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 INDUSTRIAL LAW COMMI- 
 TTEE, LONDON 
 
 LEGISLATION AFFECTING 
 CONDITIONS OF EMPLOY- 
 MENT IN HOMES WORK 
 
 DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES IN 
 ENGLAND
 
 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES
 
 cf 
 
 ti INDUSTRIAL LAW COMMITTEE, 
 
 i 
 
 5, PALMER STREET, WESTMINSTER, S.W. 
 
 LEGISLATION 
 
 mm 
 
 AFFECTING THE 
 
 CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT 
 
 HOME WORK & DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES 
 IN ENGLAND. 
 
 (Being the English version .of a paper written at Dr. Weber's request 
 for the Vereiii fiir Sozial Politik.) 
 
 I 
 
 LONDON : 
 Co-operative Printing Society Limited, Tudor Street, New Bridge Street E.C 
 AND AT Manchester and Newcastle. 
 
 I 900.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Introductory .. .. ., ,. .. .. .. .. 3 
 
 A. Definition of the terms and the field of their 
 
 APPLICATION.. .. .. .. .. .. .. .. 3 
 
 B. Regulation of employment and Sanitation in Domestic 
 
 Workshops compared with Workshops . . . . . . 9 
 
 C. Certain laws affecting fulfilment of wage-contracts 17 
 
 D. Suggestions for further regulations which have been 
 
 made or considered .. .. .. .. .. .. 21 
 
 Appendix. Extracts from Factory Laws relating to 
 
 Domestic Workshops ,. .. .. .. .. .. 2=5 
 
 >t-]Y-^f',;^'.\ ^>>'
 
 LEGISLATION AFFECTING 1^3 ^ 
 
 THE 3r7XW^ 
 
 CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT 
 
 HOME WORK AND DOMESTIC INDUSTRIES 
 IN ENGLAND, 
 
 INTRODUCTORY. 
 
 In preparing a survey for non-English readers on any branch of 
 industrial or Labour legislation which may be useful for purposes 
 of comparison with the state of the law touching the same order 
 of questions in other countries, the first condition of successful 
 presentation of the essential features and their practical import is 
 to base the survey on definitions of the chief terms employed, the 
 second to draw out and illustrate the administrative links of the 
 special groups of laws involved, and the third to indicate, however 
 slightly, the legislative antecedents out of which these laws grew. 
 I do not mean that it is necessary to deal with these elements 
 underlying the exact prescriptions or requirements of the law in 
 the order in which I have set them down, but I do mean that they 
 must be steadily borne in mind and touched on whenever there is 
 a possibility of misapprehension of the scope of the main part of the 
 laws involved. This is necessary one finds in explaining them to 
 the average citizen of one's own country ; how much more is it to 
 be desired when the inquirer belongs to a country with different 
 circumstances of administration and social traditions and legal 
 standpoint. 
 
 ^.—DEFINITION OF THE TERMS AND THE FIELD 
 OF THEIR APPLICATION. 
 
 The long history and slow, if steady, development of the English 
 factory and workshop laws, each step in which was taken in 
 response to some strongly-expressed need, and planted wherever 
 practicable on some existing precedent, has necessarily involved 
 the gradual development, paradoxical though it may seem, of 
 definitions which are precise if not entirely logical. As far as 
 possible, in consolidating acts the terms are brought together 
 under common conceptions, and where this cannot be done 
 supplementary lists are prepared and embodied in the law itself. 
 It thus becomes possible for the average cilizen to decide with 
 reasonable certainty, without recourse to special official interpreta- 
 tions, what industrial activities are really included in the scope of 
 
 19725S5
 
 the law, and it is easiest to indicate to all inquirers from the \ery 
 words of the statutes the main classes or groups of workplaces 
 which are touched by any or all of the provisions of the law. 
 
 Although I shall have to show in this paper, as regards 
 industrial activities carried on in homes, that there are various 
 important statutes which touch the workers, e.g., the Truck Acts, 
 the Public Health Acts, the main group of laws is the Factory 
 and \\'orkshop Acts, and it is with the definitions in these that I 
 am concerned to commence. 
 
 The peculiar history of the development of the meaning of the 
 terms " factory," " workshop," " domestic workshop," in England, 
 which has no exact parallel in any other European country, makes 
 it important to take note of all three terms in order to make clear 
 the exact extension of the last of them. There is in the English 
 law no general distinction between domestic industry of the old 
 handicraft character and homework developed in dependence on 
 the sub-division of labour which accompanies industry on a large 
 scale, although in the most recent additions to the law there are 
 sections which, in effect, especially touch the latter, and one which 
 was drafted to afford means of controlling sanitary abuses in con- 
 nection with " out work " in the so-called " sweating " industries — 
 to be touched on presently. 
 
 At the same time nothing remains in the English laws of a 
 limitation of the general notions " factory " and " workshop " by 
 reference to the numbers of workers employed in them •' ; stillless is 
 there any trace in the conception " factory " of the features of sub- 
 division of work and non-occupation of the employer in manual 
 assistance which is expressly included in the Austrian Industrial 
 Code, and which I understand appears in some of the legal 
 decisions of Courts of Appeal in Germany. 
 
 A factory or workshop with us means, broadly, any premises, 
 room, or place in which manual labour with or without the aid of 
 mechanical power is exercised for purposes of gain in making, 
 repairing, altering, finishing or adapting for sale any article or part 
 of an article. No places or premises are excluded simply because 
 the work is carried on in the open air. If mechanical power 
 (steam, water, gas, electricity, etc.) be used in aid of the manual 
 labour the place is always a factory. If mechanical power 
 be not used it is generally a ii>ovhshop, although certain workplaces 
 {e.g., print-works, bleaching and dyeing works, earthenware works, 
 lucifer match works, fustian cutting works, premises in which 
 bookbinding, manufacture of tobacco or paper are carried on, and 
 a few other workplaces) are factories whether mechanical power is 
 
 • With ihe one exception of small hand laundries, which, by a special 
 pnjvision, only come within the scope of the law if more than two workers 
 living elsewhere than on the premises are employed. Act of 1895, section 22, 
 }>ub-sec'.'on 3.
 
 used or not, regardless of the number of persons employed ; 
 employment of one person would constitute a factory or workshop 
 (as the case might be). 
 
 The definition of ivorkshop is further limited by one condition, 
 that it applies only to premises, room, or place to which or over 
 which the employer of the persons w^orking therein has the right of 
 access. Even if young persons or children are not employed in it 
 the workshop is reckoned as under the general law, although 
 certain special arrangements may in that case be made by the 
 occupier with regard to the employment of women {i.e., women 
 over 1 8 years of age). Workshops in which none but men over i8 
 years of age are employed only come withm the scope of the law, 
 for special rules if the industry is unhealthy, reporting, registering, 
 and investigation of accidents, the general sanitation sections, and 
 the provision that their existence must be notified to the Factory 
 Inspector appointed by the Home Office. There is no general 
 distinction made in the Acts between a domestic factory and an 
 ordinary factory, both being alike under the general law if steam, 
 water, or other mechanical power is used. A special place in the 
 law is held, however, by " domestic workshops." \\'here persons 
 are employed at home, that is to say in a private house, room, or 
 place which, though used as a dwelling, is by reason of tlie work 
 carried on there a factory''' or workshop within the meaning of 
 the Acts, and in which neither steam, water, nor other mechanical 
 power is used in aid of the manufacturing process, and in which 
 the only persons employed are members of the same family diuelling there the 
 general provisions of the Act relating to employment are replaced 
 by special clauses and the provisions relating to affixing of notices ; 
 abstracts of the law% holidays, and a few other matters are abro- 
 gated. These points will be more fully enlarged upon when I come 
 presently to summarise the sum total of restrictions which do apply 
 in a domestic workshop. My immediate object is to make the 
 conception itself clear. The essential point is that it is strictly 
 confined to the home, in which none are employed but '' members 
 of the same family dwelling there " ; it is thus not the size of the 
 workshop that is in question, and membership of the household is 
 not sufficient without family relationship to constitute a home group 
 of workers into a domestic workshop. A milliner or a dressmaker 
 or an upholstress, for instance, working in her back parlour with 
 the aid of a single employe (even if an apprentice), would be the 
 occupier of an ordinary workshop subject to the daily period of 
 employment {e.g., 8 a.m. to 8 p.m., and Saturday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.) 
 and all the other general restrictions of the law. Equally, for 
 example, would a tailor or tailoress be under the general law, if he 
 or she, as an out-worker for an occupier of a factory or a contractor, 
 were to employ one or more protected workers in the home in 
 addition to the members of the family ; a relative who came to work 
 
 *C/. above the workplaces enumerated : Print-works, earthenware-works, etc.
 
 daily from some other dwelling would be sufficient to transform the 
 " domestic workshop " into an ordinary " workshop." Occupiers 
 of all such domestic workshops, equally with the occupiers of the 
 largest workshops and factories, are bound to send notice of their 
 occupation to Her Majesty's Inspector in charge of the district 
 (Act of i8gi, section 26, and Act of 1895, section 41) under liability, 
 in default, to a penalty of £^. The sole exceptions are the cases of 
 straw-plaiting, pillow-lace making, and glove making, and the 
 cases where an occupation is exercised at irregular intervals and 
 does not furnish the principal means of living to a family — even if 
 this work would otherwise constitute the place a domestic workshop. 
 These are exempt from the general law, as well as the special duty 
 of notifying existence to the Factory Inspector. 
 
 It results, on the whole, that we have in England a practically 
 complete register of factories and workshops under the general law, 
 and that theoretically we should also have of domestic workshops 
 and men's workshops. How far the latter are actually reported 
 remains to be considered. 
 
