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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924032457891 
 
THE CHILD -SLAVES OF BRITAIN 
 
 A True and Faithful Account of the Present 
 Condition of Certain Small Lieges of His Majesty 
 King Edward VII. (whom God pressrve) in various 
 principal Towns and Cities of his Kingdoms of 
 England and Scotland in the first years of the 
 Twentieth Century 
 
^^CHILD'SUWES 
 s^BRITAIN 
 
 By Robert Harborough Sherard 
 
 Author of " The White Slaves of England," 
 " The Cr7 of the Poor," 
 " At the Closed Door," etc. 
 
 ' Zwischen dem Ambos und Hammer," — GoETHE. 
 
 London : Harst and Blackett, Limited 
 J82, High Holbom, W.C. J« * 1905 
 
 (All Rights Reserved 
 
' 1% 
 
 
 7 
 
The BARONESS von ECKARDSTEIN 
 
 To whose keen sympathy and kind encouragement the Author 
 
 of this book o-wes no small a debt, 
 
 it is, with his homage, 
 
 De&tcateO 
 
PREFACE 
 
 When Mr. Charles Sisley, the editor of The London 
 Magazine, first wrote to me to ask me to under- 
 take this inquiry into the condition of children 
 in England and in Scotland, his principal stipula- 
 tion was that the investigation should be carried 
 out in a careful and conscientious manner. An 
 able and experienced publicist, he was well aware 
 that the sacrifice of even a particle of the truth 
 for the purpose of picturesque or sensational 
 writing would immediately evoke such a clamour 
 of refutation as should deafen to uncontested and 
 incontestible facts the ears of the great public 
 to whom our appeal was made. That neither 
 during the course of the publication in that magazine 
 of the main chapters in this book, nor since, has 
 the veracity of any one of my statements been 
 impugned is, I think, the best proof that my 
 investigation was indeed carried out with care 
 and with conscientiousness, and that this book 
 may be taken as a fair and impartial account of 
 the deplorable conditions under which a large 
 number of EngHsh and Scotch chiKiren live and 
 labour — some to struggle through to stunted man 
 
X Preface. 
 
 or woman hood, some to be crushed back into that 
 nothingness from which, if they had never been 
 called forth, it would indeed have been kinder. 
 
 Six months were exclusively devoted by me to 
 this inquiry, of which two months were spent 
 in the East End of London. 
 
 My entire time was passed in the very midst 
 of the classes whose condition of life it was mine 
 to investigate. In no other way than by placing 
 himself in direct physical sympathy with the 
 subjects of his study can a writer attain to that 
 moral sympathy with their sufferings without 
 which his descriptions must be pictures altogether 
 lacking in atmosphere and barren of documentation. 
 One can study Blue Books on the condition of 
 the poor in Mayfair or Tyburnia, but it is only in 
 such places as the purlieus of Stinkhouse Bridge 
 or the Bow Common Running-ground that one can 
 fully grasp the mournful significance of the facts 
 therein set forth. During that period I visited 
 many scores of " homes " in various parts of the 
 two kingdoms, guided in my selections and often 
 accompanied by inspectors of the National Society 
 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, inspectors 
 of the various School Boards of the towns which 
 I visited, and the devoted officers of the Salvation 
 Army, to whom no appeal in the cause of Social 
 Reform is ever made in vain. I followed the half- 
 timer into the mills of Lancashire and Scotland, 
 the devil's holes of Bradford, and the starvation- 
 sheds of Bromsgrove and of Cradley Heath. I 
 
Preface. xi 
 
 talked with many hundred httle merchants, male 
 and female, of our cities' streets. I did not neglect 
 to visit police-courts, workhouses and one count}' 
 gaol. These are, all three, institutions which are 
 part of the set scenes of the squalid little life- 
 dramas which it was mine to study. Nor did I 
 leave that county gaol without asking to be shown 
 that apparatus of Justice which is the ultima ratio 
 of what is too often cruel injustice, and which, 
 for disguise, as though one were ashamed of it, 
 is painted a rustic green and forms part and parcel 
 of a shed which in ordinary times is used as a 
 coach-house. The last man who had been hustled 
 into this shed one misty winter morning to be 
 strangled out of existence was a child of the Pottery 
 district, and, remembering what are the Hves of the 
 children of the Potteries, their home-life, their 
 bringing-up and the examples ever before their 
 eyes, I could not help thinking, as I leaned against 
 one of the rustic green posts and looked down 
 into the pit-mirk of the yawning fosse, that it is 
 eloquent for the sterling qualities and innate 
 virtues of the children of the poor that, during a 
 period of years, but one only should have been 
 driven to denouement here by the compeUing force 
 of rancorous despair. 
 
 And it is, indeed, with enthusiastic admiration 
 for the fine qualities of our race that one emerges 
 into the upper air from the noisome depths, such 
 as those in which, during six months, I struggled 
 onwards, gasping and amazed. No words can 
 
xii Preface. 
 
 be too eloquent in which to pay a fitting tribute 
 to the courage, the kindhness, the solidarity, the 
 devotion, the self-sacrifice, which, in every moment 
 of their Hves, are displayed by the utterly sub- 
 merged. 
 
 Having made this observation, it is, indeed, 
 terrible to contemplate the slow but steady process 
 by which, under the grinding pressure of their 
 circumstances, all the good, the fine qualities in 
 these beings, male and female, not physical only 
 but moral also, are crushed out of them. In the 
 slums of the two kingdoms one can, by observing 
 children of different ages, watch the process of 
 deterioration in all its hideous significance. 
 
 I do not refer here to the thousands of little 
 ones who are brought into the world under a 
 curse more terrible than the curse which was laid 
 upon Cain, the curse of outraged Nature, and 
 whose existence is but a brief and dolorous stumble 
 from rag-pallet to grave, a puny struggle against 
 pain and hunger, pain and cold, pain and vermin. 
 I speak of the large majority of children who 
 come into the world, free from parental taint, 
 inheritors of the common chances of mankind. 
 Such is the vitality of many of these that, for a 
 time, they seem to thrive on their very squalor ; 
 that, for a time, in spite of every violation of the 
 natural laws, they push upwards. But, alas ! to 
 this power of resistance there is perforce a limit, 
 and one can calculate with almost mathematical 
 exactitude just how long it will take, under existing 
 
Preface. xiii 
 
 conditions, for the forces of evil* to overcome 
 this power of resistance ; just how long it will take 
 to transform yonder sturdy babe, crowing from 
 very joy of life amidst the verminous rags on which 
 it was ushered into the world, into lad or lass, 
 bloodless, rickety, ruined. 
 
 To the forces of moral evil arrayed against these 
 poor people in even more formidable battalions, 
 
 * The following statements made by three different witnesses 
 before the Inter-Departmental Committee on Physical De- 
 terioration illustrate what I have termed the forces of evil. 
 These statements were in each case made in answer to the 
 question as to what, in the opinion of the witness, were the 
 principal causes of the weakness of children at the present day. 
 Dr. Henry Ashby, M.D., F.R.C.P., said: "I believe the 
 three chief causes to be (i) Heredity, (2) Unintelligent 
 Mothering, (3) Effects of Improper Feeding." 
 Sir Lambert H. Ormsby, M.D., said : "In the lower strata 
 of society in large towns I consider their surroundings 
 and domestic home-life are in a very depressing condi- 
 tion ; there is a total neglect of every hygienic and 
 sanitary rule of life, and those conditions are, I say, 
 made up of theinsanitary dwellings, the insufficient and im- 
 proper food, insufficient clothing, and breathing and 
 re-breathing from week's end to week's end the same 
 polluted and contaminated air ; and then they have no 
 means of recreation or athletic exercises to throw off 
 those effects." 
 Sir William Taylor, K.C.B., in his report to the Committee, 
 said : " The impairment of vigour and physique among 
 the urban poor is easy to understand when we reflect 
 that in addition to their only being able to provide them- 
 selves with food insufficient in quantity and probably 
 poor in quahty, their poverty also usually entails un- 
 healthy environment — e.g., defective housing, over- 
 crowding and insanitary surroundings. Add to this 
 the distress resulting from such causes as want of thrift, 
 illness or death of the bread-winner and alcoholic excess." 
 
xiv Preface. 
 
 a still more marvellous resistance is offered. There 
 is amongst those who have studied the submerged 
 a consensus of opinion that, considering their 
 environment, the sty-like promiscuity in which 
 the sexes are herded together, the examples ever 
 before their eyes, the standard of morality amongst 
 the children of the poor is very high indeed. It 
 is not from the slums, forsooth, that any future 
 Committee on National Moral Deterioration will 
 need to draw its illustrations. And this is what, 
 on the one hand, fills the observer with the en- 
 thusiastic admiration of which I have spoken, 
 and, on the other, stimulates to the highest effort 
 of which he is capable the would-be reformer, in 
 his endeavours to win for these people better con- 
 ditions and a fairer chance. 
 
 In which connection one word on the question 
 of alcoholic excess. It is the comfortable practice 
 of the selfish and the indifferent to attribute to 
 habits of intemperance the greatest part of the 
 misery and distress among what are called the 
 lower classes. As a matter of fact alcohohc excess 
 accounts in only a small degree, compared with 
 other causes, for this distress. This has been 
 statistically proved by, amongst others, Mr. Lee- 
 Jones, of the Liverpool Food and Betterment 
 Association, who has spent many noble years 
 of his life in Limekiln Lane amongst the very 
 poor in the very worst part of that city. The 
 causes are mainly elsewhere. In the preface to 
 my book, " The Cry of the Poor," I wrote on 
 
Preface. xv 
 
 this subject some words which I must ask to be 
 allowed to quote : " Certainly, the abuse of strong 
 drink seems largely to blame for much of the 
 appalling misery that I witnessed. But what 
 most strongly impressed itself on me was that it is 
 the misery — the conditions of life — which is rather 
 to blame for the abuse of strong drink. Our 
 pariahs turn in a vicious circle, a saraband of 
 death and hell. And again in many cases — notably 
 in those which are brought to my notice by the 
 devoted officers of the Salvation Army — drink 
 was altogether alien to the terrible distress. In- 
 stability of employment, excess of population, 
 early marriages and too large families ; these 
 were often the direct causes of the squalid misery 
 of the slums." I should add now, from further 
 observation, that the main cause of distress is the 
 utterly exorbitant tax that is levied on the poor 
 in the form of rent. If, as Mr. Seebohm Rowntree, 
 of York, declares, one-sixth of the wages of the 
 working classes of this country is spent in drink, 
 it is equally certain that rent swallows up never 
 less than one-fourth, and oftener, one-third, one- 
 half and even three-fourths of those wages. The 
 rack-renter is the sternest temperance reformer. 
 Out of what he leaves in the way of weekly income 
 there is not enough to allow of alcohohc excess. 
 The very poor cannot afford to get drunk. And 
 again a large percentage of the drink that is taken 
 is consumed as the easiest and readiest form of 
 acquiring energy by people who never get proper 
 
xvi Preface. 
 
 sustenance in the shape of food. As I point out again 
 and again in my book, the women know nothing 
 of cooking, nothing of the various dietary values 
 of food, and were they even as skilled in the culinary 
 art as a Vatel or a Soyer, there is in their miserable 
 homes not as much convenience for the prepara- 
 tion of cooked food as in the hut of a Papuan 
 cannibal. Energy must be had by the toiler. 
 Drink supplies energy for a time. Drink cheats 
 hunger. It is therefore resorted to as kola is 
 resorted to by the Mexican Indians, not from 
 viciousness, but from necessity. 
 
 My interest, therefore, in these people, could not 
 be in any degree diminished by such practice of 
 drinking as I witnessed amongst them. And I 
 say that to explain the vehemence with which 
 in the following pages I have espoused the cause 
 of the most helpless amongst the helpless, the 
 most pitiful amongst the pitiful, the weak, hungry 
 little children of the poor, who because of the 
 utter poverty of their parents are put to toil and 
 labour, the Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Dr. Macnamara, M.P., in whom the children 
 of England have a magnificent champion, puts 
 at about a million and a quarter the number of 
 children of the working classes, " who, in the matter 
 of nutrition, clothing, housing, and so on, were 
 never worse off than they are to-day." It is 
 from this number, no doubt, that are largely 
 recruited the mass of English children who work 
 for wages out of school hours. The number of 
 
Preface. 
 
 xvii 
 
 these can be approximately gauged from the Report 
 of the Inter-Departmental Committee on the 
 Employment of School Childen, published in 1901, 
 which fixed at 300,000 the number of children 
 who, in 1898, " were combining school attendance 
 with paid employment."* 
 
 * Summary of Numbers in Various Classes of Employ- 
 ment. 
 
 We have under the several heads above given estimates of 
 the number of the children in the different occupations. These 
 astimates are extremely rough ; but for the reasons we have 
 given it is impossible to obtain more accurate figures. They 
 serve, at any rate, to give some conception of the numbers of 
 the various classes of children working for wages or profit ; 
 and we think it may be useful to summarise them as follows : — 
 
 1. Factories and workshops. 
 
 Half-timers — Factories (1898), 41,300 ; Work- 
 shops (1897), 1,985 ; and a small allowance 
 must be made for places that failed to make 
 returns (whole-timers not included) 
 Home industrial work 
 
 2. Mines — Number (except whole-timers) incon- 
 
 siderable. 
 3 Shops — Parliamentary return 76,173 ; but, 
 allowing for deficiencies and for half-timers, 
 total must be at least . . 
 4. Domestic work — Parliamentary Return, boys 
 10,636, girls 24,858 ; allowing for deficiencies 
 in return and half-timers, at least 
 Agriculture — Parliamentary Return 6, 1 1 5 ; 
 but allowing for half-timers, holiday employ- 
 ment, irregular work, etc. . . . . (say) 
 Street sellers— Parliamentary Return 17,617 
 
 (say) 
 Miscellaneous occupations — Parliamentary Re- 
 turn 8,627 ^^'^^^ 
 
 5- 
 
 45,000 
 15,000 
 
 I0Q,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 50,000 
 
 25,000 
 
 15,000 
 300,000 
 
 b 
 
xviii Preface. 
 
 These figures, it will be seen, do not include 
 Scotland, for which no recent general statistics 
 exist, but I do not think it would be exaggeration 
 to state that in the two kingdoms there are at 
 the present day, at ages ranging from five to four- 
 teen, at least half-a-million of children of both 
 sexes engaged in wage-earning labour, often of a 
 dangerous, sometimes of a fatal, and almost always 
 of an exhausting nature ; to say nothing of the 
 " young persons," as the law styles children over 
 the ages of thirteen or fourteen, who have obtained 
 their certificates and are free from school attend- 
 ance. The total number, then, of these children 
 is a very large one, and we have striking proof 
 in the reports of the Royal Commission on Physical 
 Training (Scotland) and the Inter-Departmental 
 Committee on Physical Deterioration, that physi- 
 cally the greater majority of them are unfitted 
 for the tasks that are put upon them ; that such 
 labour inflicted on children in such a condition of 
 low vitality and ill-health can only be a further 
 contributory cause of further deterioration, disease 
 and premature death. 
 
 These very rough figures may, we beheve, be taken as mini 
 mum estimates of the numbers employed in 1898 in each occu- 
 pation. We are satisfied that at any rate the total of 308,000 
 is not too high an estimate for the number of children who 
 combine school attendance with paid employment ; if all 
 children employed at any time of the year, however irregularly, 
 or for however short a period, could be included, it is probable 
 that the figure should be considerably increased. — From the 
 Inter-Departmental Committee's Report. 
 
Preface. xix 
 
 The remedies for an evil which is little short of 
 a national disgrace are well understood by our 
 legislators, and could be appUed effectively with 
 immediate and increasing beneficial results if the 
 British ratepayers would consent to some present 
 sacrifice during a short period of years, with the 
 prospect of an enormous and progressive reduction 
 of public charges in the early future. What these 
 remedies are will be found set out in the course 
 of my book and in the appendix. 
 
 I cannot conclude this foreword without ex- 
 pressing once more to the many ladies and gentle- 
 men who assisted me during my work, my sincere 
 gratitude. 
 
 Robert H. Sherard. 
 
 December gth, 1904. 
 
 Vernon (Eure), 
 
 France. 
 
 Postscript. — Since the above was written I have been spending z 
 month in tracking back to their places of origin the alien immigrants 
 who, as I point out in several places in this Imok, are directly the cause 
 of a great part of the sufferings endured by our poor and their little 
 children. My observations, which were published under the title, 
 "The Home of the Alien," in a series of articles in TAe Standard, 
 have most fully confirmed me in the opinion already expressed that the 
 Aliens' Bill will afford a prompt remedy for much of the evil I have 
 described. R. H. S. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. — On Child-Slavery in London in General i 
 II. — On Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 25 
 III. — On the Alien Immigration and its Ef- 
 fects 60 
 
 IV. — On Child-Slavery in Manchester . . 85 
 
 V. — On Child-Slavery in Birmingham . . 108 
 
 VI. — On Child-Slavery in Grimsby . .141 
 
 Vll. — On Child-Slavery in Scotland . .171 
 
 VIII. — On Child-Slavery in Liverpool and 
 
 other large Towns .... 206 
 
 Appendix ^37 
 
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Feeding on Garbage 
 
 London Match-Makers at Work 
 
 A London Flower Girl 
 
 A Manchester Newspaper Boy 
 
 In a Birmingham Soldering Shop 
 
 Gutting Fish on a Grimsby Trawler 
 
 Edinburgh Street Hawkers . 
 
 A Milk-Carrier in Glasgow 
 
 Facing page 14 
 
 52 
 81 
 
 91 
 124 
 160 
 
 172 
 
Cbe ebild^Slai^es of Britain. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 On Child=-Slavery in London in General. 
 
 From the grey and bituminous gloom of 
 a Salvation Army shelter in the extreme 
 East of London to the brilliant hall of the 
 Carlton Club — the change was an impressive 
 one. Nor less marked the difference be- 
 tween the man I had come to see and the 
 human being to whom I had spoken last. 
 
 The latter, an English lad, Harry Myers 
 by name, aged fourteen, who has just left 
 school. His mother is a widow, and he 
 lives with her and two other children in a 
 small back room in Whitechapel. The rent 
 of this room is six shillings. The mother 
 
 I 
 
2 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 is practically the only wage-earner. Like 
 many hundreds of other women, grown 
 women and httle girls, in the East End of 
 London, she is Nethinim to the aliens. 
 
 " Mother works for Jews," said Harry 
 Myers. The rate of payment seems to be 
 about three-halfpence an hour, and the tasks 
 are those which the Jews will not perform 
 for themselves. Harry himself, when he can 
 find the work to do, runs errands for grocers, 
 and for fetching and carrying heavy parcels 
 for five or six hours, may make as much as 
 " thruppence." But the burdens which their 
 taskmasters lay upon the child-slaves of 
 England are heavy indeed, far too heavy 
 for one so weak and degenerate as this 
 lad. I have heard of boys to whom a load 
 of three-quarters of a hundredweight has 
 been allotted, and I have taken a picture 
 of one — a bookseller's boy — ^thus heavy- 
 laden. One meets constantly in these depths 
 with children who have been literally de- 
 formed and twisted out of shape by the 
 loads which have been laid upon them. 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. 3 
 
 These boys were, I suppose, at one time 
 strong and able for a while to perform their 
 tasks. For the rest, what stimulants to 
 industry are used by parents, Mr. Benjamin 
 Waugh can show any visitor to the offices 
 of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty 
 to Children, in Leicester Square. There is 
 a glass cupboard here — the Museum it is 
 called — at the inspection of which the gorge 
 rises. Here are dog-whips, toasting-forks, 
 jagged pieces of iron — even horse-pistols. 
 I presume that Harry Myers has a kind 
 mother, but no dog- whip, no jagged iron, 
 no pistol could have forced this boy to 
 perform the tasks that, at the current rate 
 of one halfpenny or three farthings an hour, 
 are expected of our children. 
 
 " Harry Myers is undoubtedly starving," 
 said the Salvation Army captain to me. 
 
 So I took him to dinner, and having 
 installed him at a table chez Pearce and 
 Plenty, I asked him what he would hke 
 to eat. 
 
 " Jam roll," said Harry Myers. 
 
4 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 It will be well to remember what was 
 the food selected by the starving lad from 
 a long menu. It illustrates a condition of 
 things which has a great bearing on the 
 question of our national physique. 
 
 This was the opinion of the Right Honour- 
 able Sir John Gorst, whom I had come to 
 see — after leaving Harry Myers — at the 
 Carlton Club. Like Benjamin Waugh, like 
 Macnamara, like many other noble fellows, 
 Sir John Gorst is one of the protectors of 
 children. It was expedient that I should 
 see him, for he holds that the condition of 
 things to-day in England, in respect to the 
 treatment of children, is such that our 
 British race, degenerating already, will, in 
 the future, degenerate still more. He has 
 raised his voice against this condition of 
 things, and as he told me during our inter- 
 view, he will go on fighting till a remedy 
 has been found. 
 
 We sat together under the electric globes, 
 with the serene faces of great statesmen, 
 hewn in white marble, looking down upon 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. 5 
 
 us as we talked. Men, very high in the 
 land, passed through the silent doors, whilst 
 opulently-attired lacqueys bore on silver 
 trays the world's luxuries. It was a very 
 different scene from the one I had left, 
 where the air is always grey, where poverty 
 and starvation squat like an incubus on 
 the murky streets, where one recognizes 
 the change of season only by the varying 
 foetor of the pavements, and where, in a 
 sombre monochrome, the only relief of 
 colour is supplied by this one's sores and 
 that one's bruises. 
 
 At our feet, worked into the pavement 
 in marble mosaic, was, in its proud humility, 
 the princely motto won at Cregy — Ich 
 Dien. During our conversation my eyes 
 kept turning down upon the words, as 
 I thought of the hundreds of thousands 
 of little English men and women, many 
 merest babies, whose motto is these words 
 also. 
 
 Ich Dien. Let us listen to the httle ^/' 
 stories of some of the children with whom, 
 
6 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 in weeks of peregrination throughout London, 
 I have conversed. 
 
 Here, first of all, is Maria D from 
 
 a bad Poplar slum, a " door-step girl." 
 Maria, with a sweet face on which toil and 
 household cares have already put a stamp 
 of pathos. With her broom, much taller 
 than herself, as she stands up in the huge 
 sack-cloth apron, which she made with her 
 own little fingers " whilst 'opping last 
 summer," or when she kneels amidst the 
 ashes by the side of the heavy pail of water, 
 she is the type of a very large class of little 
 English girls, the Marchionesses of the day. 
 Let it be known in Poplar, or Stepney, or 
 Bow, that you require the services of a 
 " door-step girl," and from the slums of 
 which Maria's home is but one, a horde 
 of tiny, ragged matrons will descend upon 
 you, many far too small to reach the bell- 
 pull of your door, yet eager to scrub door- 
 steps, blacklead ranges and beat mats much 
 
 bigger than themselves. Maria D 
 
 " started housework just after she was six." 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. 7 
 
 Her father is a stevedore, who is often out 
 of work. 
 
