the product of the public bakery is just as wholesome, clean and pure and as fit for consumption as are like products coming from the hands of the cook or baker in a private family. Their earnest efforts to aid the Department are appreciated, and we take great pleasure in acknowledging that fact. In quite a number of instances the cost of placing a bakeshop in full conformity with the requirements of the law has been very great. Old shops have been renovated and remodeled; old wooden floors have been taken up and replaced with floors of cement; ceilings, side walls, etc., have received much needed attention by being cleaned, limewashed or painted; troughs, provers and all baking utensils are kept properly cleaned and stored. It is now a rare thing for the inspector to find a bed or water-closet within the confines of a bakeroom. We have insisted on cleanliness, even to the extent of requiring a baker to stop work until he had attired himself in clean clothing. The improvement which we record is verified by the cessation of complaints made to the Department. Much has been said by the journeymen bakers against the long hours of toil exacted of them. Their labor borders very closely on the task system. As everything is sold by the piece or the dozen, the value of a baker's labor is measured by the same standard. The work is very hard and exhaustive, especially when performed at night in closed shops, when the heat, steam and gases in the workroom make the air suffocating; under such conditions even ten hours' labor is most wearing and injurious to the men employed. No good reason can be maintained for forcing men to work for a longer period than ten hours per day. The keen competition between bakers tempts many to cut prices, and then the only way to get back