 Prior to 1891, and even under the great consolidating Act of 
 1878, which is the basis of all inspection and regulation of work- 
 shops, there was actually no power to compel occupiers of work- 
 shops to notify their existence, the law only requiring this duty of 
 the occupiers of factories. Necessarily, therefore, a very large 
 number of workshops remained unknown to Her Majesty's 
 Inspectors until quite recently, and the need for alteration in the 
 law was demonstrated by the evidence before the House of Lords 
 Committee on the Sweating System, which reported in 1890. 
 
 Down to the year 1892, and to the date of publication of the 
 Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories in 1893, no 
 record was published whereby any estimate can be formed of the 
 number of w^orkshops under observation and inspection. In 1893 
 the record was 86,915, and in 1894 92,141. The latest figures, on 
 the registers have to be compared with the number of workshops 
 from which returns of workers employed were sent in. In 
 1895 there were 105,116 on the registers, and of these 71,424 
 made returns; in 1896 there were 110,234 °" the registers, of 
 whom 81,669 made returns; in 1897 there were 122,274 o^ the 
 registers, and of these the returns are not yet published. The 
 increase in registration would be due not solely to increase of 
 numbers, but also to discovery of old workshops. The total 
 number of persons returned as employed in workshops in 1895 was 
 547,615, and in 1896 was 655,565. To form any conclusion as to 
 whether there is any change in average size of workshops we must 
 wait for some years of returns, 1895 being the first year in the 
 series as regards persons employed. It must be remembered that 
 two special channels of information are provided in addition to 
 those provided by laying the direct duty of reporting on to work- 
 shop occupiers : (i) The returns in certain trades of out-workers
 
 employed by manufacturers which the latter are bound to send twice 
 annually to the Factory Inspector ; (2) the written notices which 
 medical officers of the sanitary authority are bound to send to the 
 Factory Inspe:;tor if they become aware of the employment of any 
 child, young person, or woman in a workshop not already under 
 inspection. Officers of the sanitary authority having under the 
 law of public health the power of entry into every di^'dling have 
 special opportunities of thus adding to the information of the 
 Factory Inspector. 
 
 Can any estimate be formed now of the number of workshops, 
 domestic and other, which remain, by default, unreported, 
 unregistered, and, therefore, so far as the Factory Department is 
 concerned, uninspected ? This is a question which immediately 
 suggests itself. No basis for calculation exists beyond that 
 afforded by the Industrial Occupations Statistics drawn out at the 
 last census (1891). Two difficulties at once present themselves. 
 First, the factory and workshop returns belong to a later date, and 
 correspond presumably to an increased industrial population, but 
 we are ignorant of the rate of increase. Secondly, the returns 
 are made out on distinct lines as to grouping of trades, classification 
 of persons, and the like, and it is almost impossible to find any 
 approximately safe basis of comparison that would serve through- 
 out. For example, the census returns group furniture dealers with 
 the cabinet-making and upholstering industries, whereas the 
 factory returns leave out the dealers and include making of 
 household utensils. Again, the census returns divide all the 
 people engaged in any industry into four classes : Employers, 
 employed, working on own account, others or not defined ; whereas the 
 factory returns give simply: Number of factories, number of ivorkshops 
 and persons employed as distinct from employers in them. It is clear 
 that the number of individual employers will be greater than the 
 number of workshops and factories, owing to partnerships, etc., so 
 that it is impossible to arrive at any exact conclusion as to number 
 of workplaces even if we subtract the total number of factories and 
 workshops from either the sum of employers and persons working 
 on their account or the first alone. Further, the factory returns 
 being wholly based on the information sent in by occupiers (in 
 compliance with section 34 of the Act of 1895), and many 
 occupiers having in each year failed to make a return, it follows 
 that the inspectors have actually on their registers and under 
 inspection a larger number of workplaces than appear in the 
 statistical tables of persons employed in the various intlustries 
 under inspection. 
 
 A very rough estimate of the total number of persons engaged 
 in England and Wales, either in unreported workshops, do'uestic 
 or ordinary and men's workshops, may bs gathered if one takes a 
 .single large industry like the clothing industry (which was held by 
 .the House of Lords Committee on the Sweating System to be the
 
 one in which all the worst evils occurred into which the)' were 
 appointed to inquire), adding hosiery, by the bye, to the factory 
 returns, as it is included with clothing in the census returns. •■ 
 
 The census returns for 1891 yield a total of all classes of persons 
 engaged in clothing industries, male and female, 1,048,681. If 
 from this we subtract the sum obtained by adding the total number 
 of persons shown by the factory returns as employed during 1896 
 in clothing factories and workshops to the total number of factories 
 and workshops making returns, we probably have obtained a 
 figure which represents a large part of the body of persons whose 
 position under the Factory and Workshop Acts it is the main 
 purpose of this paper to elucidate. I give the figures, therefore, 
 for what they are worth, as being the only ones as yet obtain- 
 able : — 
 
 Total persons engaged in 
 clothing industries. 
 
 Census returns, 1891 1,048,681 
 
 Returns to Factory Department of factories 
 
 and workshops in 1896 125,663 
 
 Number of persons returned as employed in 
 
 factories and workshops in 1896 491,476 
 
 617,139 
 
 431.542 
 Thus we have a residuum of persons engaged in the clothing 
 industry 431,542 which do not appear in the factory returns. It 
 must be remembered, first, that we have not subtracted nearly all 
 the employers who would be in partnership in the 125,663 factories 
 and workshops ; secondly, that a large proportion of men are 
 employed as tailors, boot and slipper makers, hat makers in men's 
 workshops where returns of persons are not required, and which 
 are not under the general law ; thirdly, that the returns do not 
 cover all the registered work places ; if allowance for these is madef 
 although the numbers cannot be exactly computed, it will 
 appear that the great bulk of the protected workers actually 
 come under direct cognisance of the Factory Department. 
 When it is recollected how recent are some of the provisions for 
 bringing such works employing such persons under registration 
 (see especially section 41 of the Act of 1895, requiring notification 
 of all old workshops not already notified), the practical progress of 
 steps leading to enforcement of the law is on the whole striking. 
 Before 1896 no returns of persons employed in workshops existed or 
 could exist*. Surveying the whole field of workers, numbering 
 
 * Covering tailoring, hats and caps, millinery, mantles, dressmaking, shirt and 
 linen collar making, boots and shoes, haberdashery, miscellaneous articles and 
 hosiery. 
 
 t As well as for workers who are " unemployed '" at the time of the factory 
 returns, but who would appear in the census returns. 
 
 I Section 34 of the Act of 1895 first made provision for these returns.
 
 4,500,000 on the factory returns, there is a staff of factory 
 inspectors which stands in a ratio of no inspectors to 200,000 
 work places, and we find "the result I have just indicated in the 
 industry w^hich employs probably the largest number of home 
 workers. 
 
 B. REGULATION OF EMPLOYMENT AND SANITA- 
 TION IN DOMESTIC WORKSHOPS COMPARED 
 WITH WORKSHOPS. 
 
 Before summarising the actual legislative conditions of employ- 
 ment in domestic workshops, I ought to point out that general 
 workshop regulation practically began with the Workshop Act of 
 1867. Domestic workshops were included in this Act of 1867 by 
 the breadth of the definition : " Any room or place whatever (not a 
 factory or a bakehouse), whether in the open air or under cover, in 
 w^hich any handicraft is carried on by any child, young person, 
 or woman, and to which and over which the person by whom such 
 child, etc., is employed has the right of access or control." And so 
 factory inspectors were already prosecuting defaulting parents or 
 guardians for illegal employment of children in them as early as 
 1872-4, even in an industry such as straw-plaiting, which was, 
 later, especially exempted by the Act of 1878. 
 
 The restrictions on employment of young persons (that is now 
 persons under 18 years) and children (now persons from 11 to 13 
 or 14 years of age) in domestic industries were, therefore, not anew 
 idea in the Consolidating Act of 1878, with which we are now 
 concerned, as well as with the amendments of i8gi and 1895. 
 
 No restriction applies to the hours of labour of adults in domestic 
 workshops, nor can any limits be imposed even in a trade 
 scheduled by Secretary of State's order as dangerous or injurious 
 to health. In the case of an ordinary workshop or a factory extra 
 limitations can be applied in such cases for adult women beyond 
 the ordinary loi hours' limit, and even for men whose hours are 
 otherwise unrestricted. Both powers have been applied in several 
 scheduled industries. In all that follows it should be distinctly 
 understood that the only regulations which apply to special 
 persons, e.g.^ children and young persons, are those which limit 
 hours of employment. Regulations touching health and safety 
 are for all persons alike. 
 
 \ special appendix to this paper gives excerpts from the Factory 
 Acts of every section directly bearing on " domestic workshops," 
 and the foundation of the whole is to be found in sections 16 and 
 61 of the Act of 187S. 
 
 Legal employment of children is on the half-time system, but in 
 morning and afternoon sets, and not on the alternate day system 
 which is permitted in factories and workshops. The period is 
 from 6 a.m. to i p.m., or from i p.m. to 8 p.m., or on Saturday
 
 lO 
 
 afternoon from i p.m. to 4 p.m. A child may not be employed 
 before i p.m. in two successive periods of seven days, nor after 
 I p.m. in two successive periods of seven days. On Saturday a 
 child may not be employed before i p.m. if he has been employed 
 before i p.m. on any other day in the same week, nor after i p.m. 
 if he has been employed after i p.m. on any other day in the 
 same week. There must be no continuous employment for more 
 than five hours without an interval of half-an-hour for meals. 
 Convictions and penalties have been obtained from time to time 
 for offences, particularly against this latter provision. 
 
 Employment of young persons must be within the limits of 
 
 6 a.m. and 9 p.m., with at least 4^ hours' break for meals, and on 
 Saturday between 6 a.m. and 4 p.m., with at least 2^ hours" break 
 for meals. The exceptions as to overtime did not apply to domestic 
 workshops, even before the prohibition of section 14 of the Act of 
 1895 niade overtime illegal for young persons in ordinary workshops 
 and factories. 
 