 Ich Dien. Harry Myers aforesaid carrying 
 burdens of which we know. I asked him 
 what were his hopes and ambitions in 
 hfe. 
 
 " Sewers," he answered. 
 
 " What ! " I cried, referring to our sur- 
 roundings and his hfe, " are there deeper 
 sewers yet ? " 
 
 It appeared that he hopes to get eventual 
 employment in the City sewers, where he 
 may start at six shillings a week. 
 
 Ich Dien. Hilda Watkins, who minds 
 baby. Hilda Watkins, of Whitechapel, who 
 gets two shillings and sixpence a week for 
 nursing a baby from 9 a.m. to 6.30 p.m., 
 and two tins of Nestle's milk. Hilda con- 
 tributes greatly to the household support, 
 for " doctor says mother mustn't work," 
 and Hilda's " first father has been dead 
 eleven years." 
 
 Ich Dien. The httle barber's boy, whom 
 I photographed in Whitechapel on the roof 
 
8 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 of the Salvation Army barracks, as typical 
 of one of the hardest-worked classes of 
 boy-slaves in London. It is, indeed, amongst 
 the tiny Figaros of the barbers' shops that 
 we find the weariest, as amongst the errand- 
 boys we find the heaviest tasks. 
 
 Ich Dien. The lad who earns a shilling a 
 week by helping an undertaker — 23J hours 
 of his play-time — in measuring corpses. 
 
 If the days have gone by when little 
 boys were stimulated to chimney-sweeping 
 energy by the lighting of straw fires beneath 
 their bare feet, we find to-day in the hands 
 of the schoolmistress of St. Clement's School, 
 Notting Dale, the photograph of a little boy, 
 who, by carrying heavy loads of china for 
 ■ an employer, has been literally twisted out 
 of human shape. He is only the type of 
 a very large class. We may take it that 
 the loads that children are made to carry 
 are of a weight exacting their extremest 
 efforts. Of this we have abundant proof. 
 We hear of a slight girl of thirteen who is 
 found in a tin-plate works carrying 31 lbs. 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. g 
 
 on her frail arms, of a grocer's boy " who 
 was dragged quite on one side," of a lad 
 of eleven, carrying heavy scuttles of coal 
 from the bottom of the house to the top. 
 We ourselves, as we pass through the 
 morning streets, see merest children 
 staggering under the weight of the heavy 
 shutters they are taking down. We are 
 all agreed that the work in grocers' shops 
 is too heavy for children, even where they 
 don't get twisted out of shape, and that 
 the same may be said of work in the oil- 
 man, butcher and cheesemonger lines. I 
 have already referred to the loads which, 
 in some booksellers' shops, are laid upon 
 errand-boys. 
 
 The deprivation of sleep is a favourite 
 torture in the Celestial Empire. In England 
 we allow it to be applied daily to a large 
 proportion of the 300,000 little slaves who 
 share in the work of the kingdom. 
 
 Mr. W. C. Pratt, head master, says : " The 
 boys assisting in the delivery of milk are 
 up, as a rule, by five o'clock, and present 
 
10 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 themselves late at school. As a conse- 
 quence they are more asleep than awake 
 during the afternoon session. Those en- 
 gaged in newspaper selling are out in the 
 streets till a very late hour." There are 
 greedy little monopolizers who combine the 
 two. It is no wonder they should fall 
 asleep in school, where, if my memory 
 betrays me not, a contrivance exists 
 for bringing boys back to consciousness. 
 Officially we hear of 50 hours a week as 
 the maximum worked out of school-hours 
 by children under fourteen. We do not 
 follow them off the streets to their homes. 
 Possibly matchbox-making, or bead-work, 
 may be here in progress, and our young 
 friend may be asked to lend a hand. My 
 late friend Emile Zola, in " Le Travail," 
 predicted that in the coming order of things 
 a man working two hours in the morning 
 and " a little " in the afternoon — -half-an- 
 hour or so — would have contributed his 
 full share of activity. I have, amongst my 
 notes, the cases of a lad in Finsbury, whom 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. 
 
 II 
 
 I must designate by his initials, " J. L.," 
 alone, who works 68J hours a week, by 
 running errands out of school hours, for 
 three shiUings ; of a boy in the same district 
 who, by selhng papers in the streets for 63 
 hours a week, earns the same amount. 
 
 If these were healthy children living 
 under normal conditions the evil would not 
 be as cruel as it is. They are generally 
 courageous, these httle lads and lasses, 
 willing to work, and, in most cases, glad to 
 take the coppers home to- mother. But 
 their conditions of life are such that they 
 are far from possessing the physique neces- 
 sary for these tasks. Bad food, overcrowded 
 homes, at work for years past on the British 
 race, have reduced its stamina. Sir John 
 Gorst referred me, as to this, to the Royal 
 Commission's Report on the physique of 
 school children in Scotland, and, as he said, 
 the figures and facts given in that Blue 
 Book are indeed appalling. 
 
 In this report Doctor Mackenzie describes 
 the physical examination of 600 Edinburgh 
 
12 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 children, taken from four different schools, 
 " a selection which," as the reporter describes 
 it, " was representative." He found that 
 of these 600 children, 423, or 70.5 per cent., 
 were suffering from diseases of different 
 sorts, whilst 10, or 1.67 per cent., were 
 suffering from deformities. In Aberdeen, out 
 of 600 children examined by Doctor Matthew 
 Hay, 274, or 45.7 per cent., were diseased, 
 and 21 were suffering from deformities. 
 
 " I expect," said Sir John, " that if a 
 similar Commission were to sit for England, 
 their report would be fully as painful reading. 
 I hold that many of our English children 
 are in a shocking physical condition.* 
 
 " I attribute much of the physical de- 
 generacy of our children to defective 
 nutrition, and I do not think it would be 
 saying too much to state that 30 per cent, 
 of our school children are suffering there- 
 from. Doctors have written to me at- 
 tributing this, not alone to the poverty of 
 
 * Since then we have had the Report of the Inter-Departmental 
 Committee on Physical Degeneration, which more than confirms 
 Sir John Gorst's opinion. 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. 13 
 
 the parents, but to their ignorance as to 
 what is proper food to give to children. ' 
 I have a cousin who is vicar in a village 
 in Essex, and he tells me that the London 
 children who are sent down there by the 
 Country Hohday Fund, refuse at first to 
 touch the healthy fare set before them. 
 They are accustomed to eat pickles, sardines, 
 red-herrings, and things of that kind, and 
 won't touch meat and vegetables. Of 
 course, they soon take to the new diet, 
 with the result," added Sir John Gorst, 
 with a laugh, " that before it is time for 
 them to return home, one hears in the 
 cottages that Master Tommy or Master 
 Bobby's buttons must be let out." 
 
 I told him then of my starving httle 
 friend who wanted " jam roll " for dinner. 
 Since then I have collected a mass of informa- 
 tion bearing on the question. As a general 
 rule the miserable, half-starved condition of 
 our poor London children is due to the y 
 carelessness of the parents. Living on filth 
 themselves, they accustom their children to 
 
14 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 the same tastes. In many cottages which 
 I have visited in different parts of London — 
 cottages whose inhabitants could afford 
 healthy and nutritious food — meal-times 
 seem to come as " fancy " dictates^ and it 
 is " fancy " also which suggests the menu, 
 savoury perhaps, but insalubrious. Nasty, 
 strong-smelling things off barrows, nameless 
 compounds out of mysterious tins, strong- 
 smelling cheese as a staple, and, of course, 
 beer, beer, beer, by the bucket, whilst the 
 teapot is always stewing on the hearth. 
 
 " In the Netting Dale district," said to me, 
 in one of the public offices, a gentleman 
 who is intimately acquainted with the con- 
 ditions of child-life and labour, in that very 
 populous and most criminal region of London, 
 " the staple diet of the children is brawn and 
 pickles. One pennyworth of brawn and a 
 halfpenny-worth of pickles forms the daily 
 dinner of thousands of children, who, besides 
 attending school, are working long hours — 
 from 30 to 50 hours a week — in their spare 
 time. If you walk down Latimer Row, for 
 

 -\*j 
 
 naa ff 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 K 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. 15 
 
 instance, at the dinner hour, you will see 
 forty or fifty children at a time waiting out- 
 side the pork-shops to be served with their 
 penn'orths of brawn. The taste for this 
 kind of food grows up with the children, and 
 when they have left school and have gone 
 into the factories they continue to feed 
 themselves in the same way. Hence the 
 miserable stamina of which Sir John Gorst 
 and other statesmen complain." The 
 " breakfasts " on which the children begin 
 the day are as nauseous and as unsustaining 
 as the " dinners " and, in most cases, consist 
 of bread and dripping " unfit to eat," as 
 this official emphatically asserted. 
 
 On such diet, it is absurd to expect from 
 children any physical or mental power with 
 which to face their tasks at school. I do 
 not speak here of their tasks out of school — 
 and this being so I cannot sufficiently ex- 
 press my high admiration of the sturdy 
 young Britisher — a boy of 10 — to whom 
 his mother the other morning called an 
 officer — it was in the Notting Dale district— 
 
i6 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 because young master refused to go to 
 school. 
 
 Young master was emphatic. He would 
 not go to school until he had had his break- 
 fast. " No breakfast, no school, is my 
 motter," he repeated. 
 
 " No breakfast ! " cried his mother in- 
 dignantly, and pointing to the scullery she 
 said to the officer, " If you will look at 
 that table yonder, you will see that it is 
 covered with food." 
 
 " I did," said the officer, " and saw a 
 , quantity of lumps of stale bread, hard as 
 ' stones and mouldy, and in a tin was some 
 putrid dripping." 
 
 If all English children would imitate this 
 little Hampden of Netting Dale, the evils we 
 are to consider would greatly be modified. 
 For we are to remember that it is by no 
 means always the poverty of the parents 
 that lays upon our tiny helots the sufferings 
 of starvation and slavery. It is the laziness, 
 the carelessness, the greed of the parents 
 that, in too many cases, starve the stomachs 
 
Child-Slav ery.in London. in General. 17 
 
 and strain the muscles of our English 
 children. 
 
 " InNottingDale," continued my informant, 
 " there are many families where the father 
 is earning good wages whilst the mother 
 keeps a laundry with employees, and doubles 
 the weekly income, and where the children, 
 fed as I describe, are forced to work to the 
 extreme limits of human endurance." 
 
 A case was cited of a father earning £2 
 a week, whose wife kept a prosperous laundry, 
 yet whose children were forced to work 
 every hour that they could stand on their 
 legs. The father spends his wages " swag- 
 gering about in saloon-bars." The children 
 are badly fed. " The mother will send out 
 for half a pound of brawn, a loaf and a penny- 
 worth of pickles, and that's the dinner. 
 There is much beer drunk in this home 
 and the children always share in it." 
 
 In such a home we find a consumptive 
 boy of thirteen, attending school and working 
 forty-eight hours a week as errand boy to 
 a grocer, to bring in an additional half-a- 
 
 2 
 
i8 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 crown a week, which probably goes to the 
 saloon-bar till. 
 
 In another such home in the same Notting 
 Dale district, we find a boy of twelve, who, 
 owing to his miserable condition, is still in 
 Standard II. His hard work out of school 
 has rendered him semi-imbecile. He works 
 in a coal-yard and staggers into the class- 
 room exhausted, fainting, covered with coal- 
 dust. 
 
 These are child-slaves, and amongst the 
 most pitiful, " purely out of parental greed." 
 
 In Poplar, last winter, at the. Parish 
 School, the experiment was tried of supplying 
 free meals to 300 school children, for it was 
 evident that, for one reason or another, 
 many of these children were suffering from 
 want of nutrition. 
 
 " At first," said my informant, a lady 
 connected with the parish, " we tried them 
 with soup and meat. But that was no 
 good. The basins were pushed aside three- 
 quarters full. It had been my experience 
 with school children before that they won't 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. ig 
 
 touch proper food. I have often set before 
 poor httle ' door-step girls ' who have come 
 to my house for work a good meal of meat 
 and pudding, but ' don't like that ' has 
 been the unvarying cry. When at the 
 Parish Room we changed the dinner to 
 cocoa and bread and jam, we were very 
 successful." 
 
 " Numbers of children in this district," 
 said another lady who was present at this 
 conversation, " live almost entirely on bread 
 and jam." 
 
 In the opinion of many who have studied 
 this question of the degeneration of our 
 children, it may be attributed rather to 
 the lack of air than to the want of proper 
 food — to the shameful overcrowding which, 
 in spite of clamour so loud and so persistent, 
 increases daily. Air ! The atmosphere of 
 slums, not in London alone, but in almost 
 every big town in the three kingdoms, is 
 that in name only. A walk or two in the 
 East End along the streets on which our 
 child-slaves drag their labour-loosened knees, 
 
20 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 a visit into a few rooms in these squalid 
 cottages, and you can sample the air, re- 
 vivifying no longer, but lethal. Here, off 
 Thomas Street, Burdett Road, to the Fenian 
 Barracks, recently described in the Daily 
 Mail as " deserted by Heaven, the Church, 
 and the Police." Here air is so scanty 
 that, even in the winter months, the house- 
 doors, where any exist, are left open. As 
 you pass by and peer into these dark and 
 pestilential passages you may see men, 
 women and children heaped up, asleep 
 and rent free. In Wentworth Street I found 
 a woman and her three children residing 
 on the staircase in a house full of aliens. 
 In Spitalfields Gardens, close by — it is known 
 in Whitechapel as " Itchy Park " — you could 
 formerly see hundreds of homeless Britishers, 
 who at night slept under any shelter near. 
 The well-dressed and prosperous aliens, who, 
 pouring into London, have raised the rents 
 in the East End far above the means of 
 these poor people, used to peer through the 
 railings and deride those whom they had 
 
Child-Slavery in London in General. 21 
 
 dispossessed.* This congestion, beginning 
 in Whitechapel, has now reached as far 
 as Chrisp Street, Poplar, in the extreme 
 East of London. In any of these dis- 
 tricts, homeless children, their day's slavery 
 done, seek their nests on staircases and 
 roofs. You can photograph a dozen such 
 groups by flashlight, any London after- 
 dark. Pass through Parr Street, better 
 known as Donker Row, and enter cottages 
 where you will find five, six, eight children 
 pell-mell in one room. Continue into Cable 
 Street and peer down the guUeys, where 
 murder is bred. The courtyard in which 
 Dennis McCarthy, the semi-imbecile lad who 
 was sentenced at the October Assizes to 
 fifteen years' penal servitude for the man- 
 slaughter of a girl outside the Crown public- 
 house in the same street, is one of the foulest 
 and densest human warrens in London. 
 
 * when I related this fact during a recent visit to Hamburg to Herr 
 Hofmann, the political editor of the Hamburger Nachrichten, he lay 
 back in his chair and laughed. It strikes foreign observers as irre- 
 sistibly funny that we should tolerate such things. Sganarelle always 
 tickles the laughing fancy, but it is a humiliating part to play. 
 
22 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 It teems with children, who, in the stench 
 vomited forth by the neighbouring gut- 
 factory, may grow up physically and morally 
 as degenerate as the sad hero of this noisome 
 mise-en-scene. 
 
 Air ! Let us explore Bethnal Green, and, 
 taking the High Road as our centre, visit 
 in the side streets and courtyards right 
 and left some of the " homes " of the 
 match-box makers. Here in rooms ten feet 
 by eight you will find women and children 
 at work on the boxes for which they are 
 paid 2d. or 2jd. the gross (finding their 
 own paste and hemp) so closely packed 
 that the little hands have hardly space to 
 move. Children on the bed, children on the 
 floor, from the tall ansemic school-girl down 
 to the mite of four. It was in one of these 
 houses that a woman said to me : " My 
 very earhest recollection in life was working 
 at match-boxes. I may have been three 
 years old at the time." By working from 
 8 a.m. till 7.30 p.m. one old woman, she 
 told me, helped by three httle children out 
 
Child Slavery in London in General. 23 
 
 of school hours, could earn is. 2d. a day. 
 I photographed her room (ten feet by 
 eight). The rent of it was 7s. 6d. A 
 pleasaunce attached was a tiny yard, in 
 which a starving cat was lapping dirty 
 water out of a reeking wash-tub! 
 
 On leaving the Carlton on the evening 
 I have referred to, I passed in the door way 
 one of our Ministers, and as I faced East 
 I could not help thinking of something that 
 Doctor Macnamara, M.P., had said to me 
 a few nights previously : 
 
 "If we could only get some of these men 
 to go and see what you and I have seen and 
 are seeing, they would come back moved 
 to tears, and the cause of reform would 
 advance with enormous strides. There are 
 many men of good heart amongst our rulers. 
 But they won't go and see for themselves, 
 and look upon our representations as so 
 much political agitation." 
 
 " But, perhaps," I thought, " he may be 
 one of those aristocrats of whom another 
 Member of Parliament spoke to me, who was 
 
24 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 altogether indifferent to the condition and 
 sufferings of people whom he looks upon 
 as beings of a lower, of a different species." 
 
 And so East — East, through the roar of 
 the great City to which so many little hands 
 and feet were contributing their tiny, plain- 
 tive notes. Whitechapel and Stepney, Lime- 
 house and Poplar, to begin again the saddest 
 pilgrimage, into the homes of the child-slaves, 
 into their workshops, and on to the paths 
 over which they drag their weak and starving 
 bodies, bowed down under burdens that no 
 man should lay upon them. 
 
25 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 On Child -Slavery in London in Detail. 
 
 There are many English women, it is 
 pitiful to have to say it, who ought not 
 to have children at all, yet by a curious 
 physical coincidence it is in England that 
 one finds the largest families. 
 
 From indifference, from lack of proper 
 education, and, I fear, also from inherited 
 slovenliness on the part of their mothers, 
 thousands of the little wretches whose advent 
 into the world the Registrar-General so 
 cheerfully records, " go back," after some 
 lingering months or years of want and 
 suffering, to that imperial city whence they 
 came. 
 
 " Thank God, they have gone back," is 
 
26 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 what many an English mother has told me 
 when I have asked her what has become 
 of her family. 
 
 And, indeed, when one knows the con- 
 ditions under which so many of our little 
 ones in England live, one is inclined to echo 
 the words in which these ragged Rachels 
 mourn their offspring. 
 
 During a sad two months I have again 
 been treading paths familiar to me, but to 
 many as unknown as the subterranean bur- 
 rowings of certain animals. I have been 
 in London, into the swarming warrens of 
 Enghsh child-hfe, hstening to the tale of the 
 children, seeing their lives, counting their 
 sores and their stripes. 
 
 I can already now say this : that when 
 the Parliamentary Commission recently ap- 
 pointed to inquire into the physical con- 
 dition of English children comes to publish 
 its report, England wiU blush in the face of 
 the world. 
 
 It is very certain this report will exceed in 
 horror that which was pubhshed a year 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 27 
 
 ago by a similar Commission which sat in 
 Scotland.* 
 
 I have been into some of the filthiest 
 kennels in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aber- 
 been, but I never yet came across either — 
 
 (i) Children from whose heads, when I 
 removed the covering shawls, a cloud of 
 steam arose— vapours of the fermentation of 
 the sores and vermin. 
 
 Or (2) women feeding babies at the breast, 
 babies of three weeks old on bits of bread or 
 cold potatoes, or the scrapings of tins of 
 potted meat. 
 
 In London I have met with many such 
 cases. In all our big cities the verminous 
 condition of the children of the poor is 
 the rule and not the exception. I had 
 hundreds of little boys and girls sitting on 
 my knees during those sad two months in 
 various parts of the country. If I did not 
 stroke the riot of their tangled hair, it was 
 because I could see the nature of the clouds 
 
 * Since the above was written the Report on Physical Degeneration 
 has been published, and terrible reading it affords. 
 
28 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 they trailed when their head coverings were 
 removed. These were no clouds of glory; 
 it was the vapour of fermentation to which 
 I have referred. 
 
 There are thousands of our poor children 
 in London starving, not on account of the 
 poverty of the parents, but by reason of 
 the ignorance and sloth of the mothers. 
 They know nothing of cookery, they wish 
 to know nothing. They do not care for the 
 trouble. In every London slum you will 
 find a fried-fish shop, or a cooked-meat 
 shop, or a grocer who sells cheese and pickles 
 and potted things. It is much easier and 
 " less worriting-like " to send the children 
 out with coppers for a penn'orth of fish and 
 chips, or a bit of cheese and pickles, than to 
 cook anything for them. 
 
 As to the mother herself, she has usually 
 had her refreshment before the children 
 come back from school. Six out of every 
 ten workmen's wives in the East End of 
 London take their petit dejeuner and dejeuner 
 a la fourchette combined towards eleven 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 29 
 
 o'clock. The menu seldom varies. "I can 
 fancy a bottle of stout and a bit of bread and 
 cheese " is what one hears them say. 
 
 It is not poverty that is the cause of this, 
 nor, save in a few cases, is it parental greed. 
 This is shown by the money made out of 
 child customers by the sweet-stuff shops 
 which abound in all populous districts 
 
 A sweet shop was pointed out to me in a 
 London slum where the late proprietor used 
 to take ;^i8 a week in farthings, halfpence, 
 and pennies from the ill-fed children of the 
 district. When he died, his fortune, which 
 had been entirely made out of his shop, re- 
 presented an income of £150 a year. 
 
 This question of the feeding of the children 
 was considered of such importance by the 
 Royal Commission which sat in Scotland that 
 in their report the following special recom- 
 mendation was made on the subject : — 
 
 It should be one of the duties of School Board 
 and school managers generally to inquire ,into 
 cases of apparently insuf&cient feeding ; they should 
 also provide facilities for the provision of suitable 
 
30 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 food by voluntary agencies, without cost to public 
 funds, and should co-operate with these agencies 
 in the organisation of this work. 
 
 Should this prove inadequate, we think that 
 powers should be given to provide a meal, and 
 to demand from the parents a payment to meet 
 the cost price. 
 
 Elsewhere the Commissioners remark : — 
 
 We consider that the question of the proper 
 and sufficient feeding of children is one which has 
 the closest possible connection with any schenie 
 which may be adopted for their physical and 
 equally for their mental welfare. 
 
 I have described what is the mid-day meal 
 of the elder children. I ought to have added 
 that this " dinner " is, in fact, the only meal 
 in the day. 
 
 As to breakfast, and what the English call 
 " tea," the children depend on the hazard of 
 the cupboard. In thousands of London 
 homes milk is something that comes out of 
 a tin. The cow is a mythical monster, 
 whose name is familiar only to the children 
 by remarks addressed to the women. In 
 the East End I have seen babies sucking 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 31 
 
 dirty water instead of milk out of dirtier 
 bottles. 
 
