forfeit 20s. By sect. 7 it is enacted that "it shall be lawful for the Lord Mayor or aldermen, or chief magistrates of any other place, or the justice, &c., at all times hereafter, in the day-time, to enter into any house, shop, stall, bakehouse, &c. &c., to search for, view, and try all or any of the bread of such person or which may there be found; and if any bread shall be found wanting, either in the goodness of the stuff whereof the same shall be made, or be deficient in the due baking or working thereof, or shall be deficient in the due weight it shall be lawful

to seize and take the bread so found

During the whole of the following century, and until the abolition of the assize of bread in the metropolis in 1822, and in the country in 1836 (by the Acts 3 Geo. IV. c. 106., and 6 & 7 Will. IV. c. 37), complaints were frequent of the unfair average price, resulting from the different and contradictory modes of setting the assize adopted in different parts of the country. In some places, although the prices of wheat and flour were combined, "screenings" and inferior wheat, not made into bread, were averaged with the rest. In 1813, the country bakers complained that the assize was set on wheat and not on flour. It was stated by Mr. Edward Grose Smith, clerk to the Bakers' Company, before the committee of 1815, that wheat not fit for mealing, but only to be made into starch, or paste for bookbinders or papering rooms, or for biscuits, was brought into the averages in the country.

"The wheat table (price of wheat) never was considered by the London bakers of any account, either by the Lord Mayor or by the trade,-only the flour table." It was also shown before that committee that the London bakers took their flour from the millers at the price they chose to set upon it, as, whatever price was set upon it, it was returned to them in the price of the loaf as set by the assize, on the weekly return of the bakers upon the flour used. Some bakers returned the full credit price, although they subsequently obtained a discount for prompt payment. Much flour was returned at a higher price than that at which it was purchased, and much low-priced flour was omitted. "Mealmen and millers looked to the assize, and raised the price of flour. The bakers had no interest in cheap flour; they did not care what the price was, and gave it no care in their purchases."

Both the bakers and the public were dissatisfied with the operation of the assize laws. As regards the bakers, the committee of the House of Commons of 1821 reported that the Assize Acts "were instruments. of oppression against the fair tradesman, by the power given to informers of seizing bread and of keeping it three days before he could be compelled to have it weighed" before a magistrate. They rendered him therefore liable

to information and conviction" on account of the necessary waste of the article," and also" on account of the bread being accidentally under weight by being burnt in baking." The Act 55 Geo. III., for the protection of the baker on those points, "was found insufficient," and he was frequently "driven to bribe common informers."

The public were dissatisfied, because they thought, and rightly, that the price of bread, instead of being kept at a fair and equitable rate by the assize, was unduly raised by it. After various changes in the weight of bread, which the baker was required to give per quarter of wheat (or sack of flour), it was finally assumed by the Act 31 Geo. II. and 37 Geo. III. that 20 peck loaves, or 80 quartern loaves (of 4 lbs. 54 oz. each), were made from a sack of 280 lbs. of flour.

In reality, with good flour, more than 80 quartern loaves could be made per sack. The surplus, together with the allowance for his expenses, &c., gave the baker a good profit. But on various grounds the bakers applied from time to time to have their allowance for expenses, &c., raised. They applied in 1797, "and obtained an increase in the tables of London of 18. 8d. per sack;" but this increase was against the opinion of the oldest and most experienced master bakers," as it would tend to introduce competition in the price of bread; every increase of profit increasing the number of bakers." Again, in 1804 the London bakers petitioned to Parliament "for an increased allowance," and stated that it was an application on behalf of the whole trade collectively." They grounded their application on the fact of the increase of their expenses; "that the prices of yeast, wood, candles, and salt had risen ;" and "that rents had also risen." They also brought forward a statement showing that "the clear profit to the baker per sack" had declined as follows:-It was in 1747, 58. 7 d.; in 1789, 58. 44d.; in 1799, 4s. 2d.; in 1800, 48. 01d.; in 1801, 38. 10d.; in 1802, 38. 11d.; in 1803, 3s. 7d.; in 1804, 38. 4d. The result of these applications was that the tables of assize were increased 18. 8d. in 1797, and 18. 8d. in 1804, and twice again between 1804 and the period of the abolition of the assize. The actual sum allowed previously to 1797 appears to have been under 12s. per sack; in 1813, it was 13s. 4d.; subsequently, it was as high as 15s. 10d.; but the witness making that statement said his actual profit was less on account of increased

expenses.

But, as adverted to above, these advances in the allowance were made against the opinion of some of the more far-seeing members of the trade, inasmuch as it was well known that their real profits were larger than they were made to appear, in consequence of their being able to make more than eighty quartern loaves from the sack of flour; and the increase was greater the better the quality of flour used.

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Accordingly, even before 1797, a system had commenced among certain persons in the trade, of selling bread below the price fixed by the assize. This practice of making and selling " cheap bread," when once commenced and found profitable, increased rapidly in consequence of the great facilities for getting into the trade, from the small amount of skill and capital required. Many became proprietors of bakehouses, into which they put journeymen, or encouraged journeymen to set up for themselves; buying flour in large quantities, and selling for ready money at a price below the assize." The master of the Bakers' Company (Mr. G. Wright), stated to the committee in 1815, that according to the returns of the Cocket Office

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