 The limits assigned in domestic workshops are broader than in 
 the case of ordinary workshops, where they must not exceed the 
 outside limits of a round of the clock, i.e., 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., or 
 
 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., or 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. In the latter, too, the period 
 must be definitely chosen and specified in a notice affixed with 
 meal-times (specified also) of at least a total ih hours, of which 
 one hour must be before 3 p.m. Workers generally must have 
 their meal-times together, not at separate times, and for women 
 and young persons as w^ell as children the five hours' spell must 
 not be exceeded without, at least, half-an-hour's rest for a meal. 
 
 In domestic workshops meals need not be given at the same time, 
 whether to children, young persons, or women. Notices of hours, 
 meals, etc., and abstract of the law need not be affixed, and no 
 specified holidays need be allowed. 
 
 It is thus much easier to bring home an infringement, within the 
 limits of the assigned period, to an occupier of an ordinary work- 
 shop than of a domestic workshop, although it is equally simple to 
 pro\e illegal employment before or after the legal period, whether a 
 domestic workshop or an ordinary workshop is in question. 
 
 The maximum penalty for illegal employment of each protected 
 person in the two classes of workshop may be compared : — 
 
 
 At night, i.e., 
 
 ring the 
 
 between 9 p.m. 
 
 day. 
 
 and 6 a.m. 
 
 Workshop ^3 £^ 
 
 Domestic workshop £1 £2 
 
 If an Inspector, who has full powers of entry and examination in 
 a domestic as in an ordinary workshop, is obstructed in the course 
 of his duty, the occupier is liable to penalties which may also be 
 compared : —
 
 During the 
 
 day. At night. 
 
 Workshop £s £'2.0 
 
 Domestic workshop £\ £^ 
 
 By the Act of 1878 an Inspector could only enter a domestic 
 workshop, however, supposing the occupier refused his consent, 
 after obtaining a special authority to do so from the Secretary of 
 State, or after obtaining a warrant from the Justice of the Peace. 
 Since the Act of 1891, which repealed this restriction, as was 
 recommended by the Committee on the Sweating System, an 
 Inspector has full powers of entry, as in other workplaces under 
 his jurisdiction. The full limits of his ample powers of investi- 
 gation may be seen by referring to section 68, which is given in 
 the Appendix. 
 
 I have already stated that a domestic factory where steam, 
 water, or other power is used is under the general law applying to 
 factories, and thus a child, young person, or woman employed 
 therein would be under all the strictest limits as to hours, meal-times, 
 holidays, protection against machinery, etc. There is, however, 
 one distinction to be mentioned : examination of persons under 16 
 years of age as to their physical fitness for the occupation is com- 
 pulsory in a factory, but in a domestic factory it is voluntary, as it 
 is in workshops, although occupiers are entitled to have the young 
 persons and children examined by the certifying surgeons (who are 
 appointed in every district by the Chief Inspector) for the recognised 
 scale of fees. 
 
 Another anomaly remains to be touched on in the regulations as 
 tc sending notice of an accident to the Inspector for the district 
 and to the certifying surgeon. Domestic workshops and domestic 
 factories working without power were expressly exempted from 
 this obligation b\^ section 61 of the Act of 1878, but domestic 
 factories working with power are under the obligation. 
 
 To illustrate, I might point out that in a bookbinding workroom 
 in a private dwelling where a father employed his nephew and two 
 daughters, all under 16, and all living on the premises, no certifi- 
 cate of fitness would be compulsory, and if machiner}- driven by 
 power were not used, no notice need be sent of any accident, as is 
 necessary in an ordinary factory ; but if the same father, employing 
 the same persons, transformed his business by the introduction 
 of some letterpress printing, with the aid of a small gas engine, 
 both these duties would be incumbent on him. A valuable reserve 
 power for the prohibition of use of a dangerous machine, or of a 
 place used as a factory or workshop (or part of a factory or 
 workshop), which is in such a condition as to be dangerous to 
 health or life, is provided by sections 2 and 4 of the Act of 1895, 
 and these presumably apply in the case of domestic factories and
 
 12 
 
 domestic workshops. The prohibition can only be made out by a 
 court of summary jurisdiction on the complaint of a Factory 
 Inspector. Proceedings on account of an unhealthy workroom 
 could not be .taJien by the Factory Inspector if the case could be 
 dealt with by the officers of the sanitary authority acting under the 
 law of Public Health unless the latter failed, after having the 
 matter brought to their notice, to take action, but this does not 
 apply to the ordinary sanitary matters, cleanliness, ventilation, 
 drainage in a domestic workshop, which are wholly excluded from 
 the scope of the Factory Acts. This seems to bring me naturally 
 to the second division of the law regulating conditions in domestic 
 workshops, namely, sanitation, which is solely under the general 
 law of public health. Before passing, however, from the first 
 division, which is intended to bring together that part of the law 
 which is found in the Factory and Workshop Acts, I have to touch 
 on the sections regulating work which is sent out from a factory: — 
 
 (i) Prohibition relating to work which is taken or sent home 
 with the inworker from a factory or workshop at the close of the 
 legal day there. (2) Provision for registration of workers engaged 
 by manufacturers or contractors to do outwork in their own 
 homes, i.e., for lists of outworkers. (3) The provision which was 
 designed to prohibit the giving out of work to be done in places 
 which are injurious or dangerous to the health of the persons 
 employed therein. (4) Provisions against giving out wearing 
 apparel to be made, cleaned, or repaired in any dwelling where an 
 inmate is known to be suffering from scarlet fever or smallpox. 
 
 The first of these regulations limits the work of women, as well 
 as young persons and children, in their homes after the legal day 
 in a workshop or factory, and it is carefully laid down that giving 
 out work to such persons, or for them, or alloiinng them to take 
 home the work, will be deemed to be a contravention. The case 
 of the child is the most strictly provided for, in that on each day 
 on which he (or she) has worked at all in the workshop or factory 
 it is illegal that he should be employed on the same day at home 
 " in the business of the factory or workshop." In the case of the 
 young person or woman the prohibition only takes effect if there 
 has been employment in the factory or workshop before as well as 
 after the dinner-hour. I may quote an illustration of the working 
 of this section from my published report for i8g6.* 
 
 " The practice of giving out work at the end of the legal day to 
 workers who have been employed both before and after the dinner- 
 hour has hardly yet received any serious check through the 
 prohibition in section 16 of the Act of 1895. After considerable 
 efforts in Leeds, in the region of the town where Jewish workshops 
 abound, and this practice is carried on in an organised way, I 
 
 * See Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1896, page 71. 
 (Eyre and Spottiswoode, London, 1897,)
 
 13 
 
 obtained sufficient evidence to lay informations against two 
 employers. A great many workers are extremely anxious that this 
 overwork should be stopped, and appeals have been made to 
 me on the subject, but, in the majority of cases, they are 
 afraid that they may be dismissed on the least suspicion 
 that they have assisted in disclosing evidence. The difficulties 
 may be illustrated by two experiences. While waiting in the 
 neighbourhood of a set of workshops for the workers to come 
 out, I was passed one evening by two girls coming from 
 elsewhere carrying home great bundles of work. After showing 
 their dread of answering my question they apparently yielded, 
 giving me names and addresses of themselves and their employer. 
 Subsequently every particular proved false, and I have been unable 
 anywhere to trace these girls. In the case of a workshop where 
 work is regularly given out on certain nights, I met the workers as 
 they came out. No one carried a bundle, but the work was none 
 the less conveyed to them later in the evening. With regard to 
 the cases in which I secured sufficient evidence and laid informa- 
 tions, in the first case the employer shut up his workshop and 
 disappeared, so that the summons could not be served on him ; in 
 the second case, a conviction was obtained against the employer, and 
 full penalt}- inflicted for sending home work illegally with a young 
 person whom I met at the entry of the workshop. The exemplary 
 penalty in this case and another, detected in the same week by 
 H,M. Inspector for the district, will, I trust, secure attention 
 amongst some of the employers to this section of the Acts. The 
 insanitary nature of the custom must be watched to be fully 
 realised. Often enough, it is difficult to maintain cleanliness and 
 ventilation in the poorer workshops which are registered. The 
 conditions of the homes where these garments are taken to be 
 " finished " at night the Inspector can realise in imagination, but 
 not as yet control. The interest of the community at large in 
 having its clothing made in tolerably sanitary workshops is direct 
 and immediate, and this clause i6 of the Act of 1895 is one small 
 step in that direction, although, of course, intended primarily for 
 the further protection of the worker. The complete enforcement of 
 it, so far as it goes, can be readily seen to be far off as yet, and 
 the preliminary attempts to enforce it are surrounded with a 
 network of difficulties." 
 
 . The second of these regulations is made possible by an 
 order of the Secretary of State in pursuance of sections 27 of the 
 Act of 1 89 1 and 42 of the Act of 1895. ^"^ order was drawn up in 
 January, 1896, which required that lists of outworkers should 
 be kept and sent yearly to the inspectors in charge of districts by 
 manufacturers and contractors who give out work to be done in 
 the following industries : Manufacture of articles of wearing 
 apparel, of electro-plate, of cabinets, furniture, and upholstery, of 
 files. To these were added early in 1898 the process of fur- 
 pulling. No general returns have yet been published showing
 
 numbers of outworkers in these industries, but an interesting table 
 
 was made out by ]Mr. Rogers for the Manchester district as 
 follows'' : — 
 
 Manufacture. Employers. Outworkers. 
 