 And we are to remember that from all 
 these ill-fed and degenerate children a con- 
 tinuous daily effort is exacted by their 
 parents. For to the children who are not 
 snatched back by their guardian angels the 
 parents look for present profit and a possible 
 independence to come. 
 
 In many parts of the East End you may 
 hear a workman say : " My woman has done 
 very well for me. She has given me six 
 kiddies." 
 
 And adds : " So I don't think I shall die 
 in the grubber." 
 
 The grubber is the workhouse. 
 
 The conditions under which the poor little 
 creatures work and the other incidents of 
 their deplorable lives we shall presently 
 examine. 
 
 It was in the reception-room of a Catholic 
 mission, which is situated in what Mr. Booth 
 describes as " the poorest and most aban- 
 doned part of London," that one winter's 
 
32 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 night I spent a memorable hour in talking of 
 child-life and labour in the East End of 
 London. 
 
 Father Thomas, of the mission in Bow 
 Common, knows and sees more of the life 
 of the very poor in our metropolis than 
 perhaps any living man. He dwells in the 
 very heart of it, and as we sat in that room 
 where, through the coloured-glass present- 
 ments of saints a dim and holy light filtered 
 in regretfully from the murk and gloom 
 without, it was difficult to imagine that all 
 around outside was a world of men and 
 women and children, who live lives of " in- 
 conceivable degradation." 
 
 The very first thing that struck me in 
 speaking to this noble, old priest was how 
 an over-familiarity with the horrors of life 
 will blind men of even the widest sym- 
 pathies to matters of detail which shock 
 and appal the casual student, the observer 
 of the passing hour. 
 
 I remember that when I first started on 
 this tour of investigation and visited the Rev. 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 33 
 
 Benjamin Waugh, I asked him for parti- 
 culars on the exploitation of Itahan children 
 imported by slave-drivers in the Saffron 
 Hill district, victims of what is known as 
 the " padrone system." 
 
 The padrone is a man who, for a certain 
 sum, procures from parents in Italy children 
 who are practically sold into bondage. He 
 brings them to London and sends them on to 
 the streets to ply a variety of trades, from 
 which, for the most part, mendicity is not 
 absent. He exacts from them a maximum 
 of profit ; he accords them a minimum of 
 the bare necessaries of life. 
 
 He has no scruples about employing the 
 most effective means for exciting them to 
 effort. I knew that this kind of thing goes 
 on in most large Continental towns, and 
 notably in Paris, and I had keen suspicions 
 that the padrone system existed in London 
 also. 
 
 Mr. Waugh declared that I could find 
 nowadays no traces of this importation of 
 foreign child-slaves. The same answer was 
 
34 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 given me by an official who has lived 
 in the Saffron Hill district for a great 
 number of years, and who is an Italian 
 himself. 
 
 It goes without saying that both these 
 gentlemen were in entire good faith in the 
 statements which they made, and yet who 
 does not remember that only a few months 
 ago, as reported in every paper in London, it 
 was established by a magisterial inquiry into 
 the case of a little Italian boy who had been 
 sent out on to the streets to beg, that the 
 padrone system does exist in London, and 
 that under particularly reprehensible cir- 
 cumstances. 
 
 " The sweating of children in the East End 
 of London," said Father Thomas, " is prac- 
 tically a chimera." 
 
 This in face of the fact that we have 
 statistics to the effect that ten per cent, of 
 the children attending 107 London schools — 
 to the number of 3,897^ — were working for 
 wages before or after school hours, and of 
 the certainty that fully as many more are 
 
Child Slavery in London in Detail. 35 
 
 similarly employed of whom we have no 
 record. 
 
 This in face of the fact that amongst the 
 particularly bad cases of child-slavery re- 
 ferred to in the statistics to which I refer 
 we have mention of — 
 
 (i) — A girl of thirteen at a Tower Hamlets 
 Board school who was working sixty hours a 
 week. 
 
 (2) — A cripple boy, suffering from hip disease, 
 who was carrying coal for fifty-five hours weekly 
 for a wage of 3s. 6d. 
 
 (3) — A boy carrying milk from 4.30 a.m. to 
 8.30 a.m. and from 4.45 p.m. to 9 p.m. 
 
 I suppose it is that when one is face to 
 face with a mass of horrors one is apt to 
 overlook the particular sufferings of ten or 
 even twenty per cent, of the agglomeration. 
 
 Thus, out of a certain number of girls who 
 have gone from this mission to the match 
 factories, " only three " within a recent 
 period have been affected with " phossy 
 jaw " — that dreadful form of necrosis. And 
 I was to note that in all the cases where 
 
 3* 
 
36 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 young girls are attacked by this horrible 
 disease they themselves are to blame for it. 
 
 " The girls are strictly forbidden to bring 
 any food into the works. Disinfectants are 
 provided for their use. But they won't con- 
 form to regulations ; they won't use the dis- 
 infectants or keep their hands clean, and 
 they will bring sweets in their pockets. They 
 are searched, it is true, but this is done in a 
 rough and summary manner, and the result 
 is that one does get occasional cases of this 
 redoubtable disease." 
 
 " In one of the three cases to which I 
 refer," said Father Thomas, " the girl lost 
 a finger. In the second case, the girl's teeth 
 came out, and in the third the girl's elbow 
 was attacked." 
 
 The girls enter the match factories as soon 
 as they pass through the Board school — 
 that is to say, when they are fourteen years 
 of age. Although at first they are only 
 employed in manual labour — carrying things, 
 sweeping, and so forth — it will not be denied 
 that they are exposed to the danger of the 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 37 
 
 hideous poison from the moment they cross 
 the threshold of the factory. 
 
 This being so, one cannot share the opti- 
 mism of those who attribute to their own 
 carelessness the mutilation of this one's 
 hand, the ruin of that one's smile, and the 
 rotting elbow of the third. Little girls want 
 protecting against themselves. We are 
 shouting all over the country that big, full- 
 grown men must be protected against them- 
 selves where that far less insidious and far 
 less cruel poison, alcohol, is concerned, and 
 yet we leave girls of fourteen to take the 
 consequences of childish imprudence. 
 
 Such an argument was used for years in 
 Newcastle, where it was to trade interests 
 that women should be employed in the 
 white-lead factories. If they fell down in 
 epilepsy, if they became affected with 
 " wrist-drop " or " knee-jerk," or if their 
 eyes became distorted, it was said that it 
 was their own fault ; they had not observed 
 the regulations. And these were grown 
 women. 
 
38 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 In the end public opinion grew tired of 
 the argument, and the abuse was stopped, 
 though its consequences must survive for 
 generations. I don't think that Httle girls 
 should be employed in match factories at 
 all. The same work could be done by 
 little boys, and we must remember that 
 females are much more subject to intoxi- 
 cation by mineral poison than the stronger 
 sex. 
 
 For the rest, the girls like the work. They 
 start at the age of fourteen on a weekly wage 
 of 3s. 6d. Work begins at six in the morn- 
 ing, and lasts only during daylight. They 
 ignore the risk, and are indifferent to it. 
 They should not be exposed to it. All the 
 more so that there is plenty of other em- 
 ployment for girls in the East End. 
 
 " Many of the girls here find good em- 
 ployment in the cake and biscuit factories. 
 Indeed, this is employment for the better 
 class of girls. The roughest and most ig- 
 norant class find work on the rope-walks. 
 In both these employments the rate of 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 39 
 
 wages is rather better than in the match- 
 works and there is no risk." 
 
 I do not suppose that anyone will advance 
 the theory that because a girl has passed the 
 standard of education exacted she may be 
 left to fend for herself. 
 
 Does she come into her inheritance of 
 womanhood and its responsibility at the age 
 of fourteen ? Does the acquisition of wisdom 
 implied by her certificate from the School 
 Board render her independent of the sager 
 guidance of the State ? There should cer- 
 tainly be for her a Hinterland of protection. 
 
 " The difficulty about the employment of 
 children in the East End of London," said 
 Father Thomas, " is that there is no occupa- 
 tion for boys as a class — absolutely nothing 
 for boys. 
 
 " Girls are waiting anxiously for the clock 
 to strike which frees them at the age of 
 fourteen and allows them to get to work, 
 these at the match-works, these in the rope- 
 yards, these in the cake factories. Indepen- 
 dence looks them in the face. 
 
40 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 " But there is nothing for the boys. They 
 leave school soft-handed and utterly ignor- 
 ant of anything likely to help to earn the 
 smallest wage." 
 
 In the East End there are few artisans 
 and few mechanics. In any case the unions 
 will not admit outside boys. The unions 
 are closely protected. Indeed, the unions, 
 as Father Thomas put it, " are the last 
 word of protection." 
 
 One cannot even get a lad, on his leaving 
 school, a job to mix mortar. That is to say, 
 if he be not in some way connected with the 
 union. Carrying bricks is considered skilled 
 labour by the bricklayers, and unless the 
 boy is the son or the nephew of a union 
 bricklayer, or is patronised by some charit- 
 able neighbour with his attaches in the 
 union, it is useless to propose him for the 
 work. 
 
 " The best chance is to get a boy on to the 
 railway vans. The vanboy sits behind to 
 prevent things being stolen. Such boys 
 earn six shillings a week." 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 41 
 
 We have all seen the little fellows. The 
 professional name for work of this kind is 
 " nippering." It is highly unhealthy work, 
 owing to the constant exposure to the 
 weather. I have seen more miserable faces 
 — consumption, incipient or developed, 
 written over them in large letters — amongst 
 the " nippers " than amongst any other 
 class of boys. 
 
 " Then, sometimes a boy may get a job as 
 a messenger. A chemist may take a boy, a 
 grocer may take a boy, a barber may take a 
 boy. But the boy is learning nothing. 
 There is no future for him in the work, no 
 prospect. When he gets bigger and wants 
 more money a younger lad is called in and 
 he is turned off. He doesn't become a 
 chemist or a grocer because he is working at 
 such a shop." 
 
 " Except the barber's boy," I said. 
 
 " Certainly not. The barber doesn't teach 
 the boy to become a barber. He only lets 
 the boy lather, and that only on Saturdays 
 and Sundays." " And," I said, " naturally 
 
42 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 prefers the smallest boy he can get. Would 
 rather have a boy still attending school. I 
 have recently noted a case of a boy of twelve 
 who works forty hours a week at a barber's 
 shop and earns 2s. 6d. His mother takes 
 two and threepence of these wages and 
 allows him threepence." 
 
 It is just on account of this competition 
 by small children that lads after they leave 
 school are forced upon the streets. If the 
 sweating of school-children were interdicted 
 by law, the proportions of what Father 
 Thomas called " the huge loafing class " 
 would be singularly reduced. As it is, 
 " boys start loafing at the age of fourteen." 
 
 The remedy which was suggested in the 
 course of his conversation was that after they 
 leave school boys ought to be taught techni- 
 cally. " Government workyards would solve 
 the problem of the loafer. 
 
 " It would not be very long before the 
 boy would be earning something by his 
 labour, and as small a sum as three shil- 
 lings would sufiice for his keep." So 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 43 
 
 Father Thomas, who has reared thousands 
 of boys. 
 
 A walk in the neighbourhood of this mis- 
 sion — that is to say, in Bow Common — will 
 confirm the observer as to the various causes 
 to which we owe the miserable condition of 
 our poor children in the East End. 
 
 It must be pointed out, however, that here 
 it is poverty or greed, and not the ahen, that 
 causes the dreadful overcrowding, which, as 
 we all admit, is the main reason of our 
 national degeneration. 
 
 There are no aliens in Bow Common, but 
 as some rooms can be got in this district for 
 a shilling a week parents prefer to house 
 themselves and their children for that sum 
 and to keep the rest for beer. One finds ten 
 or twelve heaped up in a shilling or nine- 
 penny room. 
 
 The children are all young, for as soon as 
 a girl begins to earn five or six shillings a 
 week at the factories, her parents tell her 
 " she had better cut out of it." She will cut 
 out of it and rent a slip-room for herself, 
 
44 The Child-Slaves of Bntain. 
 
 often " going mates " with another girl of 
 her own age — comradeships which sometimes 
 last a Ufetime. 
 
 The boys have no such resources until 
 their strength comes. In this dreadful neigh- 
 bourhood marriages take place so early that 
 1/ one may describe them as " child-marriages." 
 The result to the race needs no pointing out. 
 
 In no part of London can one better con- 
 vince oneself how entirely it is due to the 
 sloth and ignorance of mothers that the chil- 
 dren are starved. In no part of London is 
 food more cheap. 
 
 " I have seen myself," said Father Thomas, 
 " Australian meat offered for sale round here 
 at twopence or threepence a pound. In- 
 deed, on Saturday nights in the summer, 
 when the hawkers prefer to sell their meat off 
 rather than risk losing it by keeping it over 
 till Monday, I have heard them shouting 
 out, ' Here you are ! Anywhere you like ! 
 A penny a pound ! ' " 
 
 " Where it is possible to buy a leg of mutton 
 weighing seven pounds for sevenpence there 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 45 
 
 should be no need for any complaint about 
 ' defective nutrition.' But your East End 
 woman won't cook. She wastes the meat. 
 She gets what she calls a ' log of meat ' and 
 puts it down before her miserable hearth 
 and lets it burn. 
 
 " In the hands of a French or Belgian 
 housewife this ' log of meat ' would last a 
 week and would be served up in many ap- 
 petising ways. 
 
 " But why should the housewife trouble 
 about ' logs of meat ' at all, when there are 
 so many shops where faggots can be had — 
 strong, tasty faggots at a halfpenny each ? " 
 
 The faggot is a handful of strong, evil- 
 smelling remnants of pork and other offal, 
 very rich and tickling to the palate. If you 
 take a basin to the faggot shop, they will 
 serve your faggot in it and fill the basin up 
 to the top with hot gravy, and all for one 
 penny. 
 
 This, with bread, is enough for the family, 
 and see what they save. Between the cost 
 of a faggot hot, with gravy, and a leg of 
 
46 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 mutton, there is sixpence, and sixpence 
 means three pints of four-ale. That drink 
 is the curse of the East End has been re- 
 peated to me to satiety. 
 
 The reason why the beer does harm to 
 these wretched people is that owing to bad 
 food and miserable surroundings they are in 
 so low a state of health that they cannot 
 resist a liquor which contains very little more 
 alcohol than the gingerbeer of the tee- 
 totalers. 
 
 " In the old days there used to be much 
 making of matchboxes in this particular 
 part of London, but since the passing of the 
 new Factory Act," said Father Thomas, 
 "this has almost entirely been swept away." 
 
 I came across, however, several of these 
 miserable little factories in the district. 
 One had but to follow one's nose to find them. 
 The smell of the sour paste is a sure guide. 
 We will look into some of these wretched 
 home industries next. 
 
 There have been many crackers pulled in 
 England during the last few weeks, amid 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 47 
 
 the usual mirth and merriment of the hoUday 
 parties. In this mirth I have not felt dis- 
 posed to join, for, whilst the crackers were 
 being pulled, I was thinking of sundry httle 
 girls and boys who help to make these 
 crackers in their squalid homes. 
 
 There is a child of ten, to whom Doctor 
 Macnamara draws attention, who out of 
 school hours works thirty hours a week at 
 this industry, and whom her mother re- 
 wards with threepence a week. 
 
 There are other children of whom one 
 knows who work thirty-five hours to provide 
 us with mirth and merriment and earn two 
 shillings a week. 
 
 When it is possible to keep them from 
 school they will do double work and earn 
 four shillings for mother. 
 
 The paper rubbish which these same 
 crackers contain is largely the production of 
 tiny fingers. In many cottage-rooms in 
 Hackney, Somers Town, and Bow you may 
 find little mites working at paper flowers, 
 and in the awful gloom of these miserable 
 
48 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 homes the gaudy gaudrioles scattered over 
 the black bed and blacker floor twinkle with 
 an ironical gleam. 
 
 At flower-making your little girl of twelve, 
 working, out of school hours, twenty-seven 
 hours a week, can earn her one and six a 
 week. She is, in her way, better off than 
 another little girl of eleven who works 
 twenty-four hours at the same trade and gets 
 a shilling. 
 
 Of course, neither one nor the other gets 
 the wages. They are working for mother, 
 and that without enthusiasm. 
 
 For children are intelligent and, as anyone 
 who has inquired into the matter can vouch- 
 safe, they bitterly resent the slavery to 
 which the parental greed constrains them. 
 
 On the other hand, where they know that 
 it is not parent greed, but parental misery, 
 which demands this toil of them, they will 
 toil with an industry and an abnegation of 
 self which reconciles one to much that is 
 vile in humanity. 
 
 At the parties to which I have referred 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 49 
 
 there were men walking about resplendent 
 in the whiteness of their shirt-fronts. That 
 the shirt-front should be resplendent it is 
 necessary that the garment before it is 
 starched and ironed should first be mangled. 
 
 A great deal of the mangling done in 
 London is the work of children. 
 
 As you pass down mean streets and see in 
 the window, " Mangling done here," you 
 may take it that in most cases it is a little 
 boy or girl whose activity is thus advertised. 
 Mangling is very unpleasant work, and I 
 can quite understand that Mr. Mantalini, 
 as we see him last, should be using bad lan- 
 guage. 
 
 I have tried the work myself. I was living 
 some time ago in a cottage in the East End, 
 where the landlady added to her income by 
 this kind of work, and for the amusement 
 and experience of the thing I often reheved 
 her at the grindstone. 
 
 The tariff was " twelve articles for one 
 penny," and if one did the work conscien- 
 tiously and as one would like to see it done 
 
 4 
 
50 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 it was difficult to earn more than threepence 
 an hour. 
 
 I know quite well that at the end of an 
 hour I felt that I had done an excellent 
 day's work. 
 
 One got pains in the back and pains in 
 the hands, and a peculiar kind of headache 
 not unlike that form of cephalgia which is 
 known as " Academy headache." It is work 
 that should absolutely be forbidden for 
 children. 
 
 Miss Holmes has said the same thing. 
 She reports a case of a girl who was put to 
 this work by her parents for twenty-six 
 hours a week, with the result that " she was 
 absolutely unfitted for school ; she can 
 hardly put one foot before the other." 
 
 She also speaks of a boy working the same 
 hours. This boy's parents were earning 
 28s. 6d. a week between them. She added 
 that in her experience — -and this is the ex- 
 perience of most of us — these wage-earning 
 cases are not the most necessitous, that these 
 child-slaves are usually the children of men 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 51 
 
 earning from thirty to forty shillings] a 
 week. 
 
 For an extra shilling a week a child will 
 be put to a mangle for thirty hours. From 
 my own experience I am certain that a child 
 of ten or eleven could not earn a halfpenny 
 in an hour's grinding. 
 
 There are certain details in the work which 
 require a practised hand. Some articles 
 which I had mangled were returned as not 
 giving proper satisfaction and had to be done 
 over again. These are the risks of trade, 
 and have to be carried to the profit and loss 
 account of a turnover of a shilling a week. 
 
 However, a mangle supposes some breath- 
 ing-space, a little elbow-room. Also the 
 smell of the clean linen as it groans between 
 the rollers is not unhealthful. Did not 
 Daudet tell me how he used to go out from 
 Nimes to meet the washerwomen coming 
 home from the Rhone to catch the fresh 
 odour of the dripping clothes ? 
 
 In the dreadful matchbox-making trade all 
 these collateral advantages are wanting. 
 
 4* 
 
52 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Here we are, all piled up in one stuffy room, 
 some of us on the bed and some on the floor, 
 the one chair being reserved for mother by 
 right of hierarchy. 
 
 We are so closely packed that we can 
 hardly move our hands. The air about us 
 is heavy with the putrid smell of the rotting 
 paste. 
 
 One can't afford fresh paste " each go," for 
 we have to provide it out of the 2jd. we get 
 per gross of finished boxes. Indeed, it is to 
 mother's advantage that the paste should not 
 be too fresh, for we are hungry little chil- 
 dren, and flour and water is, after all, 
 nourishing food. 
 
 Our starved cat knows that, too, and 
 when the work is done at midnight we put 
 the bowl away. 
 
 At this trade one hears of boys working, 
 out of school-hours, sixty-three hours a week. 
 It is a trade which the smallest mite may 
 help in. Any baby can push the box into 
 its lid, and many babies do. 
 
 It is rather fun at first, but towards mid- 
 
Lrjndon Matcln-makers at 
 Work. 
 
 [To face page 52. 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 53 
 
 night baby would like to go to bed. Only 
 there is no room in bed. 
 
 Of this particular home-industry it may be 
 said that for the most part the parents are 
 necessitous — that they must work these 
 hours or starve — but there are noted and 
 notable exceptions where if we do not work 
 much after a quarter to one in the morning 
 it is because the public-houses close at half- 
 past twelve, and daddy wants the bed 
 cleared for his reception. 
 
 If by good luck he gets " run in/' and so 
 does not come home, we may manage an- 
 other gross, and earn another 2|-d. before we 
 retire for the night. 
 
 It seems to be the opinion of those 
 officially connected with the supervision of 
 children that London, as far as the ex- 
 ploitation of child-labour is concerned, com- 
 pares very favourably with many provincial 
 cities. 
 
 One of my first visits on beginning this 
 inquiry was to the of&ces of the Society 
 for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children 
 
54 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 in Leicester Square, where I had a conversa- 
 tion with the Rev. Benjamin Waugh. 
 
 You will find very little abuse on the part of 
 parents and employers towards children in London 
 nowadays (he said). The children are too well 
 looked after. There is our Society with its 200 
 officers, there are the factory inspectors, there is 
 the School Board with its officers. 
 
 The same opinion was repeated to me by 
 the Society's inspector in the East End, 
 Mr. Hall, who was twenty-five years in the 
 police force before he joined the S.P.C.C., 
 and has an intricate acquaintance with the 
 bas-fonds of London. 
 
 I have only had one case of child-sweating 
 in my district for many months past (was Mr. 
 Hall's report), that of a lad called Harvey, a child 
 of nine, whose parents live in Back Church Lane. 
 I found him hawking in the streets at eleven at 
 night, and he had been cruelly starved and beaten 
 besides. 
 
 At the School Board offices a similar opti- 
 mism seemed to reign. The abuses of child- 
 labour had been greatly put down. The 
 Employment of Children Act, 1903, which 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 55 
 
 came into force on January i, 1904 (for 
 which Dr. Macnamara is mainly to be 
 thanked), should still further reduce the 
 evil. Yet from one of the reports published 
 by the School Attendance Committee one 
 learns the following facts : — 
 
 1,143 children work from ig to 27 hours per 
 week. 
 
 729 children work from 30 to 39 hours per 
 week. 
 
 285 children work from 40 hours and above 
 per week. 
 
