352 EEPORT— 1903. 



or building where there is scarlet fever or small-pox ; (c) power of the 

 District Council to prohibit home-work in cleaning or washing wearing 

 apparel where there is notifiable infectious disease. Section 103 itself 

 lays down for laundries classed as factories those special sanitary regula- 

 tions as regards temperature, fumes from gas-irons, and drainage of floors, 

 which were recommended by the Chief Inspector in 1893, above cited. 



The special regulations limiting hours of employment for protected 

 persons in laundries (Section 103) are : — 



The Period of Employment Kvclusive of Meal-hours and Absence from Work. 



Meal-times may be fixed by the employer, but no protected person 

 may exceed a five hours' spell of work without an interval of at least 

 half an hour for a meal, and a break of less than half an hour in the 

 course of five hours would not enable an employer to commence a fresh 

 spell of five hours. 



The period of employment and meal-times must be specified, but may 

 be altered on any day provided the weekly as well as the daily limit is 

 not exceeded. Such alteration must, however, be specified before work 

 begins, in a notice affixed in the laundry. Holidays must be allowed 

 under the conditions required in any factory or workshop. 



Overtime for women may not exceed two hours on any day, and may 

 not extend the daily limit beyond fourteen hours of actual work ; it may 

 not be worked on more than three days in one week nor thirty days in a 

 year. Notification to the inspector and affixing i-ecord in the laundry of 

 overtime are required as in other workshops and factories. 



Conditions in Laundries before and since 1890. 



These being the regulations affecting laundries since January 1, 1896, 

 what are the alterations, if any, in regard to (a) persons employed, either 

 in number, age, or sex ; (6) wages and hours of labour ; (c) use of 

 machinery and organisation of labour ; (d) health and efficiency of women 

 employed, or their children ; (e) general prosperity of the trade 1 The 

 task is to find material for comparison on any or all of these points 

 between the periods preceding and following the two years 1896-1897, 

 when the law would be gradually coming into effective operation through- 

 out the kingdom. 



(a) Number, Age, and Sex of Persons Employed in Laundries} 



No material exists for direct definite comparison of figures. The only 

 official figures before 1901 are those relating to the number of registered 

 steam or factory laundries and hand or workshop laundries. No returns of 

 persons employed in them were required from employers before the Act 

 of 1901, and the returns made in 1902 are not yet published for the 

 country as a whole. When they are published we shall know the number 



' See also Section of Committee's Report dealing generally with the statistics of 

 changes in the employment of women. 