 Wearing apparel 463 4)^93 
 
 Tailors 185 1,024 
 
 Shirts 90 7,247 
 
 Underclothing 19 252 
 
 Boots and Slippers 53 427 
 
 Aprons....: 20 772 
 
 Costumes 72 138 
 
 Handkerchiefs 22 550 
 
 Skirts 8 77 
 
 Mantles 14 740 
 
 Dressmaking 6 28 
 
 Baby Linen 6 49 
 
 Sundry 28 95 
 
 Electro-plating 2 4 
 
 Furniture 13 30 
 
 Files 5 80 
 
 Total 483 4,307 
 
 It is too soon to form any estimate of the general trend of manu- 
 facture in connection with outwork, whether it is increasing or 
 decreasing, as varying tendencies appear to manifest themselves in 
 different districts. For example, from Wales it was reported last 
 year that, although the aggregate number of outworkers employed 
 in the making of wearing apparel was on the increase " by reason 
 of the augmentation in the volume of work done in the large towns 
 in the district some of the older firms have during the year 
 provided additional workshop accommodation, and thus lessened 
 the number of outworkers upon their registers. The obligation 
 upon employers to send lists of outworkers .... was only 
 partially complied with, and dviring last year seven prosecutions 
 were ordered .... and a conviction obtained in each case." 
 (Mr. Lewis.) 
 
 From the Norwich district it was reported at the same time that 
 there were hundreds of outworkers almost entirely in the clothing 
 trade, but few employing any people to assist them. " For fear of 
 unpleasant consequences the practice of giving inworkers home- 
 work to do has been very largely given up ... . the 
 abolition of young persons' overtime has been the reason of some 
 inworkers taking work home." (IMr. Hoare.) 
 
 Section 5 of the Act of 1895 was the first attempt to provide for 
 direct control through the Factory Acts (as distinct from Public 
 Health Acts) of sanitary abuses in connection with outwork. (See 
 
 * Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1897, P- 7^- (Eyre and 
 and Spottiswoode, 1898.)
 
 15 
 
 Appendix for the text of the section.) By the scheme of the 
 section an occupier of a factory or workshop or a contractor giving 
 work out to be done in a place deemed to be dangerous or 
 injurious to health would receive from the Inspector a month's 
 notice to cease sending work to be done in that place, and if after 
 that period it was found by the court having cognisance of the 
 case to be dangerous or injurious he would be liable to a maximum 
 penalty of £io. The section was to be brought into force in 
 special areas and occupations to be named in an Order of the 
 Secretary of State, but a limiting clause was introduced into the 
 section providing that there must be special risk of injury, not only 
 to the persons employed but also to the people in the district. No 
 case has yet been found which complies with the last condition, so 
 that the section has so far remained inoperative. 
 
 Section 6 of the same Act is directly operative without an order 
 of the Secretary of State, and enables a Factory Inspector to proceed 
 against any occupier who gives out wearing apparel or a contractor 
 employed by an occupier (of a factory, workshop, laundry, or 
 other place) to be made, cleaned, or repaired in a dwelling house, 
 or building connected, where an inmate is suffering from scarlet 
 fever or smallpox. The maximum penalty is ^5, but the occupier 
 or contractor may escape conviction if he prove that he was not 
 aware of the illness and could not reasonably have been expected 
 to become aware of it. 
 
 Inspectors have systematically visited outworkers during pre- 
 valence in a locality of the illnesses named, and cases were 
 reported as occurring in close proximity to outworkers, although 
 not among the inmates of outworkers' homes. The local 
 sanitary authorities have similar powers under the Public Health 
 Acts, and cases in which they have had occasion to exercise them 
 are reported from time to time. 
 
 In turning to consideration of the law as it relates to general 
 sanitation in domestic workshops, it is essential to touch on an 
 administrative distinction between domestic and ordinary work- 
 shops. In the early days of workshop regulation, /.r., from 1872 
 onwards, as also under the unamended Act of 1878, cleanliness, 
 freedom from effluvia, ventilation and provisions against over- 
 crowding were, together with employment sections, administered 
 by the Factory Inspectors in workshops and factories alike. 
 Tentative, unsuccessful efforts to leave this duty as regards work- 
 shops to the local authorities, acting by their officers under the 
 Public Health Acts, were made until the Consolidation \ct of 
 1878 finally left this duty with the Factory Department for 13 
 years. In 1890 the evidence before the House of Lords Committee 
 disclosed the existence of sanitary abuses in the smaller and 
 more numerous classes of workshops, which the then comparatively 
 small numbers of factory Inspectors (53) were certainly unequal to 
 cope with. A devolution of the work was made by withdrawing
 
 i6 
 
 the workshops from the place they held in the sanitary provisions 
 of the Factory Acts and leaving these matters to be regulated, as 
 any default in relation to sanitary conveniences, drainage, and 
 water supply had been regulated without change, by the law 
 relating to pubHc health. The sanitary condition of domestic work- 
 shops has been since 1878 solely regulated by the Public Health 
 Acts'''', but a valuable reserve power retained by the Act of 1891 
 in case of ordinary workshops was not extended to domestic 
 workshops. In case of default or defect in sanitation discovered 
 by a Factory Inspector when inspecting a workshop under the 
 employment sections, he had the duty of notifying the default in 
 question to the sanitary authority. In case the latter fails to take 
 action within a reasonable time the Inspector is then entitled to 
 take such steps for remedying the default or neglect as the sanitary 
 authority might have taken, and to recover the expenses of so 
 doing from the sanitary authority. In domestic workshops, 
 however, which are expressly exempted from the sections of the 
 Factory Acts relating to sanitation, this power of action in default 
 of the sanitary authority does not arise. They are, therefore, left 
 wholly to the inspection and control of the officers of the sanitary 
 authority, as are dwellings generally, under the Public Health Acts. 
 
 The powers and duties of the sanitary authority in respect of 
 dwellings and workplaces are set forth in various statutes which 
 are not precisely, though substantially they are, the same for all 
 parts of the kingdom.! Scotland and London, for example, have 
 special Acts, but, on the whole, the following may be taken as 
 applying throughout the kingdom. 
 
 The officers of the sanitary authority must systematically 
 inspect all houses and places in the district, and nuisances shall be 
 summarily dealt with, the authority being empowered to proceed 
 before a Court of Summary Jurisdiction against the owner or the 
 occupier of a place to abate a nuisance. " Nuisance " may be 
 taken as covering : Any premises in such a state as to be injurious 
 to health ; any accumulation which is injurious to health ; any 
 house or part of a house so overcrowded as to be dangerous or 
 injurious to the health of the inmates, whether or not members of 
 the same family ; any " workplace " not kept in a cleanly state, 
 not ventilated, or overcrowded ; any privy, watercloset, or cess- 
 pool from which there is any soakage or overflow ; stagnant or 
 waste water suffered to remain in any cellar or place in a house for 24 
 hours after notice from the sanitary authority; any dwelling-house 
 without water supply. Further, the sanitary authority have power to 
 order lime-washing of any house or part thereof, and any " work- 
 place " not cleanly must be lime-washed forthwith on notice from 
 the Sanitary Authority. Bye-laws may be made by the local 
 authorities : — 
 
 * See Section 61 of the Act of 1878 quoted in the Appendix. 
 t The PubUc Health Act of 1875 is the most important.
 
 17 
 
 1. Regulating the permissible number of occupants of a house 
 or part of a house. 
 
 2. Registration of houses to let and their inspection. 
 
 3. Enforcing privy accommodation. 
 
 4. Cleanliness and ventilation. 
 
 5. Notice of infectious diseases. 
 
 As to cellars and cellar dwellings the authorities have special 
 powers for lighting, cleansing, ventilating, provision of closet 
 accommodation, and freedom from overcrowding. 
 
 In case of defect or default as to water supply proceedings may 
 only be taken against the owner, not the occupier. 
 
 Local authorities, both urban and rural, are bound to appoint 
 officers of health and inspectors of nuisances to carry into effect 
 the above-sketched duties. The Local Government Board {i.e., 
 the central authority) may prescribe the qualifications and duties 
 of medical officers of health, and, under certain conditions, of 
 other officers, such as inspectors of nuisances. 
 
 C— CERTAIN LAWS AFFECTING FULFILMENT OF 
 WAGE CONTRACTS. 
 
 It is impossible within the limits of a short paper to go 
 thoroughly into the question of regulations directed against fraud 
 or unjust treatment in the matter of wages, but this survey would 
 be very incomplete unless some account were taken of the fact that 
 home workers, in so far as they are manual labourers (other than 
 domestic servants), come under the protection of the Truck Acts, 
 and that domestic industries, in so far as they are carried on in 
 workshops within the meaning of the Factory and Workshop 
 Acts, may be brought under the protection of the section which 
 prescribes that particulars of work and wages shall be 
 given to each piece-worker at the time when the work 
 is given to be done, and that in one special industry — the silk 
 industry — any outworker has the right to full written or printed 
 contract tickets at the time when the work is taken out, and that 
 the hosiery trade has a special Act directed against charge on 
 wages for rent of frames and machinery. 
 
 The Truck Acts, which I am about to summarise, apply not 
 only in factories and workshops, but in all places where workpeople 
 are engaged in manual labour under a contract with an employer, 
 whether the employer is an owner, an agent, a parent, or himself a 
 workman ; thus a workman who employs and pays others under 
 him must also observe the Truck Acts. Further, by virtue of a 
 special section a workman who makes articles on a small scale — 
 for example, stockings, lace — and sells them to a trader would be 
 considered as employed by the trader, and would be protected by 
 the Truck Acts. The earlier Truck Acts of 1831 and 1887 (of 
 which the former was based on a number of previous statutes) 
 prohibit the payment of workmen's wages, that is, the reward of 
 their labour, in food, or drink, or clothes, or other articles, or
 
 otherwise than in current coin of the realm ; they also prohibit an 
 agreement between an employer and his workmen as to the 
 expenditure of wages upon any specified articles and for the 
 deduction of the price from their wages, or as to dealing at any 
 particular shop, and it is carefully provided in the Acts that no 
 sort of " agreement, understanding, contrivance, or collusion " 
 shall be allowed to defeat the object of the law. A special excep- 
 tion is, however, made if an agreement is made in writing between 
 the employer and his workman as to food cooked and consumed 
 on the employers' premises, or for medicine and medical attend- 
 ance, and there is nothing in the Acts to prevent an employer from 
 supplying a workman with anything, provided it is paid for at the 
 time in cash and there is no compulsion to buy. 
 