 Of these, 309 children are employed at 
 house work and domestic work. Each child's 
 average working week consists of 27 hours, 
 and the payment is at the rate of Jd. per 
 hour. 
 
 719 children are employed in newspaper 
 and milk delivery, each working about 30 
 hours per week at id. per hour. 
 
 1,056 children are employed at shop and 
 factory work and errands, each working on 
 an average 30 hours per week at id. per 
 hour. 
 
56 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Apart from an obvious reason for this 
 optimism on the part of the two pubhc insti- 
 tutions, I suppose that another explanation 
 for it is that their officials, knowing the 
 enormity of the evil in the past, and ap- 
 preciating the tremendous struggle in which 
 they are engaged, are pleased that the 
 average of the suffering inflicted on children 
 by parents and taskmasters is by no means 
 as bad as it would be but for their untiring 
 efforts. I gathered that as long as children 
 are not beaten and bruised, and as long 
 as the starvation process to which they are 
 subjected is gradual only, we may deem 
 ourselves satisfied. I am doubtful if the 
 large public will share this opinion. 
 
 One must remember that these children, 
 pending proof to the contrary, may be pre- 
 sumed to be of inferior physique, if not 
 actually suffering from disease or afflicted 
 by deformities. We have in mind the appal- 
 ling report of the doctors who investigated 
 the health of children in Scotland, and we 
 remember the chilling confession of the 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 57 
 
 Inspector-General of Recruiting in one of his 
 latest reports. 
 
 In 1902 out of 87,609 recruits medically in- 
 spected, 19,674 were rejected for various ail- 
 ments and 8,547 for want of physical development, 
 the percentage being considerably higher than for 
 the two previous years. 
 
 The report adds : " The one subject which 
 causes anxiety in the future as regards 
 recruiting is the gradual deterioration of 
 the physique of the working classes from 
 where the bulk of the recruits must always 
 be drawn. When it is remembered that 
 recruiters are instructed not to submit for 
 medical examination candidates for enlist- 
 ment unless they are reasonably expected 
 to be passed as fit, one cannot but be struck 
 by the percentage considered by the medical 
 officers as unfit for the service. In the 
 reports from all the manufacturing districts 
 stress is invariably laid upon the number of 
 men medically rejected for bad teeth, flat 
 feet, and inferior physique." 
 
 Sir John Gorst, who is keenly interested in 
 
58 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 this question of physical degeneration^ ex- 
 pressed his opinion to me on the above pas- 
 sage in the following words : — 
 
 "I think that our modern improvements and 
 the march of medical science are responsible to 
 some extent for the state of things complained of 
 by the Inspector-General. In the old days the 
 weaklings used to die off. Now they grow up and 
 reduce the average of the stamina of the popu- 
 lation." 
 
 It is a very wretched thing to have the con- 
 viction^ the certainty that a very large per- 
 centage of our poor children are suffering 
 from diseases, unsuspected, uncared for, and 
 are allowed to grow up into miserable men 
 and women amidst the indifference of their 
 parents and the public. 
 
 Doctor Mackenzie, who examined 600 
 school children selected at random in 
 different schools in Aberdeen, clamours for 
 regular medical inspection of all school 
 children. He says, " The large number of 
 serious and minor diseases directly and in- 
 directly affecting physical efficiency and 
 mental efficiency constitutes an overwhelm- 
 
Child-Slavery in London in Detail. 59 
 
 ing case for a medical inspection of school 
 children." 
 
 It may be added that there are many 
 parents who do watch for disease in their 
 children, watch for it anxiously, who are far 
 from displaying the indifference of which 
 one complains — parents who at the least 
 sign of indisposition hurry their offspring 
 off to the parish doctor and, obtaining 
 written confirmation of their tremors in the 
 form of a certificate, return home radiant. 
 And there you might hear them say : " No 
 school for you to-day, my lad (or my lass), 
 nor to-morrow either. This certificate should 
 be good for at least a couple of weeks, so 
 get to work at once. I'll take the paper 
 round to the school." 
 
 The work may be matchbox making at 
 ijd. per gross, or bead-work, or hawking in 
 the streets, or carrying parcels. The certifi- 
 cate entitles the child-slave to five more work- 
 ing hours, and that may mean threepence, 
 or even fourpence, brought into the home. 
 We must see them in their homes next. 
 
6o 
 
 CHAPTER HI. 
 
 On the Alien Immigration and its Effects. 
 
 We have seen our poor children fed on 
 filth. We have evidence of their miserable 
 physique. We now want to see them in 
 their homes. Environment — let us say 
 breathing-space — has much to do with the 
 healthy development of child-life. 
 
 And we are not to forget that the children 
 with whom we are dealing are by birth and 
 circumstance constrained to labour, and that 
 therefore it is essential, indispensable, that 
 they should live under the healthiest con- 
 ditions possible. 
 
 If for various reasons they are weak, and 
 should be subjected to regular medical in- 
 spection, if because their mothers were never 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 6i 
 
 taught to cook, and knew nothing of the 
 philosophy of ahmentation, they are half- 
 starved, let us hope that these little children, 
 from whom we demand, outside of school 
 hours, a weekly labour, a wage-earning 
 labour, of from twenty to seventy-three hours 
 a week, are suitably lodged, decently bedded, 
 so that when they drag their weary little, 
 sick, half-starved bodies home they may 
 get rest. 
 
 It is a point of an incidence even greater 
 than the questions of deficient nutrition and 
 excessive overwork. House a child properly 
 and his native strength will help him to fight 
 against the warring elements of too little 
 bread and labour far too great. For : — 
 
 The number of rooms furnished a good in- 
 dication of the social status of the children. In 
 Aberdeen " the balance, in respect of health 
 and development," was found to be in favour of 
 children drawn from three and four (and upwards) 
 roomed houses. Aberdeen thus had the advantage 
 over Edinburgh, whose children were drawn mostly 
 from two-roomed houses. 
 
 Indeed, of all Edinburgh children, 45 per cent. 
 
62 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 lived in very small — i.e., one-roomed or two- 
 roomed houses. The ratio of health in both cities 
 harmonises with these facts. Thus there are 
 among all the children examined in Aberdeen 
 0.5 per cent, in apparent poor health, while in 
 Edinburgh there are 19.17 per cent. 
 
 This is from the report of the Royal Com- 
 mission on Physical Degeneration in Scot- 
 land. In the report of the new Commission 
 we have further confirmation. 
 
 A very prominent official said to me that 
 he attributes the degeneracy of our children 
 to drink on the part of the parents and to 
 overcrowding. I propose to deal with the 
 drink question later on^ but in the meanwhile 
 I would like to say this, that I attribute the 
 misery of so many English homes to a far 
 greater percentage of other causes than that 
 of abuse of alcohol. 
 
 The fact is that the working man or woman 
 has not enough money to buy sufficient drink 
 with which to injure his or her constitution 
 to the extent necessary to transmit degenera- 
 tion and the hereditary alcohol curse to his 
 descendants. 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 63 
 
 The drink trade is a cash trade. There is 
 no credit given in public-houses. Few work- 
 ing men have more than 5s. a week to squan- 
 der on hquor, and the noble statesman who 
 drives down from Pall Mall in his brougham 
 to the House of Lords to speak amidst the 
 plaudits of England on " The Intemperance 
 of the Working Classes " has probably more 
 alcohol coursing about in his superior system 
 than a wretched working man could imbibe in 
 a four-ale bar within a fortnight. 
 
 That is, presuming that the noble speaker 
 in question has taken the usual amount of 
 stimulant which is considered necessary 
 amongst our leisured classes. 
 
 Overcrowding is another question. It is 
 the question. It is, indeed, the root of the 
 evil. And until this root is eradicated, until 
 this evil is wiped out, any effort to remedy 
 what Sir John Gorst calls " the appalhng 
 condition " of our children must and will 
 remain barren and jejune of result. 
 
 Mr. Hall, inspector of the N.S.P.C.C. for 
 the large district of Stepney, Bow, Lime- 
 
64 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 house, and Poplar, very emphatically stated 
 to me, in a conversation which we had 
 together in his residence in Burdett Road, 
 that he mainly attributed the wretched 
 physical condition of the children in the East 
 End to overcrowding. 
 
 It was in order to be an eye-witness of 
 the evil effects of this condition of things that 
 I went down to the East End, and lived two 
 weary months in the purlieus of Stinkhouse 
 Bridge, one of our most " congested " metro- 
 politan quarters. Otherwise for starvation, 
 suffering, and overwork, there are many other 
 districts, far pleasanter in which to dwell 
 than the sullen and murky East. 
 
 " Why do you want to go East ? " said 
 Benjamin Waugh to me. " You will find 
 cases to study quite as interesting within ten 
 minutes' walk of where we are sitting." 
 
 But the districts to which he referred — 
 Notting Dale, for instance — do not suffer from 
 this congestion, this overcrowding which we 
 all consider the front and head of the offence 
 against our children. 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 65 
 
 What is the cause of this, do you ask ? 
 
 The continuous pumping of ahen filth from 
 the kennels and ghettos of Europe, Asia, and 
 America into the East End of London 
 through the sewage-pipes of the steamship 
 companies. 
 
 The fact is clearly established that in the East 
 End of London — notably in certain areas within 
 the borough of Stepney — there exists a most 
 serious amount of overcrowding, greatly increased 
 by the continuous gravitation into the district of 
 large numbers of aliens from Eastern Europe. 
 
 It is also proved that the increase in the foreign 
 population within these areas has caused the 
 abandonment of houses, almost of whole streets, 
 by the English working-classes and their occupation 
 by foreigners. 
 
 Why should foreigners deprive our little 
 ones of the oxygen which, disinherited as 
 they are, is surely their inheritance and 
 right ? 
 
 No matter to whom you address yourself 
 for information on the reasons of the misery 
 of the home-hfe of our poor East End 
 children, you will always hear adduced 
 
 5 
 
66 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 as the principal cause the shocking over- 
 crowding. 
 
 In consequence of the steady influx of 
 foreigners into the East End rents keep on 
 rising, so that to-day an Enghsh workman 
 in Whitechapel, or Limehouse, or Bow, must 
 pay for one room as much weekly rent as for- 
 merly would have procured him two rooms 
 or more. 
 
 And he will consider himself lucky if in 
 certain districts he can find shelter at all 
 for himself and his family. The foreigners 
 swarm in everywhere, and before the in- 
 creasing and irresistible tide the unresisting 
 Anglo-Saxons recede. There are whole streets, 
 nay, whole quarters, in the East End where 
 you will look in vain for the native-born. 
 Possibly you may find a few of your country- 
 men heaped up in a furnished room rented 
 to them by a Jewish landlord, but they 
 are rare. 
 
 Faces that were not with us at Agincourt 
 peer at you from every doorway, from every 
 window, as you tread these streets. And 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 67 
 
 there is a strange resentment on these faces. 
 You are an intruder, you who are in your 
 city, in the metropohs of your native land. 
 
 Yet, unabashed by these resentful glances, 
 desirous to see with our own eyes how, thanks 
 to the " congestion " caused by the indiscri- 
 minate admission of foreigners, our little 
 ones are housed, let us penetrate into Pater- 
 noster Row, and visit here and there such a 
 furnished room as I have referred to. Not 
 the Paternoster Row, the Mecca of the literary 
 tyro, but Paternoster Row, Brushfield Street, 
 Whitechapel. 
 
 Here, for a furnished room, an English 
 family pays 7s. a week, and we find heaped 
 up on the one " bed " the father, the mother, 
 and six children. Even to one well accus- 
 tomed to these sights and smells the impres- 
 sion, as one crosses that threshold, is ap- 
 palling. 
 
 The furniture of this English home, in 
 which six little English children are gasping 
 for the air of England, consists of a bedstead, 
 half-broken-down, a table, and a chair. A 
 
 5* 
 
68 The Child Slaves of Britain. 
 
 few bits of crockery complete the appoint- 
 ments. 
 
 On the bed is a filthy mattress. For 
 covering the family use the rags of their 
 apparel. Before the cinders of the hearth a 
 little girl is sitting, picking food from a large 
 dish, which contains the refuse from some 
 restaurant. In the human swarm upon the 
 bed you discern an idiot lad of fourteen, with 
 white hair and red eyes. The pestilential 
 atmosphere beats you back. 
 
 If you go along the Commercial Road, and 
 look to your right and left, you will notice 
 none but foreign names over every shop door, 
 and so on until you are well within the limits 
 of Poplar. And for a long way back, off the 
 road on either side, you will find the settled 
 invaders. 
 
 " They have squeezed our people right out 
 of Whitechapel, Stepney, and Limehouse, 
 and the squeezing is going on." Thus to me 
 a Roman Catholic priest, who lives in Bow 
 Common, the " running-ground," as it is 
 sometimes called, or " boney," for bones and 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 69 
 
 other refuse, even human, may be shot in the 
 open spaces here. 
 
 " They don't come here," he added, refer- 
 ring to Bow Common, " because we are too 
 poor. There is no money to be made out of 
 us." 
 
 But if Bow Common is not yet suffering 
 from the congestion caused by the torrent of 
 ahen immigration — so that in this district 
 you can hire a " slip-room " for one shihing, 
 or even ninepence a week, whilst in Stepney 
 or Limehouse you have to pay four or five 
 times as much — the sea of foreigners laps 
 round this Anglo-Saxon refuge on every 
 side. Most of the houses in the Burdett 
 Road, for instance, are now in the hands of 
 foreign Jew rack-renters. 
 
 In Limehouse the congestion is terrible. 
 Pick any street at hazard and any house. 
 The landlords here are almost all foreigners. 
 You will find the wretched English tenants 
 paying 6s. a week for two empty rooms, or 
 4s. for a single room. 
 
 " On November nth, at half-past eleven at 
 
70 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 night," so told me an inspector of the 
 N.S.P.C.C, " I visited a home at Conder 
 Street, Limehouse. In the kitchen down- 
 stairs I found three men and three women, 
 who were all drunk, and who tried to oppose 
 my progress. In one empty room upstairs, I 
 found the father, mother, and eight children, 
 huddled up on the floor. The furniture had 
 been put out into the yard by the foreign 
 landlord." 
 
 Elsewhere in the same district I came 
 across a family which had been illegally 
 ejected by the Jewish landlord. There were 
 four little English children thus deprived, 
 against our English law, of shelter and the 
 filthy comfort of their bed of rags. The 
 foreigner was found whitewashing their late 
 home. " They was not paying me," he said, 
 " so I pitch them out." 
 
 As he spoke he laid some pieces of silver — 
 there were not thirty — on the mantelpiece, 
 and winked at the officer. " What's that 
 for ? " cried he. " You was go and get a 
 drink," said the foreigner. It was the price 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 71 
 
 of the Englishman's silence on an illegal act 
 by which four Httle Enghsh children had 
 been turned into the street. The Enghsh- 
 man answered with an English oath, and 
 swept the bribe contemptuously on to the 
 floor. 
 
 I have said that Poplar, so far, has been 
 fairly free from the foreign invasion, and that 
 as a consequence our people are not too badly 
 or too dearly lodged in that remote district. 
 But that here also the invasion is expected 
 was shown at the end of last year, when 
 3,000 of the people of this district held 
 a meeting to protest against the indis- 
 criminate admission of foreigners. 
 
 Already in High Street, Poplar, where the 
 waterside labourers live, you may find fearful 
 overcrowding and shameful homes, and the 
 conditions under which the children live here 
 are distressing in the extreme. 
 
 Surely, for this " congestion " and the en- 
 suing overcrowding, with its fatal and posi- 
 tive effect on the stamina of our little ones, a 
 remedy suggests itself. If our children may 
 
72 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 not be properly fed, let them at least breathe. 
 In these dreadful homes one does not breathe. 
 One gasps. 
 
 It is in no spirit of Judenhetze that I have 
 complained bitterly of the invasion of 
 London by alien Jews. I am not Anti- 
 Semitic. That were foolishness. I am not 
 anti-any thing. 
 
 Nevertheless, I repeat that our children 
 are shamefully housed through the over- 
 crowding which results from the steady in- 
 flux of foreigners. They live under circum- 
 stances fatal to their health and, possibly, 
 fatal to their morals. 
 
 My remarks do not apply to the native- 
 born Jews. These are an admirable people, 
 who, in some respects, set an example the 
 English would do well to follow. They are 
 particularly kind to their children. They 
 feed them properly. 
 
 Not a single Jewish parent has been pro- 
 secuted for cruelty to children or neglect 
 during the last two years and a half in the 
 East End. During the past year alone sen- 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 73 
 
 tences of imprisonment, amounting to over 
 twenty-five years in the aggregate, have 
 been passed by the magistrates on Enghsh 
 fathers and mothers for offences towards 
 their offspring. 
 
 The emotional Jew father would have pro- 
 bably burst into tears if he had been present 
 at the rescue of the three Goodwin children 
 at 48, Blount Street. These three mites 
 had been confined in one filthy room from 
 a Friday morning till late in the afternoon 
 of the following Sunday, whilst their father 
 was staggering about from public-house to 
 public-house. 
 
 They had no bed, and they had no food, 
 except such scraps as the compassionate 
 neighbours could throw into the room 
 through the broken panes of the window. 
 The same Jewish father would have raised 
 his hands in horror if he could have visited 
 the home of Mr. James, in Eastfield Street. 
 There were two children here. The mother, 
 a blind woman, was being confined in the 
 workhouse. The father was drunk. 
 
74 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Starving cats swarmed in the house. The 
 stairs and the landing were nearly ankle- 
 deep in the resultant filth. The " bed was 
 nearly walking down the stairs." 
 
 He might have burst into tears, he might 
 have raised his hands in horror, for his 
 nature is an emotional one ; but it would 
 probably never have occurred to him that 
 it is mainly due to him and his that our 
 English children are forced to live like this. 
 
 It is he and his who have reduced wages 
 and raised rents ; and, as to drink, there are 
 not, I think, many English licensed vic- 
 tuallers who would sell to a working man 
 the kind of liquor which I saw being retailed 
 in a public-house in the Commercial Road 
 which was kept by a German Jew. This was 
 pure alcohol, 95 per cent, in strength. 
 
 " It's funny," he said, " the stuff they will 
 drink. Look here. This is pure spirits. 
 Not a drop of water in it. See for your- 
 self." 
 
 So saying he poured a little of the spirit 
 on to the counter and set fire to it. The 
 
The Alien Immigration and lis Effects. 75 
 
 hellish compound burned with a heUish 
 flame, and when the spirit was all consumed 
 there was not a trace of moisture left upon 
 the wood. 
 
 " I have seen a man drink a quartern of 
 this/' said the landlord, smiling pleasantly. 
 " They make a kind of preparatory click in 
 their throats and then jerk it down in one 
 gulp. No, I am not ashamed to sell stuff 
 like that. If they like to burn their vitals, 
 that is their affair, not mine. I have got to 
 make money." 
 
 " The Jews feed their children well, and, 
 except as regards dirt, look after them well. 
 As to clothes, well, they dress them to suit 
 their own convenience. If they thought 
 that by sending their children out in rags 
 they might bring home a bob or two, given 
 them in charity, why they would do so." 
 
 Thus to me an officer with twenty-five 
 years' experience of the East End slums. 
 
 " These remarks," he added, " refer to the 
 new arrivals, the Russian and Polish Jews 
 English Jews — Jews born under the English 
 
76 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Monarchy — are a thoroughly clean,' comfort- 
 able, respectable people, a credit to our own 
 country and better than our own people — 
 yes, a thousand times over." 
 
 So, after a period of life in this country, 
 the alien develops into a good citizen. But 
 his presence prevents our English children 
 from developing. When he first lands in 
 this country he brings nothing with him but 
 vermin and vice. He has no cleanliness. 
 He has no sense of morality. 
 
 " Dr. H. Williams confined his evidence in 
 respect of want of cleanliness principally to 
 the condition of the passengers arriving on 
 board the Libau vessels. These he described 
 as being in a filthy, verminous condition — 
 their clothes and bodies being infested with 
 lice and fleas." 
 
 This from the report of the Royal Com- 
 mission on Alien Immigration. 
 
 The low average sense of morality on the 
 part of the invading foreigners ? 
 
 Well, there are the police reports day by 
 day. There is the fact that nearly all the 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 77 
 
 bad houses in the East End are rack-rented 
 by foreigners. A cottage of evil repute was 
 pointed out to me the other day in Silver- 
 Lion Court, Limehouse, which is owned 
 by a foreign landlord, who exacts twenty 
 shillings a week from his wretched tenants 
 for accommodation worth five. There are 
 the reports of the S.P.C.C. officers. There 
 is the fact that in those rare districts of the 
 East End which the aliens have not invaded 
 the morality of the people is excellent. 
 
 These are things of tremendous social 
 importance and of the most direct bearing 
 on the question of the physical and moral 
 welfare of our children. 
 
 Here are the words of Father Thomas, of 
 the Mission in Bow Common : — 
 
 " There are no foreigners in my district. 
 There is not one disorderly house. The 
 morality of our girls is of a very high stan- 
 dard indeed. They get with their ' chaps,' 
 and they stick to them. People say what 
 dreadful people the East Enders are. 
 
 " They compare very favourably with the 
 
78 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 West Enders, amongst whom I worked for 
 years. After marriage they are almost in- 
 variably faithful. You see them racing 
 down the streets, arm-in-arm, shouting and 
 bawling. This is only external. Their fists 
 go up in a minute if anybody says anything 
 which they take for an insult. 
 
 " They have a strong instinct of self-pre- 
 servation. They are gregarious. They go 
 in gangs. Considering how they live, their 
 morality is admirable." He added : " We 
 have no foreigners here. We are too poor." 
 
 In the districts of which the foreigners 
 have taken possession street-trading is almost 
 entirely done by their own children. The 
 little merchant men and women, whom one 
 sees out of school-hours, and all day on 
 Sundays, vending miscellaneous wares over 
 the area of Whitechapel and Stepney, are 
 nearly all children of alien immigrants who 
 have recently entered the country. They 
 are the children of that class of immigrants 
 who are known as " greeners " — foreign 
 Jews, imported into England by resident 
 
The Alien ImmigraHon and Its Effects. 79 
 
 Jews established in trade in London as 
 tailors, or cabinet makers, or shoe makers. 
 
 While these " greeners " are learning their 
 trade, they are boarded and lodged by their 
 employers, with their wives and families, and 
 receive one shilling a week in the way of 
 wages. As with this income it is impossible 
 for them to hope ever to amass enough 
 capital to start in business and to import 
 fresh " greeners " in their turn, they look 
 to child labour for resources. The children 
 start by selling boot-laces, flowers, and other 
 trifles, and when enough money has been 
 realised in this way, perhaps a quarter- 
 interest in a barrow may be acquired. 
 
