§ MR. E. H. BAYLEY (Camberwell, N.)I beg to ask the President of the Local Government Board whether his attention has been drawn to the Report of Dr. F. J. Waldo, medical officer of St. George the Martyr, Southwark, to the effect that baking is extensively carried on in cellars badly lighted and ventilated, and occasionally flooded with sewage; and whether he will take steps to put an end to this evil by inserting a clause in the Factory Acts or the Public Health (London) Act, 1891, forbidding underground bakehouses, and requiring all bakehouses to be registered, thus placing them under inspection previous to their being opened?
§ *MR. H. H. FOWLERMy attention has been drawn to the Report referred to. I find that Dr. Waldo states that there are 21 underground bakehouses in the Parish of St. George the Martyr, Southwark. It is also stated that occasionally, in the case of some bakehouses, in times of heavy rainfall, the sewage forces its way through the draintraps into the bakehouse so as to cover the floor, and that the cause of this state of things is clearly due to the inadequacy of certain sewers. With regard to the ventilation of the bakehouses, the Acts provide for proceedings against the occupier when a bakehouse is without proper ventilation; and with respect to the flooding of the bakehouses by sewage the responsibility appears to rest with the Local Authority. Further, the Act of 1883 expressly provides for penalties in any case where a Court of Summary Jurisdiction is satisfied, on the prosecution of an Inspector or Sanitary Authority, that any room or place used as a bakehouse is in such a state as to be, on sanitary grounds, unfit for use or occupation as a bakehouse. Although the Report of Dr. Waldo refers to much that is unsatisfactory in the bakehouses in the parish referred to, he states that he is pleased to be able to report a general improvement in their condition since July, 1892, when he made his first Report, and that he has found the master bakers almost invariably ready and anxious to remedy defects when pointed out and explained to them, both for their own sakes and for their 900 customers. The provisions of the law relating to bakehouses were considered by Parliament so recently as 1891, when the Public Health (London) Act was passed.