to buildings where more than twenty are employed. In order to get at the meaning of this, at first sight, simple enactment, it is necessary, in the first place, to refer to the definition of "house" in section. 4 of the Public Health Act, 1878, which includes "schools, also factories or other buildings in which more than twenty persons are employed at one time.” Reference must next be made to section 107 and the Sixth Schedule of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, the result of which will be to discover that in section 4 of the Public Health Act the following words, "more than twenty," and "at any time," are now repealed. The effect, therefore, of the two above-quoted sections and Schedule of the Factory and Workshop Act, 1878, seems to be that the definition of "house" in the Public Health Act, includes all factories or other buildings in which persons are employed. To any one unacquainted with the style in which some modern Acts of Parliament are drawn, it might possibly occur that this very recondite amendment might have been effected by a somewhat less roundabout process.

However this may be, the amendment is of importance, as it enables Urban and Rural Sanitary Authorities, under the Public Health Act, 1875, to enforce the drainage of undrained workshops (including bakehouses) (section 23); to require them to be drained into new sewers (section 24); to prevent them being built without proper privy accommodation (section 35); and in urban districts without drains (section 25); to enforce the provision of privy or earthcloset accommodation in existing bakehouses (sections 36 and 37); to require them to be furnished with a proper supply of water (section 62); and, in fact, to insist on the same sanitary conditions being observed in respect of them as are enforceable under the Act in respect of houses.

Public Health

In addition to the provisions of the Public Other provi Health Acts, 1875 and 1878, relating to houses, sions of the there are other provisions of the former Act which Act, 1875, may, in some cases, be serviceable in connexion applicable. with bakehouses; e.g., where it is desirable to close

a polluted well under section 70, or to disinfect premises under section 120. These and the other

provisions of that Act are, however, probably too well known to Sanitary Authorities to call for comment in the present work.

E

Reasons for fearing that the sanitary

regulation of

retail bake

houses may not be

properly enforced.

Reasons for

CHAPTER III.

Necessity for the Sanitary Regulation of Retail
Bakehouses.

CONSIDERING how large a proportion of the food
of every household comes from retail bakehouses, it
may seem to some a work of supererogation to
endeavour to show that these establishments require
to be systematically inspected and regulated by
But as there are good
Sanitary Authorities.
grounds for supposing that many of them have been
free from any kind of inspection or regulation in
the past, there is some reason to fear that they may
enjoy a similar immunity in the future.

Nor is it altogether improbable that there may be an indisposition on the part of local authorities to resume with zeal, after so long an interval, the thankless task of supervising these places, involving as it must some interference with trading interests, unless the necessity for their doing so for the protection of the public is made clear to them beyond the possibility of a doubt. They may argue that as the cases, if any, in which actual injury to the public health can be proved to have resulted from the existing condition of bakehouses are not numerous, and, as any undue interference with the baking business may bring about the very serious result of raising the price of bread, it may be desirable for them to refrain from taking any active steps in the

matter.

In the interests of local self-government it is to hoping that it be hoped that they will come to a very different

may be.

conclusion. They have now an excellent opportunity of showing how much better work of this kind can be done by a local than by a central authority. In the metropolis this has already been demonstrated in the face of considerable difficulties by energetic Medical Officers of Health, with the result that the work has been re-transferred from the Factory Inspectors to the public bodies, from whom it seems clear that it ought never to have been taken. It would be a matter for regret if the past were to repeat itself, and Parliament were hereafter to find it necessary to again take this work from the local authorities and hand it back to a central authority.

The interests of the trade have evidently been so carefully considered by the Legislature, in dealing with retail bakehouses, that no local authority need be under any apprehension that, however stringently the existing law is put in force, any rise in the price of bread will ensue. And the statutory requirements with respect to these places can hardly be considered by the least fastidious person to be excessive. Probably no one would like to think that his bread had come from a bakehouse, or would care himself to work in a bakehouse, in which they were disregarded. A compliance with them ought in no case to involve a large outlay. It is difficult to believe that wholesome bread and confectionery can be made in filthy places; and it would be contrary to experience to hold that no danger to health will arise when food is made and baked under conditions which render it impossible for the materials and utensils used to be kept clean during the process. If no injury to health has yet been proved to result from an ill-kept bakehouse, it seems more reasonable, bearing in mind the very irregular manner in which bakehouses have hitherto been supervised, to conclude that the explanation is to be found rather in the fact that the injury has been

Mr. Lakeman's Keports.

overlooked than that is has not taken place. The only other probable assumption would be that, as a general rule, bakehouses have been so well kept that it is not necessary to place them under inspection and control.

That this, at any rate, is not the case, there is abundant evidence, notwithstanding the very partial manner in which bakehouses have as yet been inspected. On this point it will be desirable to quote from the Reports of the Factory Inspectors and also from those of some of the Metropolitan Officers of Health. In the first instance reference made be made to the following Report of Mr. Lakeman on Metropolitan bakehouses, which has already been alluded to in Chapter I., page 14.

Mr. Lakeman says :—

"The inspection of bakehouses having been "undertaken by us since the passing of the Factory " and Workshop Act, 1878, I deem it to be a subject "of sufficient interest to mention in my Report, that "you might know to what extent the Act had been

respected, and the condition in which many bake"houses were found. It will be generally conceded "that where the 'staff of life' is manufactured the place, utensils used, and persons employed in the process, should be scrupulously clean, and, at any "rate, the sanitary conditions of all bakehouses "should bear the test of the Act of 1878.

"Since January, 1880, we have paid 1,417 visits "to bakehouses in my London district, being equal "to about three-fourths of the total number of "bakeries, in nearly all of which only adult males are employed; the rules as to sleeping accommo"dation are fairly obeyed, for the very few who 'sleep next to the bakehouses have space and "window light as prescribed, though of the ventila"tion and cleanliness of the apartments I cannot "say much. Many bakeries are carried on by