 " There is," says the Report on Alien 
 Immigration, " a tendency for the immi- 
 grants to overflow into other employments ; 
 for instance, evidence as to the large increase 
 of foreign costermongers and other street- 
 traders has been placed before us. This 
 has caused ill-feeling and friction between 
 them and the large body of Enghshmen 
 employed in the same trades." 
 
8o The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 As far as the ousting of English by ahen 
 children from the street-hawking trades is 
 concerned, it is for us rather a matter of con- 
 gratulation. The long hours of this kind of 
 toil, the exposure to all kinds of weather, the 
 hazards of the street, all these things com- 
 bine to make the employment one of the 
 worst to which children can be constrained. 
 Possibly the children who have been driven 
 off the streets complain, for the streets are 
 bright and have variety and interest, whereas 
 the one room at home, where in lieu of street- 
 hawking they have to toil monotonously 
 under the lashing tongues of their parents, 
 is dull and colourless. 
 
 Says Mr. Gardner : " There is another 
 class of children employed by parents which 
 seems worse (than the street-hawking class) ; 
 children who are kept indoors helping at some 
 small mechanical employment — brush-draw- 
 ing and polishing walking-sticks. These 
 children get no payment, and their labour 
 seems to them in vain." 
 
 He adds that in his experience parents are 
 
A London Flower Girl. 
 
 W_To face page Si 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 8i 
 
 by far the worst task-masters. They are 
 for ever nagging at the children, far more so 
 than outside employers. 
 
 But even work under these conditions 
 seems preferable for the moral and physical 
 welfare of the children, to plying trade in 
 the streets. The earnings here also are very 
 small. One hears of a boy from a Haggerston 
 school who hawks in the street. He works 
 all through the dinner-hour, again from five 
 p.m. till nine p.m., on Saturday until ten 
 p.m., and is paid only one shilling and nine- 
 pence. Sixty hours of labour in the streets 
 in all kinds of weather for twenty-one pence ! 
 As to this street-hawking, it is not a plea- 
 sant thing to think that, in pursuit of this 
 occupation, many little girls wander at night- 
 time from one public-house to another, 
 hearing the foul talk of the drunken men, 
 and still more drunken women, in the four- 
 ale bars, hearing things which never should 
 assail the ears of children. A few days ago 
 the rescue officer in Limehouse brought in a 
 little girl of eleven. He had been watching 
 
 6 
 
82 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 her, as she phed her trade as a street-hawker, 
 and within the space of a quarter of an hour 
 had seen her enter seven different pubhc- 
 houses. It was late at night. 
 
 On investigation this proved to be a case 
 of sheer parental, or rather paternal, greed. 
 The father was found sitting at home next 
 day with a nice piece of steak before him. 
 His wife he sent to the pickle factory to 
 peel onions for seven shillings a week ; his 
 daughter of eleven he sent into the streets 
 and public-houses at night to coax drunken 
 men into buying her wares. The combined 
 earnings of his womenfolk sufficed to keep 
 him in some semblance of comfort. 
 
 School Board officers, rescue officers, in- 
 spectors of the Society for the Prevention of 
 Cruelty to Children, legislators, all inveigh 
 against the indiscriminate employment of 
 little children in the manifold trades of the 
 gutter. There is a loud outcry that these 
 child-traders should be licensed, that four- 
 teen should be fixed as the minimum age of 
 any child to whom a licence should be issued, 
 
The Alien Immigration and Its Effects. 83 
 
 that licence-holders should wear a badge, 
 and that no child should be allowed on the 
 streets after nine or ten o'clock at night. 
 
 As things are at present we see children of 
 ten or eleven offering their wares long after 
 midnight. Trade is good on the streets 
 just after the public-houses close. I have 
 seen a little boy of nine, who had a choco- 
 late - box slung round his neck, offering 
 cough lozenges for sale under the dripping 
 wall of the East India Dock Road at one 
 o'clock in the morning. By the irony of 
 things he was coughing in a most distressing 
 manner. One knows of a boy of ten who 
 sells firewood for forty hours a week out 
 of school-hours. One knows of younger 
 children and longer hours. 
 
 Under the circumstances one cannot regret 
 the fierce competition by which the children 
 of the alien " greeners " are driving our 
 children off the streets. It is one of the few 
 services they are rendering us. 
 
 It should be noted, however, that these 
 alien children are most regular in school 
 
 6* 
 
84 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 attendance. Any School Board officer will 
 tell you that the Jews see that their children 
 go to school with the greatest regularity. 
 " They want to get them out of the schools 
 as fast as possible, so that they can start 
 them earning money." The Jew child does 
 not play truant, nor is he detained from 
 school on doubtful certificates. Whilst he 
 is at school the market of the streets is open. 
 Many English parents take advantage of 
 this, as anyone may see. 
 
85 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 On Child=Slavery in Manchester. 
 
 I NEVER set foot in Manchester without a 
 shrinking at the heart, an instinctive and 
 irrepressible feehng of pale terror. Is it on 
 account of its almost perennial gloom ? Is 
 it because I am familiar with the dreadful 
 squalor and surpassing misery of its slums, 
 or is it because in my fancy I can hear 
 hobnail-booted Lancashire growling all 
 around the sombre city ? I do not know. 
 I only know that the feeling was there before, 
 and will be there in the future, with increased 
 intensity since the last visit I paid to 
 Manchester. 
 
 It was under a deep fog when I arrived 
 there in the course of my tour amongst the 
 
86 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 poor children of the EngUsh cities. As I 
 was groping my way along Ducie Street — 
 for I had elected to live in Strangeways, 
 between a workhouse and a prison — I heard 
 the tramp of feet and saw a glint as of arms. 
 It was a strange procession that passed 
 through the heavy mist, a procession of 
 twelve or sixteen men, accoutred in fan- 
 tastic, mediaeval costumes, each carrying a 
 gilded lance. It was no merry masquerade, 
 and the buffoonery, if it were, had a deep 
 suggestion of menace. These were the 
 sheriff's javelin-men, on their way to meet 
 H.M.'s Commissioner for Oyer and Terminer. 
 The Manchester Assizes were to open on the 
 morrow, and proof positive was once more to 
 be afforded to startled England of the dread- 
 ful social effects which inevitably result in 
 communities where children, neglected by 
 their parents, reared in filth, are allowed to 
 grow up in shameful homes, degenerate in 
 body as in mind. As the tramp of the feet 
 of the javelin-men died away under the 
 bridge, and I looked towards Strangeways 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 87 
 
 Gaol, the fog that overhung the monster 
 building seemed to me black with the menace 
 of imprisonment and death. 
 
 I then called to mind a conversation I had 
 had that very afternoon in the train with a 
 man who, as he told me, had sat some weeks 
 previously as a juryman in an inquest held 
 at Knutsford Gaol, not far from Manchester, 
 on a woman who had died in the prison. 
 His story was a good illustration of what 
 results from our treatment of our children. 
 The dead woman's name was Mary Hefferam. 
 She was sixty-three years of age. 
 
 " She started on crime," said the jury- 
 man, " at the age of twelve." 
 
 " Poor little baby," I said. 
 
 " Yes, and since then," he continued, 
 " she has been forty-three years in gaol. 
 Only eight years free in all her life. It's 
 funny how some of them keeps on going in 
 and out of them places, ain't it ? She had 
 two ' tens ' and some ' threes,' and a good 
 number of eighteen months. It soon 
 mounts up, don't it ? " 
 
88 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 He added with a laugh : " She was called 
 Stonewall Jackson in the gaol. She had been 
 put into the dark cell for insubordination. 
 When they came for her in the morning they 
 found that with her own hands she had torn 
 down the division wall of her cell — a strong 
 division wall with cement and all that. So 
 they called her Stonewall Jackson. She was 
 a well-plucked one. The doctor told us that 
 just before she died, she clenched her fists 
 and said, " You've never beat me yet and 
 you'll not beat me now." She had thin, 
 little, bony fingers, gray hair and yellow 
 and sunken-in cheeks. May have been a 
 sturdy little body in her lifetime." 
 
 I thought that England might have made 
 better use of Mary Hefferam's qualities 
 than the use to which they were put, and 
 during all my dreadful tour amongst the 
 slum and slave children of Manchester, I 
 had her story in my mind. Strangeways 
 Gaol need well be big and strong as long as 
 the poor children of Manchester live as they 
 live, and are reared as they are reared. 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 89 
 
 In one cottage which I entered in Ancoats, 
 I found the kitchen absolutely empty of all 
 furniture except an old orange-box, on which 
 a mangy cat was squatting. Every scrap 
 of furniture had, it appeared, been pawned 
 or sold by the mother. Over the mantel- 
 piece was an illuminated text, bearing the 
 words : " What is Home Without a 
 Mother ? " We found the mother lying 
 drunk in the coal-hole, with one of her 
 babies in her arms. Her other children 
 were out on the streets hawking. The father 
 — a respectable man — had long since left 
 his home in despair. 
 
 In respect of street-hawking by children, 
 Manchester, following the example of Liver- 
 pool, is greatly in advance of London. It 
 has done what so many people wish to see 
 done in the metropolis. It has passed 
 bye-laws. The law is called the Manchester 
 Corporation Act, 1901, which became definite 
 on February 12th, 1902. Under this law no 
 children may trade in the streets of Man- 
 chester unless they have a hcence. 
 
go The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 The main points about this law are that 
 no hcence is granted to a child under twelve 
 years of age ; that every licensee has to wear 
 a badge (these badges are of two sorts, dis- 
 tinguishing children exempt, and not exempt, 
 from school attendance) ; that no hcensed 
 child shall be in any street for the purpose 
 of trading after eight o'clock at night between 
 the 1st October and the 31st March, or after 
 nine o'clock at night between the ist April 
 and the 30th September. But just as the 
 Factory Act is the particular Act through 
 which one can drive a " coach and six," so 
 also is this Manchester Corporation Act for 
 the Regulation of Children Trading in Streets, 
 a law to which the parents and children of 
 Manchester pay very little attention. I 
 learned at the Chief Constable's office that 
 during the first year of the operation of the 
 bye-law 1,983 licences were granted to 
 children not exempt from school attendance. 
 I am very certain that fully an equal number, 
 if not more, are trading in the streets without 
 a licence. These are, for the most part, 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 91 
 
 children considerably under the minimum 
 age of twelve. The regulation as to the 
 limit of hours is also treated with supreme 
 disdain. I was passing the Theatre Royal 
 one night at a quarter-past ten and saw 
 four little boys, of whom the eldest was cer- 
 tainly not nine, selling illustrated papers. 
 
 " Now, then, young fellows," I cried, 
 gruffly, " where are your licences ? " They 
 scattered like chaff before the wind. I 
 called them back. " I don't want to cop 
 you," I said, and distributed coppers. 
 
 " Father makes us do it," cried two of the 
 urchins. 
 
 " Mother told me to bring back a shilling 
 to-night," said another, "or to look out for 
 a basting." 
 
 At the corner of Albert Square I came 
 across a miserable Httle fellow selling the 
 Chronicle at three in the afternoon, and I 
 asked him why he was not wearing his 
 badge. 
 
 " I'm seventeen next 5th of November," 
 he said. 
 
92 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 He was certainly not more than ten 3/ears 
 old. In Ducie Street I found two babies 
 selling matches in the dinner-hour. Indeed, 
 in every part of Manchester I found that the 
 Act was totally disregarded. " To look out 
 for a basting," the little boy had said to me. 
 My sympathies were keenly excited, for that 
 very afternoon in Albert Chambers, Braze- 
 nose Street, I had seen some specimens of the 
 stimulants to child-energy which Lancashire 
 parents use. Miss Rose, the noble lady 
 who there conducts the business of the 
 N.S.P.C.C, drew my special attention amidst 
 the horrors hung upon her office wall to 
 three objects : 
 
 1. A huge block of wood which a labourer 
 had padlocked to the leg of his little son, a 
 boy of eleven. The child went to school, 
 carrying this under his arm. He had been 
 wearing it three days before the matter was 
 reported to the Society. 
 
 2. A barber's strop, with brass hooks 
 attached. It had been used for stropping 
 knives in a fried-fish shop, and by the same 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 93 
 
 occasion for chastising a little girl of nine, 
 who did not sell enough matches in the 
 street. The girl was blinded with one of the 
 brass hooks. 
 
 3. A leather strap or tawse, used generally 
 for the correction of children in Lancashire. 
 
 " A clergyman, who came into this office 
 the other day," said Miss Rose, " told me 
 that in his parish a similar implement was 
 to be seen hanging up by the fireplace in the 
 kitchen of almost every cottage in the place." 
 
 The merchant boys of Manchester divide 
 themselves roughly into six classes : — (i) 
 Newspaper sellers ; (2) organ - grinders ; 
 (3) ice-cream sellers ; (4) railway touts ; (5) 
 flower sellers ; (6) match sellers. 
 
 Of the street trades carried on by boys, 
 newspaper selling is by far the most popular. 
 
 A small boy may make los. a week. A 
 lad of sixteen may possibly earn 17s. or i8s. 
 a week. Were he working in a factory from 
 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. he would earn only 13s. 
 The money so earned is, however, almost 
 invariably wasted in betting and music- 
 
94 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 halls. Many of these lads, even the youngest, 
 desert their homes and live in lodging-houses 
 at 4d. a night. They feed themselves, like a 
 large percentage of the population of Man- 
 chester, on fish and chips. 
 
 The organ-grinder boys earn even higher 
 wages and spend them in the same way. 
 
 The touts " are of two kinds. There are, 
 first, the youths who hang about the plat- 
 forms and approaches to the railway station, 
 offering to carry bags and parcels." They 
 rarely start work before ii a.m., and when 
 they have earned enough money to provide 
 a cheap breakfast, they will lounge about for 
 several hours, gambling with any money 
 which may be left in their hands, and making 
 very little effort to earn anything further 
 until the end of the day, when they strive 
 to make enough for their night's lodging 
 and supper. They are frequently arrested 
 for causing " an obstruction," and sentenced 
 to hard labour. The other class of touts 
 are boys who wheel hand-carts with samples 
 for commercial travellers. They earn an 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 95 
 
 average of 6s. a week. " Thrift is not 
 known to them." Match-selling, in which 
 many little boys and girls, licensed and 
 unlicensed, are engaged in the streets of 
 Manchester, is a miserable trade. " The 
 match-seller in Manchester bears a social 
 stigma." The profit is threepence in the 
 shilling. A child who can dodge the police 
 and remain on the streets till midnight may 
 possibly be able to bring home a shilling. 
 In some houses the alternative to the shilling 
 is the leathern tawse. 
 
 The flower-sellers work intermittently. 
 The trade is mainly in the hands of men 
 who are described as " the most lazy and 
 most shiftless of street traffickers." Little 
 girls are often sent out by their parents at 
 night-time on this trade, with orders to enter 
 as many public-houses as possible. 
 
 In Manchester a large family is looked on 
 as a good capital. This is especially so 
 where the children work in the mills with 
 their mothers. The girls enter the mills as 
 full-timers as soon as they dare leave school. 
 
96 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 They have already had experience of 
 the work as half-timers. Their mothers 
 take almost their entire earnings. In 
 these families it is the women who do 
 almost all the work. At any rate, they 
 earn considerably more than the men, who 
 console themselves largely for their social 
 inferiority with drink. It is a fixed axiom 
 with the children engaged in the mills in 
 the cotton country that " mother wants the 
 brass." In the way of pocket-money the 
 mother allows the child 5 per cent, of its 
 earnings. If work stops she " slates " up 
 against them the amount they would have 
 earned if the mills had been running, and 
 when the work begins again she gets the debt 
 out of them by pocketing the percentage. 
 Half-timers start as early as twelve, and, 
 if they can, earlier. It is not poverty on 
 the part of the parents. It is parental 
 greed, the exploitation of their offspring, the 
 desire to get as much money as possible. 
 The work in the mills is bad for the health. 
 Extreme anaemia characterises most of the 
 
A Manchester Newspaper Boy. 
 
 [To face pa^e 91. 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 97 
 
 girls who help in the cotton industry. They 
 cannot bear the air. Windows must be kept 
 closed for them. They are chilly and blood- 
 less. It affects their sight. You will notice 
 how many young girls wear spectacles. This 
 is caused by the strain on the eyes occasioned 
 by picking up fine threads. Until they 
 marry and leave home they do not possess 
 more than 5 per cent, of their earnings. I 
 heard of a girl of seventeen, who might be 
 earning 13s. a week, who wished to join the 
 Salvation Army, and who, in order to raise 
 the £6 necessary for the purchase of the 
 uniform and outfit, is cleaning doorsteps on 
 Saturday afternoons. All the money she 
 earns at the mill is taken by her mother. 
 The Lancashire children do not complain of 
 this. There is great loyalty in Lancashire 
 from children to their parents, or, rather, to 
 their mothers. " Very fond of mother " one 
 hears them say. 
 
 The young children of the women who 
 work in the mills suffer a great deal. If you 
 walk about the district you will be struck 
 
 7 
 
g8 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 by the great number of people you meet 
 with deformed legs. These were left as 
 tender babies to shift for themselves in the 
 mother's absence. The feeding is unsatis- 
 factory in the extreme. There is practically 
 no breakfast for the little ones, for the 
 mother goes to the mill at half-past five, 
 and dinner is non-existent in many cases, 
 unless the children are placed in charge of 
 some old woman, who keeps a creche, and 
 then the mid-day meal will be " chips." 
 Supper, when mother returns home, is the 
 meal of the day, and almost invariably it 
 consists of fish and chips from the neigh- 
 bouring shop. Fish and chips are the staple 
 diet of many districts in Manchester. The 
 dreadful Angel Meadow, the appalling An- 
 coats live upon it ; and when you pass 
 under the bridge on the road to Strangeways 
 the smell of the rancid fat of the fried-fish 
 shops beats you back. I think that in the 
 matter of the feeding of the children Man- 
 chester is even behind London. I had a long- 
 conversation with a man who has lived in 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. gg 
 
 Ancoats nearly all his life, and he said : 
 " Swarms of children in this district are fed 
 on filth : meats from the cookshops, things 
 out of tins. The fathers do not fare much 
 better. Wages are very low ; the wives 
 can't or won't cook, and the men go to such 
 a shop as you may see next to my house, 
 where they advertise ' A Good Dinner for 
 Threepence.' Nor is it in these miserable 
 districts alone that, owing to the slovenli- 
 ness of the women, no proper meal is ever 
 served in the home. A lady living in Clay- 
 ton told me that most of her neighbours 
 — renting respectable cottages — preferred to 
 send out to the cookshops for 2d. or 3d. 
 worth of " cooked meats " for the family 
 repast. 
 
 Owing to the pressure caused by the alien 
 invasion of Manchester, overcrowding with 
 all its dreadful consequences exists fully as 
 badly as in London. In the union of the 
 sexes the table of affinities is totally dis- 
 regarded, and on this head public men and 
 women in Manchester are clamouring for 
 
100 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 legislation.* I devoted several days and 
 nights to convince myself that the housing 
 of the poor in Manchester is a disgrace to 
 the country. I found eleven people, man, 
 woman and children, heaped up in one room 
 in Openshaw. I found a grey-haired alien 
 in bed with two sons and four daughters, 
 the eldest of whom was a girl of sixteen. In 
 Palmerston Street in a cottage, rented at 
 6s. 3d. a week, I found a man and his wife 
 and five children in one room ; a man and his 
 nephew in an adjoining closet, whilst in the 
 front room downstairs there was another 
 man with three children. In Moon's Court, 
 Crowther, I found a man sleeping with his 
 wife and five children on one bed. It was a 
 memorable occasion for the poor man, for, 
 as he told me, it was the first Saturday night 
 for nine years that his wife had been sober. 
 " Solid and sober she is to-night, sir," he 
 said. 
 
 Miss Rose, of the S.P.C.C, attributes the 
 misery and squalor of the homes of the 
 
 * The Incest Bill. 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. loi 
 
 Manchester child-slaves almost entirely to 
 the drunkenness of the mothers. " It is the 
 beer," she said, " the dreadful chemical beer." 
 Indeed, the women of Manchester claim one 
 day in the week when the public-houses are 
 their domain. Monday is Woman's Day in 
 the Manchester taverns, and on that day you 
 may see every gangway blocked with bassi- 
 nettes. Perambulators overflow into the 
 street. Within the bars, amidst the crowds 
 of noisy women, under the fumes of tobacco 
 smoke and alcohol, tiny fingers may be seen 
 in convulsive agitation. 
 
 In my dreadful perambulations in the 
 quarters I have referred to, it was the excep- 
 tion, not the rule, to find the mother sober. 
 Sometimes I found six, seven, or eight chil- 
 dren crouching round the fire in the kitchen. 
 Mother had stepped out. On one occasion — 
 it was in Rider's Court — I saw mother step- 
 ping in. She was so drunk that she could 
 not stand. Her face was bruised from her 
 repeated falls. We went upstairs to see the 
 httle ones in bed. There were four or five 
 
I02 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 of them lying on a filthy mattress, which, 
 when touched with the end of the walking- 
 stick, became a busy city. The woman 
 staggering after us fell on the staircase. 
 Elsewhere, I found a little girl of eleven 
 sitting by the fire. There was something 
 wrong with her, I could see. The mother 
 had a supply of beer and was priming herself. 
 A baby lay on the couch. It appeared that 
 the little girl was paralysed. As I knew, as 
 I could see, that before long the mother 
 would be incapable, I wondered who would 
 carry the little paralysed girl to " bed." 
 
 I have put " bed " in inverted commas. 
 I visited more than a hundred cottages in 
 Manchester, and I never saw a bed. Here 
 there were malodorous rags heaped up in a 
 corner on the bare floor. Here it was a 
 filthy mattress, animated with insect life. 
 Sometimes the mattress would be laid on a 
 broken bedstead, but usually it lay on the 
 floor. Or, perhaps a couple of orange boxes 
 might be used for its support. I saw neither 
 sheets, nor blankets, nor pillows anywhere. 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 103 
 
 not in one single house. Father, mother and 
 children all lie on the one mattress and cover 
 themselves with rags. The comforts, even 
 the bare decencies of hfe, are here entirely 
 wanting. Many of these children are never 
 washed. The mothers do not wash them- 
 selves. And it should be noted that in 
 many of these squalid homes, the father is a 
 sober, steady, hard-working man, who brings 
 every penny of his wages home. Small 
 wages, it is true, for the Manchester labourer 
 is miserably paid. Sixteen and elevenpence 
 seems an average wage, and out of this six 
 or seven shillings have to be paid away as 
 rent. The hopelessness of their lives may 
 be some excuse for the conduct of the women, 
 with their large families ; but, at the same 
 time, I was not surprised to count a very 
 large number of them who had black eyes 
 or bruised faces. His Majesty's Commis- 
 sioner for Oyer and Terminer could, at 
 Manchester Assizes, " see no excuse what- 
 ever for these brutal violences towards 
 women." I disagreed with his lordship. 
 