 That these laws are still needed, particularly for the protection 
 of home workers in country districts, can be most strikingly illus- 
 trated by the experience of H.M. Inspector, Miss Deane ,in north- 
 west Ireland in the autumn of 1897, in tracking out and finally 
 taking proceedings on account of very gross contraventions. In 
 her own words from the Annual Report : — 
 
 " The system of payment in goods instead of in money, and the 
 tacit understanding that such wages as were paid in money should 
 be expended at the shops occupied by the agents of those firms, 
 was, I found, widespread and fairly general. 
 
 " The peasants in the out-of-the-way villages and ' town lands ' 
 in this district are peculiarly at tlie mercy of the traders and agents, 
 who supply them with scantily-paid work, and who sell them stores 
 and victuals, and to whom they soon become hopelessly indebted. 
 
 " The women of Donegal and the neighbourhood are an indus- 
 trious and capable race, and have inherited from their ancestresses 
 a most remarkable gift for fine needlework, embroidery, knitting, 
 and so forth, by means of which whole families of mother and 
 daughters endeavour to support themselves, or at any rate to 
 eke out the scanty and uncertain earnings of the men. The 
 industry should be, and is, wliere carried on under fair conditions, 
 an incalculable boon to these poor people. Unfortunately, such 
 a promising supply of cheap skilled labour could not long 
 escape unfair exploitation, and the gallant effort of those who 
 encouraged this industry in the hope of raising the standard of 
 living, and improving the conditions in these miserably poor 
 districts, risked being defeated by the tactics of unscrupulous 
 persons who absorbed an unfair share of profit out of the skill 
 and industry of the women. Thus I found hard-working women, 
 producing large quantities of embroidery, who yet obtained little or 
 no profit from their work, and in any case had practically no 
 control over the fruit of their toil, which was by tacit understanding 
 spent in the shop kept by the agent who distributed the work. 
 Tawdry hats, little packets of tea at high prices, etc., were given in 
 exchange for this work. I say ' given ' advisedly, for, although 
 in some cases money was paid over, it was on the understanding
 
 19 
 
 that it sliould be left, i.e., spent in the agent's shop, and nowhere 
 
 else, on pain of losing the work A serious difficulty 
 
 lay, however, in officially detecting and proving these infringements 
 of the law. Previous complaints had resulted in strict cautions, given 
 by the Royal Irish Constabulary and by H.M. District Inspector 
 of Factories, to the agents, who were, therefore, aware of the 
 illegality of their proceedings and of the danger of detection. The 
 peasants were, I found, completely at their mercy, and, apart from 
 the timidity engendered by their dependent condition, my former 
 experience in these districts proved to me that there is a strong 
 natural inclination on their part to regard with suspicion and 
 dislike any official attempt to enforce the law, even when it is for 
 
 their own protection Over and over again the 
 
 inquiry appeared doomed to failure, and the doubt as to any 
 ultimate results from it, which was frankly expressed by those 
 whose local knowledge made their opinion of value, was a 
 discouraging factor. Gradually, however, the store of evidence 
 accumulated in one of the centres of my inquiry, and certain of the 
 paper tokens given in lieu of money payment, and ' credited ' only 
 at a certain shop, were entrusted to me by the workers. These 
 * tickets ' consisted in each case only of a torn scrap of ordinary 
 paper, with the amount of its nominal value inscribed on it in 
 pencil by the agent, without either the date of issue or the 
 signature of the ' utterer,' and were purposely arranged in this 
 form to evade the risk of legal identification, and to facilitate the 
 repudiation of them in case such a course should be convenient to 
 the utterer." 
 
 When the prosecution was finally successfully prepared, " The 
 magistrates unanimously agreed to impose the full penalty of ^lo 
 and costs in each of the four informations laid (^44), a decision 
 which, emphasised by a grave warning from the bench, proved to 
 be an extraordinarily popular one in the neighbourhood. The 
 people spoke and behaved as if delivered by the magistrates from 
 an incubus, and I am given to understand that the prosecution has 
 successfully checked the continuance of these practices in that 
 special district. The witnesses on whose courage the case depended, 
 have since been provided with work by the aid of persons 
 interested in their unfortunate condition."''' 
 
 Under the older Truck Acts there was nothing to prevent a 
 workman agreeing with an employer that deductions from wages 
 shall be made in respect of fines, or for bad work, or for material 
 supplied by him to be worked up for him by the workman. There 
 was no limit to the charges that employers might make for 
 materials, and there was much evidence that charges were often 
 out of all proportion to the value received, and that they were 
 arbitrarily levied. The Truck Act of 1896 was designed to 
 regulate the conditions under which such agreements can be made, 
 to provide that deductions from the sura contracted to be paid by 
 
 *Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1897, P^o*^ 9^-
 
 20 
 
 the employer to the workman (or payments to the employer by the 
 workman), for any fine, or for bad work, or for materials supplied 
 in relation to the labour of the workman shall be reasonable ; and 
 that full particulars in writing shall be given to the workman. 
 Receipts must be given to the workman for any payment or 
 deduction of the kinds referred to at the time it is made, and none 
 of these are legal unless preliminary notice has been given either 
 by a contract in writing or by notice affixed at a place open to the 
 workman where it can be easily read and copied. Special registers- 
 of fines must be kept by the employer and be open to inspection. 
 
 An employer who contravenes the Truck Acts is liable not onl}' 
 to criminal proceedings but to civil action. A workman's legal 
 proceeding w'hen improper deductions have been made from his 
 wages is generally for the balance of wage due to him, under the 
 Employer's and Workman's Act, 1875. The County Court is the 
 tribunal when the amount claimed is over £10, and for lesser sums 
 the Magistrate's Court has civil jurisdiction. In both courts the 
 claim of the employer to the deductions would be heard and decided. 
 
 The Inspectors of Factories under the Home Office have the 
 duty of enforcing the Truck Acts in factories, workshops, laundries, 
 and in any places where work is given out whether by an occupier 
 of a factory or workshop or by a contractor or sub-contractor. 
 They prosecute defaulting employers but do not undertake ci^"il 
 proceedings. 
 
 The Act of 1896 has so recently come into operation that only 
 one annual report of the Chief Inspector has as yet contained any 
 account of its effects. In seeking for some illustration of its scope 
 amongst home workers, I find that I reported for the year 1897 ^^ 
 follows'- : — - 
 
 " I have taken note from time to time of heavy fines among out- 
 workers, who sometimes suffer even more severely than factory 
 workers. One bad case could not be dealt with, as it actually 
 occurred just before the Act came into force. A poor woman 
 working at the hemming of handkerchiefs at the rate of 7d. per 
 gross (less charges for cotton) received two gross one Saturday 
 afternoon at 4. She was ordered to bring them in at 9-30 a.m. on 
 Monda}'. Having a sick husband and children, she did not succeed 
 in bringing the work in until Monday afternoon, and was fined 6d. 
 The employer (who had also to be cautioned with regard to 
 excessive charge for cotton) was strictly cautioned as to future 
 fines, and a watch is being maintained over his practices." 
 
 During the course of 1898 several successful prosecutions have 
 been undertaken by H.M. Inspector Miss Squire, in which 
 magistrates' decisions have shown that the amount of a worker's 
 wage is a circumstance that should be taken into account in 
 considering whether a given fine is reasonable or not. 
 
 Outworkers, as such, have no claim to the protection afforded to 
 piece-workers in factories and workshops in the textile trades by 
 
 * Annual Report of the Chief Inspector of Factories for 1897, pa-g^ m.
 
 21 
 
 section 40 of the Factory Act, 1895. This section may be 
 extended to other industries by Secretary of State's Order, and 
 the power has been exercised in the cases of certain branches 
 of the clothing trade which employ large numbers of out -workers, 
 i.e., handkerchief, apron, pinafore and blouse making, wholesale 
 tailoring, besides felt hat making, manufacture of locks, latches, 
 keys, chains and anchors. The textile industry being essentially 
 a factory industry, the limitation of its benefits to inworkers 
 is one that would not have been observed, but it is 
 interesting to compare this provision with the similar, much 
 earlier one contained in an Act of 1845 to provide for written or 
 printed particulars of work and wages to silk weavers who were 
 largely outworkers, taking warps to be woven in their own homes. 
 The idea was imitated and adapted to a factory industry, and then 
 again in our own times it was extended to other non-textile indus- 
 tries which were not wholly or mainly factory industries Avithout 
 provision for the unorganised outworkers. At the same time, 
 however, the obligation to supply the particulars of work and 
 wages would be binding on every occupier of a workshop, however 
 small, and thus would cover sub-contracting outworkers who 
 employed others to work with them in their own homes whether, 
 these were strictly domestic workshops or came within the wider 
 meaning of " workshop." 
 
 D. SUGGESTIONS FOR FURTHER REGULATION 
 WHICH HAVE BEEN MADE OR CONSIDERED. 
 
 Existing legislation, as I have so far briefly sketched it, clearly 
 provides remedies in various directions, if they can only be 
 effectually enforced, for varying classes of abuse or grievance. 
 More particularly since the Factory Act of 1895 ^^d the Truck 
 Act of 1896 came into force have certain grave evils, which came 
 first before the House of Lords Committee on the Sweating 
 Sytem, and, secondly, the Royal Commission on Labour, been 
 brought within the scope of administrative regulation. 
 
