workshops. Nor were there any sufficient grounds for excepting bakehouses in this respect from the operation of the general law relating to factories and workshops. On the other hand, the sanitary regulation of Sanitary regulation of ordibakehouses, such as those to which the Act was nary bakeevidently intended primarily to apply, was a duty houses rightly which it was eminently right to impose on the entrusted same local authorities, as were employed in the the local ausanitary regulation of premises, other than bakehouses. thority. to Another defect in the Act was that no distinc- No distinction tion was made by it between wholesale and retail in the Act between wholebakehouses. The definition of bakehouse contained sale and retail in it was, "any place in which are baked bread, bakehouses. confectionery, or biscuits, from the baking or selling of which a profit is derived." This definition included not only the innumerable small bakehouses which exist in every town, and which are the only places popularly known as bakehouses, but also the large wholesale establishments for biscuit-baking, such as those of Messrs. Huntley and Palmer, at Reading, which are comparatively few in number, and the regulation of which, for all purposes, might have probably been left to the Factory Inspectors without any detriment to the public health. The result of not keeping the two objects of the Result of not the Act distinct was that, as time went on, the amend- keeping two objects of ments which were made in the general law relating the Act disto the employment of women and children in other tinct. factories and workshops were not made applicable to bakehouses, the only statutory enactment on this subject being the one above referred to, by which persons under eighteen years of age were prohibited from being employed in bakehouses between the hours of nine o'clock at night and five o'clock in the morning. This state of things continued. B 2 Public Health Public Health Local Authori ties for enforc until the Report of the Royal Commission on Factories and Workshops in 1876, to which reference is made below. In the meanwhile, the Public Health Act, 1872, having for the first time constituted urban and rural sanitary authorities throughout the country outside of the Metropolis, the duties of the local authorities under the Bakehouse Regulation Act, 1863, were transferred outside of the Metropolis to the new authorities thus constituted. In 1875, the Public Health Act, 1872, and the majority of the Sanitary Acts, were consolidated by the Public Health Act, 1875. The Bakehouse Regulation Act was not included in this consolidation; but the duty of carrying it into effect continued to belong to the urban and rural sanitary authorities, in addition to the duties attaching to these authorities under the new Act. In the Metropolis, the local authorities whose ing the Act duty it was to enforce the Bakehouse Regulation in the Metro- Act were, in the City of London, the Commispolis. sioners of Sewers, and in the remainder of the Metropolis, the Metropolitan Vestries and District Boards. mission on Report of the law relating to bakehouses naturally came under "The most conspicuous instance of a handicraft "trade excepted is that of baking. Bakehouses "have never as yet been put under the Factory and Workshop Acts; they have, however, been "specially regulated by the Bakehouse Regulation "Act of 1863. By that Act, which was passed at "a time when public attention had been called to "the unhealthy conditions under which the baking "of bread was carried on, the same limits were "prescribed for the hours of labour of young 66 66 persons, namely, 5 a.m. and 9 p.m., as were after"wards adopted in the Workshops Regulation Act; "and provisions were added for securing cleanliness and sanitary precautions in the bakehouses. "A 'bakehouse' was, moreover, defined to mean ""any place in which are baked bread, biscuits, or confectionery, from the baking or selling of which "a profit is derived;' thus including, with the peculiar night-trade of bread-baking, the ordinary day-trade of biscuit-baking and confectionery. "The practical result of this Act was to exclude young persons from the bread-baking trade, where "the work is necessarily done by night; and the "temporary alarm having subsided, the trade was "not included in the Factory Acts Extension Act "of 1864, which dealt with certain specially unhealthy occupations, and was expressly excluded, "both from the Factory Acts Extension Act and "from the Workshops Regulation Act of 1867, as being already regulated by the special Act. It "was apparently overlooked, that not merely bread"baking, in which there practically remained "nothing which urgently required regulation, but "also biscuit-baking and confectionery, trades in "which, in some places, steam-power is used, and "hundreds of women, young persons and children, are employed, were thus excepted from the general system, which was then in course of ex"tension to all trades alike. In the Bakehouse Act "there are no educational provisions, and indeed "'children' are in no way mentioned in the Act. "The anomaly was again sanctioned and aggra"vated by the Factory and Workshop Act of '1871, when, the workshops having been trans"ferred to the supervision of the Inspectors of "Factories, upon the express ground of the failure "of the local authorities to supervise them, it was "overlooked that there had been similar failure to "perform the duties imposed on them in reference "to bakehouses. At the present day it is only here "and there that any active steps have been taken 'by the local authorities to carry out the provisions "of the Bakehouse Act; in general, indeed, nothing "has been done by them except in ordinary execu"tion of their sanitary functions. Their officers "have sometimes visited them, and circulars have "been issued stating the requirements embodied in "the Act. Meantime, the Inspectors of Factories "have in some cases established their authority to "the utmost limits the law would allow, that is to say, over all parts of a biscuit factory in which "biscuits are not actually baked; over every room,in 'fact, in which there is no oven. In some districts, "however, this has not been attempted, and the resulting confusion may easily be conceived. "Some biscuit factories have been brought wholly "under the law, some partly, while some are entirely free from control, according to the degree "of resistance which has been made by the occupier "and the general discretion of the inspector. "Sub-Inspector Cooke Taylor writes: 'In my "district are two large biscuit factories (Messrs. "Carr's at Carlisle, and Messrs. Powell's at Preston), "and several smaller ones. In these the extra"ordinary system prevails of children, refused by "the certifying surgeon to work in the lighter processes of the manufacture for ten or ten and a half hours a day, being sent down into the "bakehouse, where they can be employed, appa " Mr. "rently (26 & 27 Vict., c. 40, s. 3) for sixteen "hours at a stretch! This arrangement, I am "informed, is facetiously described as "putting "them into the hot-house to mature." And "Mr. Wm. Palmer states, in reference to some “similar complaints of the large establishment of "Messrs. Huntley and Palmer at Reading: 'With regard to the complaints of our long hours, ours "is by far the largest factory in the town, and we are not under the Factory Act. Many small "factories in the town have been under the Factory "Act, and you can easily imagine that there is a "sort of grievance on the part of those small "factories, that one large factory is not under the same rules and regulations as they are.' We are "clearly of opinion that the baking trade, whether "of bread or biscuits, and including confectionery, "should be placed under the general law. We "shall have occasion hereafter to point out the "relaxation of the law which it may be proper to "concede. We by no means recommend that the "local authorities should be relieved of their general "duties in respect of the sanitary supervision of "bakehouses; which, on the contrary, we trust "will in future be more effectually administered. "We do not recommend the repeal of the Bake"house Regulation Act, because it appears not to "have been incorporated, but only referred to, in "the Consolidated Public Health Act of last year, 66 Iwith which it is of course desirable not to interfere." local authori With regard to so much of the above-quoted pas- Allegation as sage as relates to the alleged general failure on the to failure of the part of the local authorities to carry out the pro- ties in enforcvisions of the Bakehouse Regulation Act, it is ing the Bakeonly fair to say that an allegation of this kind house Regulais very easy to make, and very difficult to refute, and that an examination of the very voluminous evidence printed in the Report does not, in the tion Act. |