104 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 The Commissioners on Alien Immigration 
 complain that in London " whole streets " 
 have been vacated by our own people before 
 the pressure of the foreigners. In Man- 
 chester it is not whole streets, it is whole 
 districts. According to census reports, there 
 are in Manchester about 12,000 aliens. Ac- 
 cording to common opinion there are over 
 30,000. They have taken to themselves 
 Strangeways. They swarm all over Cheet- 
 ham Hill. They are invading Broughton. 
 Here one scarcely sees an English subject. 
 Such Englishwomen and children as are em- 
 ployed here are occupied in " doing for the 
 Jews," either in menial labour, or in the 
 sweating-dens of the tailors and blouse- 
 makers and slipper factories. It is a plea- 
 sant fiction that under the Factory Act, and 
 thanks to the vigilance of the factory in- 
 spectors, children cannot be sweated in these 
 dens. It is with the Factory Act in Man- 
 chester as with the Corporation Act on Child 
 Trading. As to the children who do menial 
 work, we read and hear constantly of the 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 105 
 
 shocking tasks laid upon them ; of the more 
 than shocking cruelty to which they are sub- 
 jected. We have seen the implements used. 
 They hang on the wall of Miss Rose's ofhce. 
 
 In Manchester, as in London, the aliens 
 are getting most of the house property in 
 the poor districts into their hands, letting 
 out accommodation to those whom they 
 have dispossessed at exorbitant rates. Many 
 hundreds of English families in Ancoats, 
 Collyhurst and Angel Meadow are living 
 in one furnished room. The furniture is a 
 filthy mattress, a chair, an orange-box and 
 a few utensils. For such a room, which is 
 the home of families ranging from six to 
 twelve persons, a rent of from 5s. to 7s. is 
 exacted by the Jew landlord or landlady. 
 
 I visited one of these Jewish rack-renters 
 — a woman who is making from £15 to £20 a 
 week clear profit out of her more than 
 miserable tenants. I had visited several 
 of these. I have described several of their 
 " interiors." In one room I found the 
 mother boiling the water for " dinner " in 
 
io6 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 an old tin which she had picked up in a 
 dust-bin. The landlady I found living in 
 the greatest luxury. Her house — in the 
 very centre of her squalid domain — was 
 crammed with furniture, pictures, clocks and 
 china. Her present consort was smoking 
 his pipe by the fire. Her numerous progeny 
 were seated round a well-spread board, 
 feasting royally. It was here in the dis- 
 trict that I first saw the white glint of linen ; 
 it was here that I first saw food. The lady 
 oozed, the house oozed, the children oozed 
 with unctuous prosperity. 
 
 The shocking back-to-back houses are 
 mainly rack-rented by aliens. In the back- 
 to-back houses — you may visit some fine 
 specimens of these human kennels in Wood- 
 ward Street — one family has the two front 
 rooms on the ground floor and upstairs and 
 pays 3S. 6d. for it. Another family has the 
 two back rooms and pays 3s. The staircase 
 is common. As the water is in the down- 
 stairs back room, the people in front have the 
 right to enter it at any time of the day. 
 
Child-Slavery in Manchester. 107 
 
 " What Lancashire thinks to-day, Eng- 
 land will think to-morrow." Such is the 
 local boast. Well, let Lancashire be im- 
 plored to consider the lives of the children 
 in Manchester, their labours, their food, 
 their homes, the awful example of their 
 parents. And, having seen these things, to 
 think of what their meaning is for the future 
 of the Empire. And, in Heaven's name, let 
 England follow its conclusions. 
 
io8 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 On Child ^Slavery in Birmingham. 
 
 Of Birmingham and of the towns in its sur- 
 rounding district, with one notable excep- 
 tion, this at least can be said, that to the 
 iniquity of their crimes against the children 
 they do not add the guilt of hypocrisy. 
 Here all is open to view : the crying evil pro- 
 claims itself at every street corner of " the 
 best-governed city in the world." Nor does 
 accessory Nature here, as in London, Liver- 
 pool, or Manchester, cloak with constant and 
 recurrent fogs sights which are not good to 
 look upon. As you walk down Corporation 
 Street or New Street you have at every hour 
 of the day or night evidence of a very dread- 
 ful state of things. Such rags you may 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 109 
 
 search Christendom to equal, and for bare- 
 footedness Birmingham vies with Glasgow. 
 
 Hypocrisy there is in this sense, that to 
 the right and to the left of the broad and 
 resplendent thoroughfares which I have 
 named, and only within a few minutes' walk 
 on either side, you can reach slums as noisome 
 as any to be found in England. The bright 
 and luminous fafades betray themselves to 
 the careful explorer as whited sepulchres, 
 and these words are used in no figurative 
 sense alone. 
 
 Of the Erebean regions thus masked from 
 our various senses, the gloom, the chill, the 
 foetor may even by the casual saunterer 
 be divined, if he will take pains — pain indeed 
 there is — to scrutinise the appearance of the 
 swarms of little children whom parental 
 greed and the whip of starvation have driven 
 out of alley, close and yard into the money- 
 lands of Birmingham. They are all hawkers, 
 or so pretend, but mendicity makes its mute 
 appeal from every yawning boot, from every 
 gaping rent, and from every haggard face. 
 
no The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 In New Street, in Corporation Street, in all 
 these prosperous thoroughfares the passer-by 
 at almost every stage may echo the words 
 which WiUiam Blake wrote about " London." 
 
 "A mark in every face I meet — 
 Marks of weakness, marks of woe. ' ' 
 
 It is the opinion of some of the newspaper 
 proprietors of the city that the lad-hawkers 
 of papers are a happy, well-fed and pros- 
 perous community, with whose industry it 
 would be inexpedient and indeed arbitrary 
 to interfere, and it is certain that from this 
 quarter will come resolute opposition to 
 certain of the bye-laws, under the powers 
 conferred by Macnamara's Act, which are 
 being actually excogitated in the Birmingham 
 City Council. At present, contrary to what 
 is supposed to obtain in Liverpool and Man- 
 chester, the smallest, raggedest child who can 
 command a capital of 4|d. with which to start 
 in trade can launch out into this business.* 
 
 * Since the chapter on Birmingham was written the Bye-Laws 
 dealing with Child-Hawkers have been passed and are now in force. 
 It remains to be seen whether they will be more effectual in Birming- 
 ham than they are in Manchester and other cities. 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In Birmingham no limits of age or of 
 working hours are imposed, nor, as in the 
 other cities mentioned, is it exacted that the 
 tiny merchantmen and women of the streets 
 should be so clothed by their parents as not 
 to offend, on the one hand, the decency of 
 the citizens, nor on the other to expose their 
 frail bodies to the cruel inclemencies of the 
 weather. It is to be noted, in passing, that, 
 according to the evidence given by Mr. G. 
 H. By water (editor of the Birmingham Daily 
 Mail) before the Royal Commission on the 
 Employment of School Children, the children 
 who sell papers in the streets are mainly the 
 children of " bad parents." 
 
 I made it my duty to inquire into the 
 home-hves of some of these strenuous ur- 
 chins. At one house in Digbeth I found a 
 lad who, working many hours out of school- 
 time as a hawker in the streets, was able to 
 bring home fourpence a night and on Satur- 
 days one shilling towards the support of his 
 mother and brethren. From this home the 
 father had disappeared to avoid the "pay- 
 
112 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 ment of a fine of ten shillings which had been 
 imposed upon him by the magistrates for 
 " stealing his children from school " — that 
 is to say, for breaches of the School Attend- 
 ance Laws. His family was left to its own 
 devices in the meanwhile, and the earnings 
 of little Mark were indispensable. His 
 mother assured me that Mark never " played 
 the wag." She meant " played the truant," 
 and indeed in waggishness in the ordinary 
 sense of the word the occasion was singularly 
 uninspiring. 
 
 Mark was a little boy, neither active of 
 limb nor strong of lung. His earnings were 
 ridiculously low, and no doubt a tawse or 
 stropping-strap — such as are shown in the 
 office of the N.S.P.C.C. in Burlington Cham- 
 bers — would be used to stimulate his com- 
 mercial zeal, to arouse in him that healthy 
 spirit of emulation which is the soul of trade. 
 Why, there are little boys in Birmingham 
 who can earn at the trade three or four times 
 the profits of Mark, and I have in mind 
 another little lad who used to take home to 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 113 
 
 his mother no less than fourteen shilUngs a 
 week. As to the mother, her ideals in life 
 and her activities were summed up for me 
 by one who knew her in two words : " Snuff 
 and booze." 
 
 But of the poor women of Birmingham and 
 its district, it is fair to say that kindness to 
 their children and not the persistent nar- 
 cotizing of their ragged bodies is rather their 
 distinguishing characteristic. In Birming- 
 ham — differing in this respect from Man- 
 chester — the crime against the children is 
 mainly enacted by the men. I had a long 
 conversation at the Children's Hospital with 
 Miss Lloyd, the lady superintendent, on this 
 subject, and she described the poor Birming- 
 ham mothers " as quite admirable." 
 
 " I have been deeply impressed," she 
 said, " with the devotion of these women — 
 and we are here in constant contact with the 
 very poorest classes — to their children, and 
 my wonder is great how with the miserable 
 means at their disposal they are able to do 
 so much as they do. Many have told me 
 
 8 
 
114 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 that the money at their disposal will just 
 cover rent and firing. Yet they manage in 
 some way to rear their children. I can say 
 this, that of a thousand children which pass 
 through my hands each year, only the very 
 smallest percentage — perhaps only two or 
 three cases m a year — show signs of wilful 
 neglect." 
 
 In Birmingham and district that male 
 egotism which is a characteristic of our race 
 finds its highest expression. The men of 
 Birmingham are proud to be described as 
 " citizens," yet many of them are alto- 
 gether lacking in that highest sense of civic 
 responsibility — their duties towards their 
 wives and families. A man earning thirty- 
 five or forty shillings a week will con- 
 sider his duties amply fulfilled if on Saturday 
 night he tosses on the kitchen table for rent, 
 fire and housekeeping a sum of fourteen or 
 fifteen shillings. 
 
 I have many such cases on record. In- 
 deed, quite recently there was brought up 
 before the Bench in a town eight miles from 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 115 
 
 Birmingham a man charged with wife- 
 beating. His plea was that his wife was 
 remiss in the housekeeping. Out of a wage 
 of thirty-five shiUings a week he allowed her 
 fourteen shillings, and his grievance against 
 her was that she would not — alleging she 
 could not — supply him — after paying rent, 
 firing, and feeding and clothing his off- 
 spring — with a daily beefsteak for his dinner. 
 The men of Birmingham are of a sporting 
 turn of mind, and the bulk of their earnings 
 must go to feed their fancy. " They leave 
 their wives and children to clam," said 
 to me a man who knows the class well, 
 " whilst they attend football and the pubs. 
 Thousands of these men will save up to 
 go up to London to see a Cup Tie at 
 the Crystal Palace, or on similar excur- 
 sions to different parts of the country. 
 You will see saloon-carriages starting from 
 New Street crammed with ' sports.' There 
 will be a large barrel of beer in each car- 
 riage, and cheese and pickles, and every 
 man will have his spirit-bottle. The wife 
 
 8* 
 
ii6 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 and children will be clamming in the mean- 
 while." 
 
 There are deeper depths of male selfishness 
 to be probed. I called at a house in Saltley 
 Street, where I found a woman and two 
 children. Here the citizen was in receipt of 
 a fixed wage of thirty-six shillings a week. 
 He gave the wife nothing. Beyond some 
 filthy crusts, not less hard than the filthy 
 dish in which they lay, there was no food of 
 any kind in the house. A loathsome and 
 verminous mattress upstairs was the family's 
 bedding. There was no other furniture of 
 any kind. The children, who were alive with 
 vermin, were to pass the whole day without 
 food. // Daddy happened to come home 
 from his work fairly sober, there might 
 possibly be a supper of fish and chips. 
 
 Children who cannot work are not much 
 wanted in these homes. It is better that 
 they should " go back," especially when, as 
 is usually the case, their lives are insured. 
 It is said that when little children die there is 
 rejoicing amongst the angels. There is cer- 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 117 
 
 tainly rejoicing in this region. " Small 
 funeral, big drink," is our local saying, and 
 it is with us a point of pride regally to enter- 
 tain the guests at our children's obsequies. 
 A day or two ago two women were overheard 
 in a tram discussing a funeral of a child, 
 which one of them had attended, and said 
 this one : "It was a poor show. Nought 
 but lemonade and biscuits." " Ah, well," 
 said the other, " that's never been my way 
 of doing things. I have buried five of my 
 children on pork-pies." 
 
 In the matter of feeding their children, 
 the poor of Birmingham are no less culpable 
 than the majority of English people. Bread 
 and jam is, however, here the staple diet. 
 At the midday hour you will see thousands 
 of school children thus dining al fresco. It 
 is a diet altogether inadequate, and such 
 evidence is there of the hunger of the chil- 
 dren that last year, by charity, there were 
 provided at the various schools of the Board 
 no less than 204,000 free meals. In a large 
 percentage of the cases thus relieved the 
 
ii8 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 parents were in a position to keep their 
 children in proper food. Here, too, one 
 finds evidence that small children are en- 
 couraged in habits of intemperance. Is the 
 hellish suggestion warranted that in some 
 cases, where the lives of the children are 
 insured, a sinister motive prompts parental 
 tolerance and encouragement ? I can cite 
 two examples of this drinking amongst chil- 
 dren which were told me by the Town Clerk 
 of a large town in this district. In the first 
 case one hears of two children who, for 
 regular attendance at a local Band of Hope 
 meeting, each received from a charitable 
 lady a prize of a threepenny-bit. 
 
 " Well, children," they were asked at the 
 next meeting, " and what did you do with 
 your threepenny-bits ? " 
 
 " Took them home," they said, " and we 
 all had gin in our teas." 
 
 In the same town a clergyman used to 
 entertain some of the Sunday school children 
 to tea every Sunday evening, and after tea 
 used to send them home under the guardian- 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 119 
 
 ship of one of the ladies of his family. On 
 the particular occasion referred to, the chil- 
 dren, on reaching the B Arms pubhc- 
 
 house, stopped and said to the lady, " We 
 want to go in here." 
 
 " What can you want to go in there for ? " 
 she asked. 
 
 " Oh," they said, " we always go in here 
 on Sunday nights for a sup of beer." 
 
 The only advantage over the children of 
 the other cities which I have so far visited 
 which the child-slaves of Birmingham and 
 district seem to possess is that overcrowding 
 is not here so crying an evil. The aliens do 
 not invade Birmingham as they are invading 
 London, Leeds and Manchester, and rents 
 are lower. Many parents, however, prefer 
 to spend on rent the smallest possible sum, 
 and it is certain that many of these cheap 
 slum- dwellings in courts and closes, " back 
 of " the streets, are as bad as any to be seen 
 anywhere. 
 
 To many houses in the Floodgate Street 
 area, some remarks made twenty years 
 
I20 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 ago by Mr. J. T. Middlemore, J. P., still 
 apply :— 
 
 " If the enquirer's ideal is that of a pigstye, 
 a considerable part of this Ward will give 
 him great satisfaction. But if his ideal is a 
 higher one — e.g., if he were compelled to 
 stable some of his thoroughbred horses in the 
 houses in question, I think he would enter a 
 vigorous protest against such accommoda- 
 tion, and communicate with the Society for 
 the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals." 
 
 This is quite true, and I do not think 
 that even London or Manchester or Liver- 
 pool can show worse human kennels than 
 many which I visited in the St. George's and 
 Gosta Green districts. 
 
 I have a particular recollection of explora- 
 tions to the right and left of a street called, 
 no doubt by a builder in an ironical mood. 
 Oxygen Street. But of all these homes it 
 can be said at least that the downstairs 
 room, which is kitchen, living-room and 
 workshop combined, is always fairly comfort- 
 able. On the horrors of the upstairs room 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 121 
 
 where the family sleeps I need not dwell. 
 Bedclothes are unknown ; the filthy mat- 
 tresses swarm with vermin. In many houses 
 mattresses even are wanting. It was in 
 Birmingham — in a house in Windsor Street 
 — that on penetrating into a bedroom in 
 which a woman and a boy were lying that I 
 was literally beaten back by a stench too 
 repellent for even my familiar nostrils. 
 
 From the children thus ill-housed, under- 
 fed and ill-clothed a maximum of effort is 
 exacted by paternal greed. It would not be 
 fair to write " parental greed," for we can 
 largely exonerate the mothers. Where their 
 children are driven on to the streets, or con- 
 strained to the miserable home-tasks of 
 which we are to hear, it is because, in too 
 many cases, the selfish fathers give their 
 families the choice between slavery and 
 starvation. There are abominable excep- 
 tions, of course, and I have record of some. 
 One knows of a mother, in the Spring Hill 
 district, who employed her little girl at the 
 ill-paid drudgery of carding hooks and eyes ; 
 
122 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 and so as to keep her away from school on a 
 medical certificate, used to keep open the 
 vermin-caused sores on the child's head by 
 rubbing sand into them. In another case, 
 and for a similar motive, a woman to make 
 her child appear to be suffering from " bad 
 head," had cut off her hair and plastered 
 the skull with a mixture of grease and sand. 
 Mothers, too, who need the labours of their 
 children, will deny their parentage. " That 
 girl's nothing to do with me," a mother will 
 say to a School Attendance Officer. Others 
 will hide their children away, and " They've 
 gone to Worcester " they will say to inquirers 
 from the schools. In the Camden Street 
 district we hear of a woman who for months 
 confined her little girls to the house, alleging 
 they were stricken with fever. She kept a 
 fried-fish shop, and she used her children in 
 the dirty work of preparing the fish. An- 
 other woman, also in the Camden Street dis- 
 trict, cultivated a vermin-farm on her little 
 daughter's head and body, so that the child 
 should be excluded from her school and earn 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 123 
 
 a penny or two a day at home by sewing 
 buttons on to cards. Whenever one con- 
 sults people in authority in Birmingham on 
 the question of child-slavery, invariable allu- 
 sion to the efficacy of the Factory Acts and 
 the zeal and vigilance of the factory in- 
 spectors is made. As a matter of fact, 
 whilst in every part of the country these 
 Acts excite in the employers of labour of the 
 sweating type a mild derision, in the Bir- 
 mingham district a special incitement to 
 their disregard exists. It has frequently 
 here suited the convenience of Government 
 to suspend nominally the operation of these 
 Acts to enable Government contracts to be 
 hurried through, and, says your employer of 
 labour, " if Government can suspend these 
 Acts for its purposes, I don't see why I 
 shouldn't suspend them for mine." And he 
 does so. So you may find parents and em- 
 ployers of child-labour " steahng the children 
 from school." " I readily admit I have 
 stolen children from school," said a woman 
 in a court back of Smith Street. She keeps 
 
124 ^^^ Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 a soldering factory in a shed, the size and 
 appearance of a pigstye, and in good days 
 could earn £i a day. The child labour she 
 employed from 8 in the morning till i p.m. 
 and again after an interval of bread and jam 
 from 2 till 7 (or much later) was remunerated 
 at the rate of sixpence a day Her own 
 offspring would work these hours with no 
 other remuneration than a sense of the 
 accomplishment of filial duty. 
 
 The various tasks laid upon children in 
 Birmingham are the same — with certain addi- 
 tions — as those to which children are con- 
 strained all over the country. We have 
 here the huge class of street-hawkers, with 
 their long hours and the constant exposure 
 to dangers both physical and moral. We 
 have in a large errand-boy class the same 
 over-burthened little wretches whom we 
 have commiserated with in London. Mr. 
 Aston tells one of a boy of eleven, who for 
 2S. 6d. a week wheels out coal for thirty- 
 two hours out of school hours. A lad of 
 ten works forty hours a week selling firewood, 
 
In a Birmingham Soldering Shop. 
 
 {To face page 124. 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 125 
 
 and often falls asleep in school from exhaus- 
 tion. We find a boy of eleven working in 
 a boot stores for forty hours for 3s. a week. 
 On Saturdays he is at work from half-past 
 eight in the morning till eleven o'clock at 
 night. 
 
 Barbers' boys in this town are worked 
 even longer hours ; they rarely get home on 
 Saturday nights till past midnight, and, in 
 defiance of King Charles the Second, are 
 expected to attend again with the lather- 
 brush all Sunday morning. These are boys 
 of nine, ten and eleven. The wages are 
 nominal, but there are tips to be expected 
 and the poor little fellows are eager for the 
 employment. Yet it is of so exhausting a 
 nature that I have in my note-book record 
 of two cases where little barbers' boys died 
 in Birmingham as a consequence of over- 
 exertion. One was a lad in Howe Street. 
 He was eleven years of age and he used to 
 work from 6 p.m. till 10 p.m. every night 
 and all day on Saturdays. The other was a 
 bov of twelve, who was done to death in the 
 
126 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 same way in Digbeth. I had a little friend 
 of seven in Birmingham, who is out at all 
 hours and in all weathers selling flowers. 
 Other boys are earning three shillings a week 
 carrying huge sacks of bone-dust from a 
 bone-turner's workshop to possible customers 
 for this commodity. 
 
 In the autumn swarms of little children 
 migrate from Birmingham with their parents 
 to the hop-picking districts of Worcester- 
 shire and Herefordshire. After recent reve- 
 lations as to the composition of much of the 
 beer with which some Birmingham brewers 
 madden their fellow-citizens, one wonders 
 for what purpose these same hops are picked. 
 The conditions, both moral and physical, 
 under which these children live in the tented 
 hop-fields for two months every year are 
 even worse than those which obtain in their 
 courts. It is a source of grave trouble to 
 the authorities and perdition to the little 
 ones. 
 
 Housework is much practised by little 
 boy and girl Nethinim, before and after 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 127 
 
 school-hours, in the houses of more opulent 
 citizens. They will clean knives and boots, 
 carry coals and water, and rising very early 
 in the mornings for these duties will fall 
 asleep in school. One has seen the merest 
 nipper cleaning a huge motor-car, and noted 
 the triumph of intelligence over matter. 
 
 The chopping of firewood is one of the 
 miserable home industries in which very 
 many little children help their parents in 
 Birmingham, either during their spare time 
 or during the hours when, thanks to a 
 medical certificate, or to the practices of 
 vermin-culture, or the application of sand 
 to open sores, they can " play the wag " 
 with impunity. 
 
 In one house in Vale Court I was shown 
 a little boy of six, of whom his father said 
 with pride " he could bundle firewood with 
 the best of them." I had watched that 
 same morning in the labour-yard of a neigh- 
 bouring workhouse, able-bodied tramps at 
 this employment, and it is very certain that 
 from the children far greater activity was 
 
128 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 exacted by their parents than was demanded 
 by a surly labour-master of his hulking 
 helots. 
 