 Broadly, the evils which came before the first of these bodies 
 and which in their conclusions the Committee declared (1890) were 
 so great that they could " hardly be exaggerated," may be grouped 
 under the three heads (i) Insanitary state of the work places or the 
 houses in which the work was carried on ; (2) excessive hours 
 of labour ; (3) an unduly low rate of wages and abuses in connec- 
 tion with payment of the same. Many of the explanations as to 
 the causes of the admitted evils and several of the more seriously 
 suggested remedies were rejected by the Committee — sub-con- 
 tracting, sub-division of labour, foreign immigration, were among 
 suggested causes of the evils of sweating which were rejected as 
 insufficient to explain these, and while the existence of home-work 
 carried on by a residuum of helpless, inefficient, and unorganised 
 workers, inclusive of a large proportion of married women, was 
 recognised as the main characteristic, if not the cause, of
 
 22 
 
 much of the evil connected with the sweating system, the 
 Committee also rejected a remedy which proposed to prohibit the 
 employment of this class of labour except in workplaces under the 
 general factory law. In their own works : "We are aware that 
 home-workers form a great obstacle .... inasmuch as they 
 cannot readily be brought to combine for the purpose of raising 
 wages. To remove this obstacle we have been urged to recommend 
 the prohibition by legislation of working at home, but we think 
 such a measure would be arbitrary and oppressive.'" The same 
 remedy was suggested to the Royal Commission on Labour by 
 representatives of the Co-operative Union and the Trade Union 
 Congress on the ground that " these places are often unhealthy, 
 and cause the rate of wages to fall," but there was a conflict of 
 opinion even amongst those who were prepared for the most drastic 
 remedies, and finally the recommendations both of the majority 
 and of the (extremer) Minority Report of the Commission definitely 
 set aside the idea of immediately prohibiting outwork and pressed 
 forward instead : first, the idea, which was so much before the 
 House of Lords Committee, of completer registration of all the 
 smaller workshops ; secondly, of applying to the latter the stricter 
 regulations of the Factory Acts in such a way as to prevent 
 increase of this class of workplaces in so far as they work for the 
 larger manufacturers. The Majority Report, however, went so 
 far as to say that if strong measures for the improvement of the 
 lowest class of workplaces in which the " sweated" industries are 
 carried on should prove ineffectual, then the gradual extinction of 
 these places should be aimed at. 
 
 I have already indicated some of the changes in the law which 
 followed on the Report of the House of Lords Committee, and I 
 may specially now refer to recommendations which were carried 
 into effect. First, increased power for Inspectors by giving them 
 authority to enter domestic workshops and workshops used as 
 dwellings without a special warrant ; secondly, increased facilities 
 for registration by requiring notification from occupiers of new and 
 old workshops, this to be accompanied by a considerable increase 
 in the inspectorate ; thirdly, that steps should be taken to prevent 
 the spread of diseases by garments made in homes where persons 
 were suffering from infectious disorders, such as smallpox. It was 
 also recommended that domestic workshops should be placed as 
 regards sanitation under the general factory law, together with 
 ordinary workshops, and it was suggested that, while the sanitary 
 inspection of these workshops might be carried on by the local 
 authority, a supervising power might be found in the County 
 Councils. This general recommendation was one of the few not 
 carried into effect, as is already clear from my summary of the law. 
 The main part of their recommendations in connection with wages 
 questions does not come within the scope of this paper, but I should 
 just refer to the fact that they urged increased attention of the 
 inspectorate to infringements of the law against truck.
 
 I 
 
 23 
 
 The recommendations as to improved registration of workplaces, 
 control of outwork, and improvement of places in which sweated 
 industries were carried on (particularly manufacture of articles of 
 clothing and of cheap furniture) were all further pressed home by 
 the Majority Report of the Laliour Commission presented in 1894, 
 and most of these were met to a considerable extent by the 
 additions to the law in the Act of 1895. (See Appendix.) One 
 suggestion, however, remains untouched, which was adopted in a 
 modified form by the Commission from Mr. Sprague Oram, late 
 Chief Inspector of Factories, and before that Travelling Secretar}' 
 to the House of Lords Committee. He proposed that occupiers of 
 workshops should be required to obtain a certificate or licence 
 from a registrar to be appointed by the local authority ; that 
 within three months from the granting of the certificate the work- 
 shops should be visited by the sanitary officer of the local 
 authority, and the licence signed by him to show the date of his 
 visit ; that if the workshop be found in such a sanitary condition 
 as to constitute a contravention of the Public Health Acts pro- 
 ceedings should be instituted against the owner of the property ; 
 that givers out of work (manufacturers, contractors, shopkeepers) 
 should be liable to a substantial penalty for sending work to an 
 unlicensed workplace. 
 
 Another proposal in connection with this was made by Mr. 
 Charles Booth, which was also partially adopted in the recommen- 
 dations of the Commission. The proposal was that responsibility 
 for structural defects (insanitation and overcrowding), as well as for 
 illegal employment in all workshops, inclusive of those in which 
 out-work is done, should be thrown upon the landlord or the 
 person to whom the rent is paid, as well as on the tenant who 
 occupies the workshop. The Commission did not think it 
 practicable to include domestic workshops in the recommendations 
 made on these lines ; and, while giving its adherence to Mr. 
 Booth's proposal, introduced a modification that " the occupiers 
 should be primarily liable, but that immediate owners who receive 
 rent of workshops should also be liable if penalties could not be 
 recovered from occupiers." 
 
 The practical difficulty in the way of a system of licences for 
 small workshops, inclusive of domestic workshops, would be that 
 of securing that the licences were followed by adequate inspection 
 and enforcement of the provisions of the Acts, which are, as a 
 matter of fact, equally binding whether there is or is not a licence. 
 A licence without adequate inspection would be liable to create, 
 both in the minds of the occupiers and the public, a false sense 
 of security by suggesting a spurious official sanction for the 
 conditions existing in the workshops. There has been, however, 
 a recent revival in various forms of this idea — for example, there 
 was the draft of a bill discussed by the Conference of Women 
 Workers at Norwich in October, 1898, the central idea of w-hich 
 was that licences should be granted by the factory Inspector, and
 
 24 
 
 that he might at his discretion grant a pro\isional Hcence until he 
 could visit the premises, and that the employer is liable if gives 
 work to unlicensed persons. The central idea, however, of Mr. 
 Sprague Oram's proposal was that the system of certificates or 
 licences should rest in the hands of the local authorities. This 
 proposal does not distinguish between the different positions held 
 under the Factory Acts and Factory Department of the workshops 
 and domestic liwrkshops respectively, which I have sketched in the 
 previous section. Moreover, it was made and was considered by 
 the Royal Commission on Labour before the addition of section 5 
 of the Act of 1895 (s66 Appendix) to the Statute Book indicated 
 that administrative control by the central authorities was held to 
 necessary and desirable. 
 
 Many of the evils pressed on the attention of the Norwich Con- 
 ference when support was asked for the Bill under discussion, such 
 as excessively long hours of child labour in home workshops, are 
 really remediable under existing legislation if this can only be 
 brought into play. 
 
 The recent foundation, therefore, of a committee whose fore- 
 most aim is to organise and increase private efforts to aid the 
 servants of the public in their task of enforcing existing laws — 
 Factory Acts, Public Health Acts, Truck Acts — is of great 
 interest. This committee is called the Industrial Law Committee, 
 of whom the chairman and founder is Mrs. H. J. Tennant, formerly 
 H.M. Superintending Inspector of Factories. Among its objects 
 are the following : (i) To supply information as to the legal 
 protection of the industrial classes with regard to the conditions of 
 their trade. (2) To constitute a central body to which may be 
 reported breaches of the law and other matters relating to 
 industrial employment in order that these may be inquired into 
 and referred to the proper authorities. (3) To promote further 
 legislation and the more effective administration of the existing 
 law. In its programme are found the following words : — 
 
 " Many evils remain untouched to-day which could, by enforce- 
 ment of existing laws, either be checked or wholly removed. It is 
 impossible that the officials who administer the law on behalf of the 
 Home Office or of the local authorities should, under their present 
 limitations, become acquainted with all the cases demanding 
 interposition .... certain classes of offence cannot be 
 ■dealt with by the officials unless aided by the workpeople, or by 
 persons who are in constant and close relation with them ; while 
 this supplemental information, whether from the workpeople them- 
 selves or from those interested in their well-being, will depend for 
 its value mainly on their knowledge of the legal remedy and of 
 
 what constitutes the legal offence The committee trust 
 
 . to compass a Avider enforcement of the law ; to obtain 
 for the Factory Department and the local authority accuracy in 
 complaints whereby valuable official time will be economised ; and 
 to secure information on matters which are in need of redress, and 
 are not touched by existing laws."
 
 25 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 I 
 
 FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACT, 1878. 
 
 [41 Vict. Ch. 16.] 
 
 SECTION 16. 
 
 Where persons are employed at home, that is to say, in a private Period ot 
 house, room, or place which, though used as a dwelling, is by reason of employment 
 the work carried on there, a factory or workshop within the meaning of meals for 
 this Act. and in which neither steam, water, nor other mechanical power children 
 is used in aid of the manufacturing process carried on there, and in persons m 
 which the only persons employed are members of the same family domestic 
 dwelling there, the foregoing regulations of this Act with respect to the workshop, 
 employment of children, young persons, and women shall not apply to 
 such factor}' or workshop, and in lieu thereof the following regulations 
 shall be observed therein : 
 
 1. A child or young person shall not be employed in the factory or 
 workshop except during the period of employment herein-after men- 
 tioned ; and 
 
 2. The period of employment for a young person shall, except on 
 Saturday, begin at 6 o'clock in the morning and end at nine o'clock in 
 the evening, and shall on Saturday begin at 6 o'clock in the morning and 
 end at 4 o'clock in the afternoon ; and 
 
 J. There shall be allowed to every young person for meals and absence 
 from work during the period of employment not less, except on Saturday, 
 than four hours and a-half, and on Saturday than two hours and a-hal'f ; 
 and 
 
 4. The period of employment for a child on e\ery day either shall 
 begin at 6 o'clock in the morning and end at i o'clock in the afternoon, 
 or shall begin at i o'clock in the afternoon and end at 8 o'clock in the 
 evening or on Saturday at 4 o'clock in the afternoon ; and for the purpose 
 of the provisions of this Act respecting education such child shall be 
 deemed, according to circumstances, to be employed in a morning or 
 afternoon set ; and 
 
 5. A child shall not be employed before the hour of one in the afternoon 
 in the two successive periods of seven daj-s, nor after that hour in two 
 successive periods of seven days, and a child shall not be employed on 
 Saturday in any week before the hour of one in the afternoon, if on any 
 other day in the same week he has been employed before that hour, nor 
 after that hour if on any other day of the same week he has been 
 employed after that hour ; and 
 
 6. A child shall not be employed continuously for more than fi\e hours 
 without an interval of at least half-an-hour for a meal. 
 