 It is a poor trade, according to most 
 accounts. The wood is bought at is. 4d., 
 and after it has been sawed and chopped 
 and bundled, it sells in the shape of faggots 
 at 2S. or 2s. id. A whole family will work 
 for many hours for this meagre profit. In 
 one home I found a number of children so 
 engaged. They were sitting on the stone 
 floor of the kitchen. A farthing dip in a 
 ginger-beer bottle illuminated their baby 
 efforts. I must add, however, that, accord- 
 ing to one man whom I saw in Vale Court, 
 it is possible by buying the wood in the shape 
 of bacon-boxes and dealing direct with the 
 shops to earn 3s. or 4s. a day. 
 
 There are dangerous trades in Birming- 
 ham to which girls and boys are put as soon 
 as they have obtained their certificates, or 
 when by a skilful forgery they are able to 
 pass off as having attained the age when 
 they can dispose of all their time. For one 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 129 
 
 constantly hears of children who are sent to 
 work by their parents with forged certifi- 
 cates. In one recent case a lad of twelve 
 was working as a metal-worker for five 
 shillings a week with a certificate which 
 belonged to his brother, who was over four- 
 teen. 
 
 Perhaps the worst employment to which 
 girls are put in this district is labour in the 
 enamelling factories, which is of so dangerous 
 a nature that their employment is only inter- 
 mittent, and that in spite of elaborate pre- 
 cautions, ventilation, draughts of hot milk, 
 and all the rest of it, these lassies are playing 
 hide-and-seek with that most cruel of 
 poisons — Lead — all the live-long day. 
 
 One has not, it is true, heard of late of bad 
 cases of poisoning which have occurred in 
 this horrid industry, but that is no reason 
 why little girls should be employed in it at 
 all. If, indeed, in that hideous lottery in 
 which the prizes are corruption, decay and 
 death, for some time past blanks only have 
 been drawn, this is a thing on which we are 
 
 9 
 
130 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 earnestly to felicitate ourselves. The danger 
 is, however, there and ever-present. Girls, 
 even grown women, are infinitely more sus- 
 ceptible to the never-forgiving, saturnine 
 intoxication than are boys and men, and in 
 a civilized country should never be exposed 
 to its terrible risks. 
 
 To the file-cutting trade, according to an 
 old file manufacturer, who, with his father 
 before him, has been ninety years in the 
 trade, " no pig, let alone a Christian boy, 
 should ever be put." Yet Christian boys are 
 put there and may start on 3s. 6d. a week. 
 " In my early days, and I started at the age 
 of nine," said the old gentleman, " I was 
 glad of 3d. on Saturdays. But, bless you, 
 it's no manner of work. Look at my hands," 
 he added, and held out his gnarled and 
 twisted fingers. " That's the lead," he re- 
 marked grimly. " One is working with 
 lead." As I was leaving the workshop he 
 called me back, and, said he, " If it's a lad 
 of yours that you have been inquiring into 
 this here beastly trade about, don't you 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 131 
 
 never put him to it. And if it's the lad of 
 any friend of yours of whom you think aught, 
 don't you never let them put him to it." It 
 reminded me of the earnest appeal made to 
 Charles Dickens by the Yorkshireman, whom 
 he had consulted about the schools in 
 Squeersland. 
 
 For the sheer misery, however, of laborious 
 and underpaid labour in which children are 
 forced to participate as long as their little 
 fingers can move and their eyes keep open, 
 it is in the kitchens of the squalid homes 
 in the courts and closes that we must look. 
 There are a number of trades in Birming- 
 ham for which the home-labour of women 
 and children is employed. Finding one's 
 cotton, hemp and needles, twopence an hour 
 may be earned by a woman assisted by one 
 or two children in sewing the chains on to 
 the leather for soldiers' chin-straps. But 
 here child labour almost always fails. 
 Government is very particular, and any 
 strap which as to its seventy-two links (four 
 stitches to each link) is not sewn in the best 
 
 9* 
 
132 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 style of sempstress-ship is pitiless!}^ refused. 
 Deducting expenses, and allowing for goods 
 refused, is. 8d. has been earned in 2^ days 
 by two people working for Government 
 from 6 a.m. to 11 p.m. Where firemen's 
 chin-straps have to be made, the needle 
 has to be pushed through four thicknesses of 
 leather. It is hard work for little hands. 
 
 A.t wrapping up hairpins in paper, ten to 
 the paper, with one outside to hold the 
 package together, a light employment in 
 which any member of the family circle may 
 engage, as much as 2jd. may be earned by 
 two people, or four children, in a couple of 
 days. For this sum 1,000 packages have to 
 be made up. The goods must be fetched 
 from the factory and carried back there 
 besides. 
 
 One penny a day can be gained by a child 
 in bending the tin clasp round safety-pins — 
 " bending safety-pins " they call it. The 
 nimble fingers of children are apt at this 
 work. The payment is at the rate of half- 
 penny a gross, but for some varieties of 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 133 
 
 safety-pins as much as twopence for three 
 gross is cheerfully paid by the manufac- 
 turers. So terrible is the competition by 
 children in this trade that, as an old woman 
 of ninety told me in a house " back of Unit 
 Street," when her husband was alive they 
 could, by working all the week — he from 
 5 a.m. till II p.m., and she from 9 a.m. till 
 the same hour at night — earn two shillings 
 a week between them. 
 
 Then there is the carding of safety-pins — 
 that is to say, fastening safety-pins in gra- 
 duated sizes on to cards. For a gross of 
 these cards, with nine pins of different sizes 
 on each card, the payment is 2|-d. For a 
 gross of cards with fifteen pins fourpence is 
 paid, and for a gross of eighteen-pin cards, 
 fivepence. Here children are very useful, 
 and may after practice earn halfpenny an 
 hour. A woman alone working her hardest 
 can earn about twopence. 
 
 This kind of employment is much run 
 after, and at any time of the day you may 
 see outside the factories children waiting 
 
134 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 with perambulators to bring home their 
 stocks of pins and cards. But trade was 
 slack at the time of my visit to Birmingham, 
 and many carders of safety-pins apply over 
 and over again for the materials for their 
 pitiful industry. In Tower Street, where I 
 found a woman and three little children 
 engaged in this work, I was told that 
 " mother " had applied twice a day at the 
 factory for a week and that all the work 
 she got amounted to the value of is. 4d. 
 Whilst this conversation was going on be- 
 tween us an alcoholic neighbour-woman was 
 deriding the family energies. For her part, 
 she insisted, rather than do such slave- 
 work for such a price, she would ten thousand 
 times rather go and collect horse-manure 
 in the streets. 
 
 Three-halfpence may be earned at home 
 by varnishing 144 penholders. Each pen- 
 holder must first be rubbed with sandpaper 
 and then varnished, five coats of the varnish 
 being applied with a sponge. It is dirty 
 and unpleasant work, and you may imagine 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 135 
 
 the comfort of a slum-kitchen full of children 
 in which threepennyworth of sticky pen- 
 holders — 288 to wit — are lying about in the 
 process of drying. This is reckoned skilled 
 labour. There is a knack to be acquired, 
 and children must serve a home apprentice- 
 ship before they can earn anything at the 
 trade. 
 
 Papering pins and sewing buttons on to 
 cards are two other industries where the 
 wages per hour for child-labour may be com- 
 puted by infinitesimal fractions of pence. 
 In Birmingham the decimal system of coin- 
 age which obtains in France should speedily 
 be introduced. One can calculate a child's 
 hourly earnings at these miserable little trades 
 by centimes alone. 
 
 A very general industry is the carding of 
 hooks and eyes, and the advantage of it is 
 that the tiniest mite can here render assist- 
 ance. Mother and her little girls sew the 
 eyes on to the cards, and then baby passes 
 the hooks into these eyes. Mother and the 
 girls then sew down the hooks and the card 
 
136 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 is complete. There are four dozen hooks 
 and eyes on each card, and gross and gross 
 of cards go to a pack. Shall we calculate 
 the number of stitches which a pack de- 
 mands ? No, we have no time for mental 
 arithmetic, but we can guess the total fairly 
 accurately by the cotton we consume. One 
 has to supply one's own cotton and the speed 
 with which it is used up cannot fail to im- 
 press us. 
 
 I visited many homes where poor women 
 and children were working at this trade. In 
 Tower Street I found a woman who, assisted 
 by her children out of school hours — she 
 herself working all day — could earn eight- 
 pence. Out of this she pays a penny to a 
 woman of the " fogger " or " farmer " class, 
 who gets the work from the factory and farms 
 it out. A reasonable woman, this fogger of 
 Tower Street, for one hears of foggers in this 
 city of Birmingham who will keep for them- 
 selves fifty per cent, and even more of the 
 miserable sums earned by these miserable 
 children. 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 137 
 
 Back of Richard Street I found a woman 
 and a little girl, who were both as white of 
 face as is the paper upon which I trace their 
 painful records, who were dying of starva- 
 tion in the hook-and-eye trade. " Starting," 
 she said, " the two of us early on Saturday 
 morning and working hard all day Satur- 
 day, and beginning again on Monday morn- 
 ing and on till dinner-time, we earned is. 6d. 
 You get lod. for a pack, and you find your 
 own cotton and needles. Me and my little 
 girl— she is the only one of my five children 
 who can help as yet — worked yesterday from 
 4.30 p.m. till past II, and we earned 4d. 
 between us." None of these people had 
 eaten anything all that day. There was only 
 a little tea and sugar in the house. The 
 babies were crying. 
 
 A miserable woman living in a " fur- 
 nished " room in Hospital Street, for which 
 she pays 5s. 3d. a week, can earn, with child- 
 help, 8d. a day at this same trade. 
 
 I heard of a woman — a handless woman 
 doubtless — in Coleshill Street who, working 
 
138 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 with two girls, got 2s. a week for herself and 
 2s. a week for the fogger. This woman's 
 husband was earning i8s. a week, but needed 
 most of it for himself. 
 
 There was deep pathos in all these scenes, 
 but the spectacle which, when I think back 
 upon these heavy hours, will always haunt 
 me with greatest sorrow is one I saw in 
 a kitchen, in a house off Jennens Row, in 
 a courtyard under the lee of a common 
 lodging. Here, late one evening, I found 
 three little children, busy at work at a table 
 on which were heaped up piles of cards, and 
 a vast mass of tangled hooks and eyes. The 
 eldest girl was eleven, the next was nine, and 
 a little boy of five completed the companion- 
 ship. They were all working as fast as their 
 little fingers could work. The girls sewed, 
 the baby hooked. They were too busy to 
 raise their eyes from their tasks — the clear 
 eyes of youth under the flare of the lamp ! 
 Here were the energy, the interest, which 
 in our youth we all bring to our several tasks 
 in the happy ignorance of the weight and 
 
Child-Slavery in Birmingham. 139 
 
 stress of the years and years of drudgery to 
 come. 
 
 I looked at these bright eyes^ these quick 
 and flexible fingers, and I thought of the old 
 woman of ninety whom I had seen in the 
 morning in Unit Street. I remembered her 
 eyes which had the glaze of approaching 
 dissolution upon them ; I remembered the 
 knotted, labour-gnarled hands. Her eyes 
 had been bright once. She, too, had brought 
 interest and energy to the miserable tasks 
 in which her life began. Years had fol- 
 lowed years, decade had added itself to 
 decade. There had been no change brought 
 by chance or time. 
 
 The drudgery is eternal. There is no 
 hope of rehef. One treads, firmly at first, 
 and then with faltering steps, the mill-round 
 of one's allotted task, until the end, which 
 is the nameless grave. And it was because 
 I read in the clear eyes of those children the 
 ignorance of this cruel but indisputable 
 postulate of the lives of the very poor, that 
 their very brightness, their cheerfulness filled 
 
140 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 me with more poignant sorrow than any I 
 had felt till then. Quous Tandem. How 
 long ? How long ? All your life and till 
 the grave. 
 
141 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 On Child=Slavery in Grimsby. 
 
 The East of London was all grey when I left 
 it J heavy-hearted, that night. The following 
 morning found me in a red-brick town, which 
 (in the dawn as it crept up from the North 
 Sea) seemed swathed in a violet haze. 
 There are fine effects of mysterious colour 
 in red-brick Grimsby as it squats by an 
 expanse which is brown and black always ; 
 brown and black water when the tide is 
 in, black and brown levels of slime and 
 mud when the tide is out. For the envious 
 Humber will have it that the sea shall never 
 be blue here. 
 
 " Yes, I served my apprenticeship in the 
 
142 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 fishing-smacks, and went through the mill 
 like the rest of them, hung up by the thumbs 
 and all that." 
 
 I was in a coffee-shop near the station 
 in the early morning, when I heard these 
 words spoken. Within a few minutes of 
 my arrival, I had heard in a stranger's 
 mouth allusion to one of the very subjects 
 which had brought me to that town. There 
 have been rumours afloat that hazing and 
 worse than that are practised on the fishing- 
 boats of the North Sea fleet. 
 
 " If you want to find out cases of cruelty 
 to lads at sea, go to Grimsby," I had been 
 told in London. And as perhaps no class 
 of child-workers is more sympathetic to an 
 English breast than the little boy-heroes 
 for whom the heart of Englishwomen aches 
 when the wind is howling in the deep, I 
 had come to Grimsby. 
 
 Whilst investigating on my side, I asked 
 an intelligent workman who works about 
 on the docks to inform himself amongst the 
 fishing folk and to write out for me what he 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 143 
 
 might learn as to the treatment of the boys 
 at sea. 
 
 " It is/' he wrote me a day or two later, 
 " a hard life at the best of times in regards 
 enjoyment at sea, and not having much 
 time ashore is where boys become unmanage- 
 able, as they what they term ' stop the 
 ship,' that is to say, instead of going on 
 board when the vessel is ready for sea, 
 they loiter about while the ship gets to sea 
 and then the police appear, the boy being 
 arrested and in many cases sent to prison for 
 various terms of imprisonment. x\s to the 
 life at sea of an apprentice, he lives the same 
 as the rest of the crew, doing various jobs 
 about the ship until he becomes able to 
 steer and sail a vessel, then he rates as deck- 
 hand, afterwards third hand and stays in 
 the third hand's capacity until he is out 
 of his time, being well clothed both at sea 
 and ashore." 
 
 I called on the inspector of the N.S.P.C.C. 
 at his office in TownhaU Street, the walls 
 of which were hung with lamentable photo- 
 
144 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 graphs and a panoply of " stimulants to 
 energy " used on children as shameful as 
 any of those to be seen in the " Museum " 
 at the head office. Particularly to be noticed 
 was a huge bludgeon to which a long lash 
 made out of clock spring was attached. 
 
 " During the three years that I have 
 been on duty in Grimsby," said the inspector, 
 " I have not had to investigate a single case 
 of cruelty to an apprentice at sea." 
 
 A day or two later I went to the fish 
 docks, and, by appointment, met the repre- 
 sentative of one of the fishing companies, 
 who had been kind enough to ask me to 
 lunch at the Nautilus Club, which is the 
 place of meeting of the fish magnates. The 
 gentlemen I met there that day represent 
 a capital in catching-power alone of over 
 three million pounds sterling. 
 
 As we sat round the well-spread board, 
 laughter was long and loud at the stories 
 circulated in London as to the cruelty to 
 apprentices. 
 
 " I am sure," said one magnate, " that 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 145 
 
 I have had over 1,000 apprentices passing 
 through my hands and I cannot recall a 
 single complaint of cruelty being made by 
 any boy." 
 
 " You should remember," said another, 
 " that these boys are the scum of the earth, 
 for the most part, many, the children of 
 degraded and drunken parents reared in 
 the mire, many, full of the most vicious 
 instincts. I suppose if there is any rope- 
 ending, it is always fully deserved." 
 
 " Our boys come to us generally," said a 
 third, " from the workhouses. Sometimes 
 the guardians pass off on us boys who have 
 been tried over and over again at other 
 trades and have been returned to the work- 
 houses without thanks, incorrigible young 
 ruffians. When we find out that they are 
 a nuisance and a danger on board and 
 enquire into their past careers, we find a 
 pretty record." 
 
 " The guardians," said a fourth, " don't 
 seem to care what kind of boys they send 
 us. The other day a lad came down to 
 
 10 
 
146 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 us from a country union, and when our 
 medical officer came to examine him he 
 found out that he was 'soft,' an idiot in 
 fact." 
 
 " Come, come, gentlemen," said the Chair- 
 man, " you mustn't let our friend go away 
 with the impression that all our boys are 
 criminals or idiots." 
 
 " Certainly not, but the fact remains that 
 there are such boys, and that it is owing to 
 them that Grimsby gets this reputation 
 for cruelty. Why, on my ships I often 
 have a captain refusing to go to sea again 
 with some apprentice he may have had on 
 board." 
 
 " But, gentlemen," I hazarded. " These 
 weekly ' Fishery Lists ' that I see in the 
 police-court news of the local papers — 
 ' Refusal of obedience : 28 days' hard 
 labour.' Isn't there some cruelty here ? 
 Isn't there great cruelty here, and would 
 it not be kinder to the lad to rope-end him 
 a merci than to send him over the water 
 to Hull, branded a gaol-bird, to consort 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 147 
 
 with thieves and to risk complete cor- 
 ruption ? " 
 
 " In cold print," said a Justice of the 
 Peace, who was one of the magnates present, 
 " it certainly does look hard that a boy 
 should be sent to prison for a month for 
 a refusal of obedience. But go into the 
 police-courts and see for yourself what 
 kind of fellows these ' boys ' are. They are 
 hulking, big fellows of the class we spoke 
 of just now — fellows of the worst instincts. 
 Why, in the old days of sailing smacks, I 
 have known them to cut a trawl-warp, thus 
 causing a loss of gear of a value of over 
 £100, simply to force the skipper to bring 
 the boat home, as our young gentleman 
 had had enough of that trip. On the steam- 
 trawlers they can't cut the warps, for these 
 are of wire, but they can damage the 
 machinery, and they do. I have known a 
 boy to throw a clinch overboard. Then 
 there is ' stopping the ship.' Your ship is 
 ready to start for Iceland. You have put 
 £10, £15, £20 worth of bait on board. At 
 
 ID* 
 
148 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 the last moment it is found that the ap- 
 prentice is missing. He is hiding. He has 
 no taste for a cruise just then. The men 
 go out to look for him — scour the town. 
 By the time he is found, possibly the dock- 
 gates are closed, or as it is so late the men 
 refuse to start that day and the bait gets 
 spoiled. Look at the loss to us. This is 
 the kind of refusal of obedience that the 
 Bench deals with, and you must remember 
 that the magistrates never sentence a lad 
 to prison the first time he is brought before 
 them. Previous to that he had probably 
 offended several times. The Board of Trade 
 officer reprimands a boy three consecutive 
 times before a case is allowed to go before 
 the magistrates, and that officer is always in 
 court to speak for the lad." 
 
 I could not share this optimism, for I had 
 in mind the lamentable story told me by 
 a little lad — he was only sixteen — who had 
 just come back from " over the water." 
 It seemed to me that no amount of dis- 
 obedience or wilfulness could warrant the 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 149 
 
 Grimsby magistrates subjecting this lad to 
 the treatment described, to brand him a 
 convict. 
 
 " I was accused of stopping ship in the 
 borough of Great Grimsby to which I 
 pleaded guilty, expecting to get a hard 
 time ; but when the Mayor told me I should 
 have to go to prison for a calendar month 
 I could have kissed him for his kindness, 
 although he was a Jew, Mr. Abrahams by 
 name. Then a couple of policemen led 
 me from the dock, searched me and put me 
 among eight or nine other prisoners going 
 on the same outing as myself. We were 
 all in a cage together awaiting dinner, which 
 came before entraining, consisting of a meat 
 sandwich, which comes from a coffee tavern 
 not far from the prison, and while eating 
 it a bloke, a regular prison bird, told me 
 to enjoy the white bread, as I should not 
 get any more for a moon — meaning the 
 month I should be detained in prison — 
 which I found to be correct, as you only 
 get brown bread, a substance comprising 
 
150 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 fine sharps and bran. Dinner over in the 
 prison at Grimsby, we were all shackled 
 together in twos and threes, myself between 
 two more prisoners, one going for a month 
 for stopping his ship, also the other for a 
 fortnight for drunk and disorderly, the others 
 for various crimes which I cannot remember. 
 Arriving at the station we were put in two 
 separate carriages or compartments about 
 1.30 in the afternoon, and arriving at Hull 
 prison about 3.30 the same day, where I 
 was taken along with the other men into 
 a place called the reception ward, where our 
 clothes had another overhauling under the 
 supervision of a Mr. Nash, the chief reception 
 warder ; the order next comes : off clothes, 
 ready for a bath ; which you have and then 
 into prison garb ; then full particulars are 
 taken of you in a ledger by the said Mr. 
 Nash, assisted by one or two more warders. 
 Then you await in some small recesses 
 until you are ordered before the prison 
 doctor, who also gives you an overhauling, 
 and by the time this is done your most 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 151 
 
 beautiful supper arrives, which consists of 
 gruel — one pint, sweetened with salt and 
 an eight-ounce loaf of brown bread, which 
 goes in the name of busters, I suppose, on 
 account of the way they blow you out, 
 but you have very little relish for such food, 
 as I would not feed a dog of mine on the 
 same. Supper over, you are taken from 
 the reception-ward of the office in the centre 
 of the prison, where the prison rules are 
 read over to you by the governor ; a sterner 
 man I never saw before in the whole course 
 of my life ; he has a voice like that of a 
 Yankee speaking entirely through his nose 
 and very sharp. Then you proceed to your 
 allotted cell (the home of peace and quiet- 
 ness as I have often termed it) ; inside your 
 cell, which is a concreted floor tarred over 
 for a carpet, painted up the side about three 
 feet a drab colour, the remainder white- 
 washed. Your bed-boarded bed consisting 
 of three boards about nine inches wide, 
 nailed about an inch apart to keep the 
 draught out. On the top are nailed some 
 
152 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 pieces, the top pieces being thicker than the 
 bottom to give it an inchne from the head 
 to the feet, reared up in one corner when 
 not in use, your bedding rolled prison style 
 in the opposite corner, above which is a 
 little shelf for your Bible, prayer-book, hymn- 
 book, etc. ; your dining-table next to the 
 door for handiness ; a stool to sit upon and 
 work ; a tin measure holding about half a 
 gallon of drinking water ; a chamber utensil 
 and wash-bowl, all tin, is the contents of 
 the cell. The warders show you how to 
 arrange the furniture, how to make your 
 bed, lay your bedding, which is pretty fair, 
 comprising one blanket, one sheet, one 
 counterpane and one rug in the summer, and 
 one extra blanket from November to March. 
 The door is closed and you prepare for bed 
 between seven and eight, the warders coming 
 about eight o'clock to see if all's well. Then 
 sleep until about quarter to six in the morning, 
 when a bell is tolled in prison, announcing 
 the start for another day ; you get up, clean 
 your utensils, make up your bed, a wash, 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 153 
 
 and then breakfast : one pint of gruel, 
 one loaf, eight ounces, the same material 
 as before mentioned, not very palatable, 
 but as use is second nature you get used to 
 it and quite relish it at times. You see 
 no meat for the first week, being on diet 
 A, and after the first week you come on 
 diet B. About that further. You have no 
 work for the first day on account of the 
 chaplain visiting you on the first day of 
 entrance and the last day but one on leaving, 
 asking what brought you there and saying 
 he is very sorry and hopes you will not come 
 again. Then you go before the governor 
 or the head-warder to let him know if 
 you are going back to where you come from, 
 and the rest of the day you are left to your- 
 self, to either sit and make better resolutions, 
 or to parade up and down your cell. Night 
 creeps on ; you prepare your bed, minding 
 to carefully shake the boards up, so as to 
 lay a bit more comfortable. The first night 
 over and then the second breakfast over, 
 cell arranged, then chapel, which lasts about 
 
154 ^^^ Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 half an hour ; then chapel over, the governor, 
 the head warder and another warder come 
 round to see if you have any complaints to 
 make, but as silence is golden it is best to 
 say nothing ; then about an hour after I 
 was brought some oakum to pick and told 
 I was to get through it or else look out for 
 squalls. I was picking oakum for three 
 days, and then I was put making mail-bags 
 to fit in Government mail baskets — those 
 square ones — and I stopped on that employ 
 for the remainder of my sentence. Regarding 
 the officials, the governor and the chaplain 
 and the warders, they consider you as pigs, 
 not as human beings, and some of the 
 warders, being quite young men, think they 
 are driving slaves about and fancy them- 
 selves above their positions, and it is a 
 wonder some of them do not get put through 
 it, as I could beat a dozen of them if I had 
 them in a twelve-foot ring, but as the time is 
 not very cheerful, the least you say the soonest 
 mended. Regarding diet, you are on a 
 diet for the first seven days, which con- 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 155 
 
 sists of: — Breakfast: Gruel, one pint, eight 
 ounces of bread daily. Dinner : Sweet duff 
 made of the same material as the bread 
 with the suet thrown in, pieces as big as 
 little nuts — very palatable. Supper : Same 
 as breakfast. There are three changes 
 during the week as regards dinner : Suet 
 duff, porridge, that is, thickened gruel, 
 potatoes, all boiled together, good ones and 
 bad ones, with their jackets on, together to 
 give them a more appetising flavour. Diet 
 B consists of : — Breakfast : Porridge. 
 Dinner : 2 oz. extra duff, 10 oz. ; 8 oz. 
 potatoes. Changes during week are : — Soup, 
 the best meal of the week ; 6 oz. of bread ; 
 8 oz. of potatoes, or the same quantity 
 of boiled rice in place of potatoes. Third 
 change : Boiled beans, 10 oz. ; bread, 6oz. ; 
 bacon fat, boiled, 2 oz. Suppers : All the 
 same^porridge . ' ' 
 
 Et voila tout. A lad, sixteen, and a con- 
 vict for offending £3,000,000 of catching 
 power. 
 