 SECTION 31. 
 Where there occurs in a factory or workshop any accident which Notice of 
 
 either — accidents 
 
 1 r IT 1 1 • ,1 ,- . causing 
 
 {a) causes loss 01 hie to a person employed m the factory or in death or 
 the workshop, or ' bodily 
 
 . . mjury. 
 
 ib) causes bodily injury to a person employed in the factorv or in 
 the workshop, and is produced either by machinery moved by steam,
 
 26 
 
 water, or other mechanical power, or through a vat, pan, or other 
 
 structure filled with hot liquid or molten metal or other substance, or 
 
 bj- explosion, or by escape of gas, steam, or metal, and is of such a 
 
 nature as to prevent the person injured by it from returning to his 
 
 work in the factory or workshop within 48 hours after the occurrence 
 
 of the accident, 
 
 written notice of the accident shall forthwith be sent to the inspector and 
 
 to the certifying surgeon for the district, stating the residence of the 
 
 person killed or injured, or the place to which he may have been removed, 
 
 and if any such notice is not sent the occupier of the factory or workshop 
 
 shall be liable to a fine not exceeding ;^5. 
 
 If any such accident as aforesaid occurs to a person employed in an 
 iron mill or blast furnace, or other factory or workshop where the 
 occupier is not the actual employer of the person killed or injured, the 
 actual employer shall immediately report the same to the occupier, and in 
 default shall be liable to a fine not exceeding £^. 
 
 A notice of an accident, of which notice is required by section 63 of the 
 Explosives Act, 1875, to be sent to a Government inspector, need not be 
 sent to the certifying surgeon in pursuance of this section, 
 
 SECTION 32. 
 
 Investiga- Where a certifying surgeon receives in pursuance of this Act notice of 
 report on'^ an accident in a factory or a workshop, he shall with the least possible 
 accidents by dela}' proceed to the factory or workshop, and make a full investigation 
 certifying g^g ^q j^j^g nature and cause of the death or injury caused by that accident, 
 surgeon. ^^ ^ within the next 24 hours send to the inspector a report thereof. 
 
 The certifying surgeon, for the purpose only of an investigation under 
 this section, shall have the same powers as an inspector, and shall also 
 have power to enter anj' room in a building to which the person killed or 
 injured has been removed. 
 
 There shall be paid to the said surgeon for the investigation such fee, 
 not exceeding los. or less than 3s., as a Secretary of State considers 
 reasonable, which fee shall be paid as expenses incurred by a Secretary 
 of State in the execution of this Act. 
 
 SECTION 61. 
 
 Exception 4, Special Exception for Domestic and certain other Factories and Workshops. 
 of domestic 
 
 factories The provisions of this Act which relate — 
 
 shops and 1- To the cleanliness (including limewashing, painting, varnishing, and 
 certain washing) or to the freedom from effluvia, or to the overcrowding, or 
 shops from ' ventilation ot a factory or workshop ; or 
 
 certain pro- 2. To all children, young persons, and women employed in a factory or 
 
 the°"ct° workshop having the times allowed for meals at the same hour of the 
 
 da3^ or during any part of the times allowed for meals in a factory or 
 
 workshop being employed in the factory or workshop or being allowed to 
 
 remain in any room ; or 
 
 3. To the affixing of any notice or abstract in a factory or workshop ; 
 or specifying any matter in the notice so affixed ; or 
 
 4. To the allowance of any holidays to a child, young person, or 
 woman ; or 
 
 5. To the sending notice of accident ; 
 shall not apply — 
 
 (a) Where persons are employed at home, that is to say, to a 
 a private house, room, or place which, though used as a dwelling, is
 
 by reason of the work carried on there a factory or workshop within 
 the meaning of this Act, and in which neither steam, water, nor 
 other mechanical power is used, and in which the only persons 
 employed are members of the same famil}- dwelling there ; or 
 
 (b) To a workshop which is conducted on the system of not 
 
 employing children or young persons therein, and the occupier of 
 
 which has served on an inspector notice of his intention to conduct 
 
 his workshop on that system. 
 
 And the provisions of this Act with respect to certificates of fitness for 
 
 employment shall apply to any such private house, room, or place as 
 
 aforesaid, which by reason of the nature of the work carried on there is a 
 
 factory, as if the same were a workshop within the meaning of this Act, 
 
 and not a factor}-. 
 
 Where the occupier of a workshop has served on an inspector notice 
 of his nitention to conduct that workshop on the system of not employing 
 children or young persons therein, the workshop shall be deemed for all 
 the purposes of this Act to be conducted on the said system until the 
 occupier changes it, and no change shall be made until the occupier has 
 served on the inspector notice of his intention to change the system, and 
 until the change a child or j-oung person emplo3-ed in the workshop shall 
 be deemed to be employed contrary to the provisions of this Act. A 
 change in the said system shall not be made oftener than once a quarter, 
 unless for special cause allowed in writing by an inspector. 
 
 Nothing in this section shall exempt a bakehouse from the provisions 
 of this Act with respect to cleanliness (including limewashing, painting, 
 varnishing, and washing), or to freedom from effluvia. 
 
 SECTION 68. 
 
 An inspector under this Act shall for the purpose of the execution of Powers of 
 this Act have power to do all or any of the following things ; namely — inspectors. 
 
 1 . To enter, inspect, and examine at all reasonable times bv day and night 
 a factory and a workshop and e\-ery part thereof when he has reasonable 
 cause to believe that any person is employed therein, and to enter by day 
 any place which he has reasonable cause to believe to be a factory or 
 workshop ; and 
 
 2. To take with him in either case a constable into a factory in 
 which he has reasonable cause to apprehend any serious obstruction in 
 the execution of his duty ; and 
 
 3. To require the production of the registers, certificates, notices, and 
 documents kept in pursuance of this Act, and to inspect, examine, and 
 copy the same ; and 
 
 4. To make such examination and inquiry as ma}- be necessarx- to 
 ascertain whether the enactments for the time being in force relating to 
 public health and the enactments of this Act are complied with, so far 
 as respects the factory or workshop and the persons employed therein ; 
 and 
 
 5. To enter any school in which he has reasonable cause to believe 
 that children employed in a factory or workshop are for the time beino- 
 educated ; and 
 
 6. To examine either alone or in the pi-esence of any other person, as he 
 thinks fit. with respect to matters under this Act, every person whom he 
 finds in a factory or workshop, or such a school as aforesaid, or whom he 
 has reasonable cause to believe to be or to have been within the 
 preceding two months employed in a factory or workshop, and to require
 
 28 
 
 such person to be so examined and to sign a declaration of the truth of 
 the matters respecting which he is so examined ; and 
 
 7. To exercise such other powers as may be necessarj^ for carrying this 
 Act into effect. 
 
 The occupier of every factory and workshop, his agents and servants, 
 shall furnish the means required by an inspector as necessary tor an 
 entry, inspection, examination, inquiry, or the exercise of his powers 
 under this Act in relation to such factory and workshop. 
 
 livery person who wilfully delays an inspector in the exercise of any 
 power under this section, or who fails to comply with a requisition of an 
 inspector in pursuance of this section, or to produce any certificate or 
 document which he is required by or in pursuance of this Act to 
 produce, or who conceals or prevents a child, j-oung person, or woman 
 from appearing before or being examined by an inspector, or attempts so to 
 conceal or prevent a child, young person, or woman, shall be deemed to 
 obstruct an inspector in the execution ot his duties under this Act : 
 Provided always, that no one shall be required under this section to 
 answer any question or to give any evidence tending to criminate himself. 
 
 Where an inspector is obstructed in the execution of his duties under 
 this Act, the person obstructing him shall he liable to a fine not 
 exceeding ;^5 ; and, where an inspector is so obstructed in a factory or 
 workshop, the occupier of that factory or workshop shall be liable to 
 a fine not exceeding £~), or where the offence is committed at night, £20; 
 and, where an inspector is so obstructed in a factory or workshop 
 within the meaning of section 16 of this Act, the occupier shall be liable 
 to a fine not exceeding £1, or where the offence is conunitted at 
 night, £->. 
 
 SECTION 84. 
 
 The parent of a child or young person shall — 
 
 1. If such child or young person is employed in a factory or workshop 
 contrary to the provisions of this Act, be liable to a fine not exceeding 
 20S. for each offence, unless it appears to the court that such offence was 
 committed without the consent, connivance, or wilful default of such 
 parent ; and 
 
 2. If he neglects to cause such child to attend school in accordance 
 caule"'hi?d° '^'1*^ this Act be liable to a fine not exceeding 20s. for each offence. 
 
 SECTION 96. 
 In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires — 
 The expression "child" means a person under the age of 14 years: 
 The expression " young person " means a person of the age of 14 years 
 and under the age of iS years: 
 
 The expression "woman" means a woman of iS years of age and 
 upwards : 
 
 The expression " parent " means a parent or guardian of, or person 
 having the legal custody of, or the control over, or having direct benefit 
 from the wages, of a child or young person : 
 
 The expression " night " means the period between 9 o'clock in the 
 evening and 6 o clock in the succeeding morning. 
 
 SECTION 97. 
 Special exemption of certain Trades. 
 The exercise in a private house or private room by the family dwelling 
 therein, or by any of them, of manual labour by way of trade or for 
 purposes of gain in or incidental to any of the handicrafts specified in 
 Schedule in (.j^g f^f^]^ Schedule to this Act, shall not of itself constitute such house or 
 hou=cs. room a workshop within the meaning of this Act. 
 
 Fine on 
 parent for 
 allowing 
 child or 
 young per- 
 son to be 
 enip oyed 
 contrary to 
 the Act. or 
 
 cause c 
 to attend 
 school. 
 
 General 
 definitions, 
 "Child." 
 '• Young 
 person." 
 
 ■' Woman.' 
 
 Night." 
 
 Exemption 
 of handi- 
 crafts in 
 Fifth
 
 29 
 
 When it is proved to the satisfaction of a Secretary of State that, by 
 reason of the Hght character of the handicraft carried on in any private 
 house or private room b\' the family dwelling therein, or by any of them, 
 it is expedient to extend this section to that handicraft, he may, by order, 
 extend the same. 
 
 The order shall be made in manner provided by part two of this Act, 
 and that part shall apply, so far as circumstances admit, as if the order 
 were an order extending an exception. 
 
 SECTION 98. 
 
 The exercise in a private house or private room by the family dwelling Exemption 
 therein, or by any of them, of manual labour for the purposes of gain in of certain 
 or incidental to some of the purposes in this Act in that behalf mentioned, °'"*^ ^^""^ " 
 shall not of itself constitute such house or room a workshop where the 
 labour is exercised at irregular intervals, and does not furnish the whole 
 or principal means of living to such family. 
 
 FIFTH SCHEDULE. 
 Special Exemptions. 
 Straw plaiting. Pillow-lace making. Glove making. 
 
 FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACT, 189 1. 
 
 [54 AND 55 Vict., Ch. 75.] 
 SECTION 26. 
 
 1. Section 75 of the principal Act (which requires notice to be given of Notice of 
 the occupation of a factory) shall apply to a workshop (including any opening 
 workshop conducted on the system of not employing any child, young ""'^ * °''' 
 person, or woman therein) in like manner as it applies to a tactory. 
 
 2. Where an inspector receives notice in pursuance of this section with 
 respect to a workshop, he shall forthwith forward the notice to the 
 sanitary authority of the district to which the workshop is situate. 
 
 SECTION 27. 
 
 1. The occupier of e\ery factory and workshop (including any workshop List of out- 
 conducted on the system of not employing any child, young person, or workers, 
 woman therein) and every contractor employed by any such occupier in 
 
 the business of the factory or workshop shall, if so required by the 
 Secretary of State by an order made in accordance with section 65 of the 
 principal Act, and subject to any exceptions mentioned in the Order, keep 
 in the prescribed form and with the prescribed particulars lists showing 
 the names of all persons directly employed by him, either as workman 
 or as contractor, in the business of the factor}^ or workshop, outside the 
 factory or workshop, and the places where they are employed, and e\ery 
 such list shall be open to inspection by any inspector under the principal 
 Act or by any officer of a sanitary authority. 
 
 2. In the event of a contravention of this section by the occupier of a 
 factory or workshop, or by a contractor, the cccupier or contractor shall 
 be liable to a fine not exceeding 40s. 
 
 SECTION 37. 
 
 2. In this Act the expression " domestic workshop" means a workshop pehnurnof 
 to which section 16 of the principal Act applies. workshcX'
 
 30 
 
 Power to 
 make order 
 as to 
 
 dangerous 
 factory or 
 workshop. 
 
 Power to 
 make order 
 as to 
 
 dangerous 
 machine. 
 
 FACTORY AND WORKSHOP ACT, 1895. 
 [58 AND 59 Vict., Ch. 37.] 
 SECTION 2. 
 
 1. A court of summary jurisdiction may, on complaint by an inspector^ 
 and on being satisfied that any place used as a factory or workshop or as 
 part of a factory or workshop is in such a condition that any 
 manufacturing process or handicraft carried on therein cannot be so 
 carried on without danger to health or to life or limb, by order, prohibit 
 the place from being used for the purpose of that process or handicraft, 
 until such works have been executed as are in the opinion of the court 
 necessary to remove the danger. 
 
 2. Provided that proceedings shall not be taken under this section in 
 cases where proceedings might be taken by or at the instance of any 
 sanitary authority under the provisions of the law relating to public 
 health, unless the inspector is authorised to take proceedings in pursuance 
 of section i or section 2 of the Act of 1891. 
 
 3. If there is any contravention of an order under this section the 
 occupier of the place shall be liable to a fine not exceeding 40s. a day 
 during such contravention. 
 
 SECTION 4. 
 
 1. A court of summary jurisdiction may, on complaint by an inspector, 
 and on being satisfied that any machine used in a factory or workshop 
 is in such a condition that it cannot be used without danger to life or 
 limb, by order prohibit the machine from being used, or, if it is capable of 
 repair or alteration, from being used until it is duly repaired or altered. 
 
 2. Where a complaint has been made under this section the court or a 
 justice may, on application ex parte b}- the inspector, and on receiving 
 evidence that the use of any such machine invohes imminent danger to 
 life, make an interim order prohibiting either absolutely or subject to 
 conditions the use of the machine until the earliest opportunity for hearing 
 and determining the complaint. 
 
 3. If there is any contravention of an order under this section, the 
 person entitled to control the use of the machine shall be liable to a fine 
 not exceeding 40s. a day during such contravention. 
 
 SECTION 5. 
 
 Penalty for I. If an inspector gives notice in writing to the occupier of a factory or 
 
 employment workshop, or to any contractor emplo3'ed by any such occupier, 
 
 p]f(fjs °"* '" thai, any place in which work is carried on for the purpose of or in 
 
 injurious to connection with the business of the factory or workshop is injurious or 
 
 health. dangerous to the health of the persons emplo3'ed therein, then, if the 
 
 occupier or contractor, after the expiration of one month from receipt of 
 
 the notice, gives out work to be done in that place, and the place is found 
 
 by the court having cognisance of the case to be so injurious or dangerous, 
 
 he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding ;t 10. 
 
 2. This section shall apply in the case of the occupier of any place 
 from which an)' work is given out as if that place were a workshop. 
 
 3. Provided that this section shall not apply except in the case 
 of persons employed in such classes of work, and in the case of persons 
 giving out employment and employed within such areas as may from time 
 to time be specified by the Secretary of State by order made in accordance 
 with section 65 of the principal Act, and no such order shall be made except 
 with respect to an area where, by reason of the number and distribution
 
 31 
 
 of the population or the conditions under which work is carried on, there 
 are special risks of injury or danger to the health of the persons employed 
 and of the district. 
 
 SECTION 6. 
 
 If any occupier of a factory or workshop or laundry or of any place from Penalty for 
 which any work is given out, or any contractor employed by any such ^"°^*n| 
 occupier, causes or allows wearing apparel to be made, cleaned, or apparel to 
 repaired in any dwelling-house or building occupied therewith, whilst any ^fjj"^^^.^j,g"g 
 inmate of the dwelling-house is suffering from scarlet fever or small-pox, f^ere i^s 
 then, unless he proves that he was not aware of the existence of the infectious 
 illness in the dwelling-house, and could not reasonably have been expected f^'^'^-'se. 
 to become aware of it, he shall be liable to a fine not exceeding £\o. 
 
 SECTION i6. 
 
 1. A child shall not. except during the period of employment, be Restrictions 
 employed in the business of a factory or workshop outside the factory or n"eJ;'t"lJs°ae 
 workshop on any day during which the child is employed in the factory and outside 
 or workshop. ' ' '. . . . . '-ksW 
 
 2. A young per'ion or woman shall not, except durmg the period of on the same 
 employment, be employed in the business of a factory or workshop out- ^^>- 
 
 side the factory or workshop on any day during which the young person 
 or woman is employed in the factory or workshop both before and after 
 the dinner hour. 
 
 3. For the purposes of this section a child, young person, or woman to 
 or for whom any work is given out, or who is allowed to take out any 
 work to be done by him or her outside a factory or workshop, shall be 
 deemed to be employed outside the factory or workshop on the day on 
 which the work is so given or taken out. 
 
 4. If a young person or woman is employed by the same employer on 
 the same day both in a factory or workshop and in a shop, the whole 
 period of employment of that young person or woman shall not exceed 
 the number of hours permitted by the Factory Acts for his or her 
 employment in the factory or workshop. 
 
 5. The principal Act shall apply as if any child, young person, or 
 woman employed in contravention of this section were employed in a 
 factory or workshop contrary to the provisions of that Act. 
 
 6. Where it is proved to the satisfaction of the Secretary of State that 
 the customs or exigencies of the trade carried on in any class of factories 
 or workshops, or parts thereof, either generally or situate in any 
 particular locality, require that such trade should be exempted from the 
 operation of this section, he may by order grant to such class of factories 
 or workshops, or parts thereof, such special exemption as may be 
 necessary. 
 
 SECTION 41. 
 
 Every person who is in occupation of a workshop at the commencement Notice of 
 of this Act shall before the expiration of twelve months from the com- ^^^orkTlK)ps. 
 mencement of this Act, unless he has already done so in pursuance ot 
 section 26 of the Act of.iSgi. serve on the inspector for the district a 
 written notice containing the name of the w-orkshop, the place where it is 
 situate, the address to which he desires his letters to be addressed, the 
 nature of the work, and the name of the person or firm under which the 
 business of the workshop is carried on, and in default shall be liable to a 
 fine not exceeding £~). Any notice so ser\ed shall be forthwith forwarded 
 to the sanitary authority of the district in which the workshop is situate.
 
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