 At the Fisher Lads' Institute, in Orwell 
 
156 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Street, a less optimistic view of the situation 
 was taken by Mr. Isaac Miller. He did 
 not suppose that it was always out of sheer 
 viciousness that the lads refused to go to 
 sea, and in any case the sentence of a month's 
 hard labour for disobedience seemed a mon- 
 strous one. 
 
 An excellent place this Fisher Lads' In- 
 stitute, which I visited under the guidance 
 of Mr. Miller. On the ground-floor a 
 large gymnasium, with the boys busy at 
 exercise. At the far end a raised stand, 
 where a lady was playing the piano for the 
 amusement of the little fishermen. On this 
 floor, also, are reading-rooms, a refreshment- 
 room and rooms where the boys can play 
 bagatelle. On the next floor are the board- 
 room, a room for men. (" We like to keep 
 in touch with them after they have grown 
 up," said Mr. Miller), and a class-room 
 where navigation is taught to the boys. 
 Upstairs, again, I found a chef teaching a 
 number of lads the principles and practice 
 of the art to which Vatel owed his fame. 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 157 
 
 Downstairs once more, I invited Mr. Ernest 
 Johnson to enter the refreshment-room. He 
 was the smallest young gentleman I could 
 find on the premises. Mr. Ernest Johnson, 
 who is a little over fourteen, late of Hull 
 Workhouse. He was very pleased, indeed, 
 with the life, and as to rope-ending, he hadn't 
 had any yet, though, no doubt, if he deserved 
 it the skipper would attend to that. But, 
 he added, he had only been to sea for four 
 months and perhaps I had better see his 
 chum, Mr. Harry Tyson, also late of Hull 
 Workhouse, who had been at sea for nearly 
 a year. This veteran mariner proved to be 
 an even smaller boy, but I was very glad 
 to see Mr. Henry Tyson, and I fetched 
 ginger-beer and chocolate-creams from the 
 bar and we sat down at the equally- 
 divided banquet and were very pleasant and 
 sociable. 
 
 Mr. Henry Tyson also found it a very 
 agreeable hfe and could tell me nothing 
 about rope-ending, " never having deserved 
 any." Indeed, better-behaved young gentle- 
 
158 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 men one could not wish to meet, though I 
 should have preferred them more spirited. 
 But, pumped full of Catechism in the work- 
 house, under constant reminder of their 
 origin and condition, they could not but 
 order themselves lowly and reverently. 
 And compared to life in a workhouse, 
 perhaps . 
 
 I shook hands with Henry and Ernest, 
 who go down to the sea on ships, and I think 
 them very fine little fellows, each a slave 
 with a hero in him, like Spartacus of 
 yore. 
 
 A pleasant life, Henry ? But, I know the 
 life, Henry. I have lived it, and I will say 
 this, that neither on sea nor land can toil 
 more exacting, existence more dour be 
 found. 
 
 Yes, we are well-fed. A 14 lb. chunk 
 of beef is put down every day. We have 
 fresh bread and butter and abundance of 
 vegetables, and fish and relishes. We are 
 allowed no beer on board, but the tea- 
 kettle or the coffee-kettle is always standing 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 159 
 
 in the steward's galley, and if any man is 
 thirsty he can just go and help himself. 
 
 But, what about sleep ? Who was the 
 little boy who told me he was sometimes 
 glad to get two hours' sleep out of the twenty- 
 four ? When the fish is plentiful and we 
 haul the nets every four hours, we get no 
 sleep at all, often for two consecutive days 
 and nights. 
 
 The strained faces, with the flush of the 
 fever of fatigue upon them, the weary, 
 weary eyes, that I have seen around the 
 cabin-table in the trawler ! The haunting 
 eyes ! 
 
 A pleasant life, perhaps, for one who loves 
 to watch the light on land and sea, the 
 shifting, lifting deep, the unending and 
 marvellous surprises of the waves. Indeed, 
 I do not think that sight more wonderful 
 can be descried than when, at the mid- 
 night haiil, the great net rises out of the 
 sea, under the white glare of the acetylene 
 lamps. The sea is all black and the bag 
 is all white. It is like a bag full of jewels. 
 
i6o The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 and the water that streams from it, under 
 the glare of the lamps, looks like a cascade 
 of pearls. The bag rises majestically to the 
 whirring of the engine, and then swings round 
 over the deck. It opens and there pours 
 down a torrent of liquid mother-o'-pearl, that 
 floods the deck, a shimmering, quivering, 
 agitated mass. When you look at it closer, 
 it seems at first all eyes, but after a while 
 you discern weird forms and faces, the cat- 
 fish with its human head, the devilish 
 apparition of the monk. The motions next 
 divide and separate for your understanding, 
 the heavings of the halibut, the leapings of 
 the haddock, the glidings of shark-like things, 
 the flappings of the fiat-fish. 
 
 Aye, Harry, to the eyes it is a pleasant 
 life, but to the hands, the arms, the legs. 
 On the trawlers we are mariners and butchers 
 too. After the haul, seated in the slush 
 of the deck, our knives are never idle. We 
 gut, and we gut, and we gut. When it 
 is rough we get drenched as we work. As 
 the putting-down proceeds the quagmire of 
 
/ .-? 
 
 ^ ' 
 
 Gutting Kish on a Grimsby Trawler. 
 
 \_Toface/>a«^,; i6o. 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. i6i 
 
 blood and filth in which we move rises 
 higher and higher. We are the very dirtiest 
 men in the world, as we always are the 
 wettest, as. in winter we are the coldest. 
 And when the fish is abundant, this con- 
 dition, this labour may not cease for two 
 continuous days and nights. 
 
 But we are well-fed and well-clothed, and 
 if we boys get little sleep we get a shilling a 
 trip and our share of the livers of the 
 fish. 
 
 If there is no cruelty on board the Grimsby 
 boats towards the child-workers, alas, that 
 we cannot say the same of the Grimsby 
 homes. Street-hawking and house- work are 
 the tasks laid upon the children of the town. 
 The newspaper boys are nearly all school 
 children, who sell their papers in between 
 school-hours and as late as eleven at night. 
 
 " There is any amount of home-work 
 done by children here," said the inspector 
 of the N.S.P.C.C.— " the cruelty man "— 
 " and as to cruelty to children, last year 
 I dealt with 177 cases here, which'' is five 
 
 II 
 
i62 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 more than were dealt with at Leeds. It is 
 usually step-mothers who force the children 
 to do all the house- work." 
 
 Here is the statement of a httle Grimsby 
 Marchioness. It is typical of hundreds of 
 similar cases. 
 
 " I am fourteen years of age. I live with 
 father and step-mother. Since three years, 
 since I have been with step-mother, I have 
 done all the house- work. Step-mother never 
 does none. I used to get up at 5.30 in 
 the morning. I have got up at 4.30. I 
 get to bed at g. I don't get enough to 
 eat. About twice a week I don't get no 
 breakfast. When I do get breakfast it's 
 a cup of tea and a round of bread-and- 
 dripping. Dinner is dry bread and onions. 
 Step-mother punches me in the back. She 
 knocks me about something cruel. I have 
 had a fork thrown at me. It stuck in my 
 back." 
 
 We hear also of Sarah Elizabeth N , 
 
 whose step-mother, Charlotte N , was 
 
 sent to prison for a month. Sarah was nine 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 163 
 
 years old and had to get up early in the 
 mornings to light the fires and get a cup 
 of tea for Madame N ■. Sarah some- 
 times used oil. " Thick stick," " Bed-clothes 
 to drown screams," " Fearful bruises," are 
 some of my notes on this case. 
 
 We have a boy of five who has to get up 
 at six to light fires and make the breakfast. 
 When he comes home he has to help in 
 the housework. A boy of five ! 
 
 The entire housework is done by children 
 in many of these squalid homes. In Grimsby, 
 the school children are free from school on 
 Fridays at 1.30. This is because they go 
 and draw father's money for their mothers. 
 " Such cleaning of these Grimsby houses 
 as is done, is done by the children on Friday 
 afternoons and Saturdays." 
 
 The feeding of the children is shocking. 
 " Perhaps in no part of England is the 
 stamina of the poorer classes lower than in 
 Grimsby," was the remark made to me 
 by one of the leading doctors in the town. 
 He added : " It is the ignorance and in- 
 
 II* 
 
164 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 difference of the mothers. You hear of 
 cases of babies-in-arms being fed on bread 
 and meat. Our coroner keeps thundering 
 against them, but in vain." 
 
 Amongst Inspector Furney's trophies are 
 a couple of filthy feeding-bottles. He found 
 babies sucking dirty water out of these. 
 
 The children are kept as filthy as the 
 homes. '' Bad heads are very common here 
 — vermin and sores." 
 
 The cause of this sad disorder is the 
 conditions under which these households 
 exist. The absence of the husbands, the 
 immorality, the profound immorality of the 
 mothers, the indifference, the profound in- 
 difference of the magistrates, the lottery 
 of the income — for when the catch is good 
 there is money for riot, and in the contrary 
 case, possible distress — all these conditions 
 contribute to this state of things. 
 
 And though air is plentiful in Grimsby, 
 even in the slums, the slovenliness of many 
 of the mothers is such that you can hardly 
 see filthier homes in the kingdom than some 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 165 
 
 you may visit in parts of Burgess Street, 
 Hope Street or King Edward Street. If 
 you enter the " Rabbit Warrens " down 
 Hunter Court, in Trinity Square, you will 
 put your handkerchief over your mouth. 
 
 In these parts you may find people like 
 the old man who was recently hanged in 
 Lincoln Gaol for the murder in Hope Street, 
 of whom the prison chaplain said that he 
 had never met a more ignorant man. " He 
 knew nothing. He had never heard of God 
 nor of prayer. He knew about nothing but 
 about drink. He knew nothing." 
 
 I heard here of a lad, who had been sent 
 to an industrial school just before my 
 arrival, whose father never did any work 
 and " who, to feed his httle sisters going 
 to school, used to go out to ' bag ' bread." 
 
 Can one look for anything but the de- 
 generation of the race, when children live 
 in such homes, with such parents, on such 
 food? 
 
 Grimsby was interesting to me also as 
 one of the ports by which aliens enter 
 
i66 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 England. Many are transmigrants, i.e., on 
 their way to America, via Liverpool. " The 
 better-class go through," was the cheerful 
 remark made to me by Mr. Harry Parker, 
 the superintendent of the Emigrants' Home 
 on the docks in Grimsby. " The Jews — 
 the dirtiest class — as a rule stay in England." 
 They go to add to the overcrowding of 
 Leeds and Manchester and other Midland 
 towns, where tailoring is done. 
 
 The German authorities do not encourage 
 transmigration via England. Only two 
 steamship companies are allowed to take 
 passengers to America from Hamburg, who 
 wish to pass through England and proceed 
 by English steamers to the Promised Land. 
 The German companies want the passage 
 money for themselves. We are welcome to 
 the human rubbish vomited forth by Eastern 
 Europe who have no money wherewith to 
 proceed further than our island. 
 
 Every effort is made by the authorities 
 in Hamburg to stop the carrying of trans- 
 migrants. Inspectors come on board and 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 167 
 
 bully the captain as to his accommodation, 
 as to his stores. " Show us how you make 
 a cup of tea," they will say, or they may 
 ask him to open a tin of meat. They show 
 no anxiety whatever as regards the people 
 who have tickets only for England. These 
 have no money.* 
 
 Some, however, are transients. That is 
 to say, they come to England penniless, 
 hoping to pick up enough money here to 
 carry them across the Atlantic to the 
 Promised Land. 
 
 One such family, a Russian Jew, his wife 
 and three children landed recently in 
 Grimsby. They had not one penny. They 
 managed to get into a house. " There are 
 houses here which the landlords will let 
 out on the chance of getting the rent." 
 They furnished this house with nothing in 
 the front room, a table and a few boxes 
 
 * During a recent visit to Hamburg, I asked the Chief of Police of 
 the Free State the true reason of the interference complained of by the 
 English skippers. He said it was done under the provisions of the 
 German Empire Law on Emigration, and that the motive of it was 
 "humanity." 
 
1 68 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 in the back. The bed was upstairs on the 
 floor. The attention of the authorities was 
 drawn to this family by a report from the 
 parish doctor. The woman had come to 
 him with her three children, who were all 
 covered with sores and " were breaking out 
 in a scaly disease." The man, whose trade 
 it was "to go out putting in windows," 
 was found lying, ill and starving, on the bed 
 on the floor. The children had certainly 
 brought the disease with them. 
 
 I told Mr. Harry Parker that he en- 
 courages the arrival in England of such 
 people, by the admirable way in which, 
 under the Great Central Railway, he receives 
 and provides for them. The Emigrants' 
 Home, on Grimsby Dock, must appear to 
 many of the ragged wretches fleeing from 
 their starvation holes in Poland, Russia 
 and Croatia, the enchanted palace of their 
 hungry dreams. Two large, well-lighted 
 halls, spotlessly clean, the walls decorated 
 with colour posters. One is the reception 
 hall, the other the dining-hall. Here, on 
 
Child-Slavery in Grimsby. 169 
 
 the night of my first visit there, I found 
 200 emigrants being entertained. The tables 
 were beautifully laid — blue crockery, good 
 cutlery, all shining and bright, and, at 
 intervals, plants in pots. The only plants 
 I noticed at the Emigrants' Home in New 
 York, Ellis Island to wit, under the torch 
 of Bartholdi's Liberty, were the bludgeons in 
 the hands of the warders. At Ellis Island, 
 during my detention there, the only food 
 served out was mouldy bread and mouldier 
 prunes. Here the emigrants sat down and 
 there was served to them coffee in big bowls 
 and bread and butter and meat and pickles. 
 Beyond the reception rooms is the big 
 kitchen, and to the right of this the bed- 
 rooms for such emigrants as may have to 
 stay the night. In Ellis Island five out of 
 the six hundred of us lay on the bare boards 
 and let the vermin creep over us. Here I 
 saw good beds, with white sheets and big 
 pillows and blue quilts. Curtains to the 
 windows and pictures on the walls. Flowers 
 and plants. 
 
170 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Too much kindness, perhaps, to those 
 who come from abroad and too httle for 
 those at home. May not that be one of 
 our England's faults ? 
 
171 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 On Child=Slavery in Scotland. 
 
 EDINBURGH — GLASGOW — DUNDEE. 
 
 Scotland is a poor country and where the 
 struggle for hfe is the hardest^ there also is 
 the selfishness of the individual the greatest. 
 I desire no better illustration of this 
 national trait than is afforded by the little 
 boy we hear of at a school in Edinburgh, 
 who, a slave himself, and a slave under 
 deplorable conditions, furthers his minute 
 interests by the enslavement of children 
 smaller than himself. This is a lad of seven. 
 He started work as an errand-boy out of 
 school hours when he was six years old. He 
 works four hours a day on school days and 
 five hours on Saturdays. His wages are 
 
172 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 twopence a night. Both his parents are 
 ahve, and his father, who is a cab-washer, 
 is earning fair wages. The boy is described 
 as dirty and slow, and frequently absent 
 from school. Yet such as he is this lad of 
 seven is an employer of labour. We hear 
 that " he employs small boys to sell papers 
 for him "^slaves of a slave. 
 
 The particular errands on which this 
 enterprising young man was engaged were 
 in the distribution of milk. Of 1,406 school 
 children employed out of school hours in 
 Edinburgh, into whose labours investigation 
 has been made, we find thirty-five per cent, 
 engaged in this carrying to others of that 
 milk for which their starving bodies are 
 mutely clamouring. In the terrible report 
 on the physical condition of children in 
 Scotland, which was recently issued, we find 
 the Commissioners bewailing the defective 
 nutrition of the children. They suggest that 
 it would be an " inestimable advantage " if 
 the children could be supplied with regular 
 and sufficient meals — such as porridge and 
 
N*K=i2>v 
 
 Edinburgh Street Hawkers. 
 
 \^To face pas;e 172 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 173 
 
 milk and bread and milk. But to the little 
 milk-carriers of Edinburgh, Glasgow and 
 Dundee may be repeated the " Sic vos non 
 vobis " of the Latin poet. " Pieces " is the 
 staple of their fare, and pieces are dry crusts 
 of bread. When herrings are cheap there 
 may be " kitchen " to the bread. 
 
 In Glasgow it is a sight to which I was con- 
 voked, to see hundreds of half-naked little 
 children lurking in the early dawn in such 
 streets as Argyll Street, Jamaica Street and 
 Howard Street for the opening of the shops 
 of bakers and fishmongers. Mouldy bread 
 and fish, which is unfit for sale, are welcome 
 to these little ones, the whilst the recommen- 
 dations of H.M.'s Commissioners lie buried 
 in the Blue Books. What milk does come 
 their way must come by fraud, and I shall 
 often think of the little boy whom one early 
 Glasgow morning I saw filling up a can, which 
 he had looted of some of its contents, from 
 the stream of the Martyr's Fountain. I 
 approved of his determination that as long 
 as rich and nourishing milk was to be had, 
 
174 ^^^ Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 and there was water to replace it, he at 
 least would be no martyr. 
 
 To be noted amongst the tradesmen by 
 whom the 1,406 Edinburgh children are em- 
 ployed as messengers and helps, are news- 
 agents employing 169 children ; grocers, the 
 hardest taskmasters, employing one hundred 
 and forty-three, and barbers, who have 
 twenty-two little slaves in their service. Ten 
 of these children are greedy pluralists. Two 
 work for dairymen in the morning and for 
 grocers in the evening. Others engaged in 
 the distribution of milk in the morning, 
 lather customers for barbers till late at night 
 and, of course, all day on Saturdays. 
 
 One little boy is the gillie-whitefoot to a 
 benevolent institution, and if his naked feet 
 are not white his face as certainly is : a 
 thing that may be said of many of the little 
 errand boys and girls of Scotland. This 
 nakedness of the children's feet in Scotland 
 is the country's disgrace. In the Scotch 
 themselves it awakens mild surprise to hear 
 a Southron express astonishment that one 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 175 
 
 should see, even in midwinter, so many 
 naked little feet, not in the streets only, but 
 in the very schools. In human er England 
 it is considered by the attendance officers 
 of the School Boards a vaHd and sufficient 
 excuse for non-attendance that the child 
 has no boots in which to go to school. In 
 Scotland that is not so. I have visited 
 several schools in Scotland and was shocked 
 to see the number of barefooted children in 
 the class-rooms. In Glasgow this state of 
 things is more frequently met with than in 
 other Scotch towns. 
 
 At a big school in Govan I stood at the 
 bottom of the stairs and watched the return 
 of the children from a short interval in the 
 playground. A gay march was being played 
 by one of the teachers, to which the little 
 ones footed inwards and upstairs in couples. 
 Every now and then the rythmic tramp of 
 their steps was broken by the sound of a 
 damp and sodden footfall. It was the foot- 
 fall of white feet that were not white, to 
 whom upon this bitter winter morn that 
 
176 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 march over the freezing stones may have 
 been the very march of death. It astonishes 
 one not to find in the summary of recom- 
 mendations made by the Commissioners on 
 the physical condition of children in Scotland 
 any reference to the urgency of compelling 
 parents to dress their children properly. 
 We are to remember that of six hundred 
 school children picked at random from the 
 Edinburgh schools by Doctor Mackenzie^ 
 70.5 per cent, were found to be diseased. 
 
 But the individualism of the Scotch is such 
 that no one cares. In Sauchiehall Street, 
 Glasgow, one miserable night, I met a little 
 boy, who cannot have been over six years 
 old, and who, save for a tattered shirt and 
 a ragged pair of breeches, which reached no 
 further than his knees, was entirely naked. 
 He had slouched out of some Cowcaddens 
 slum, doubtless, to take the air. I watched 
 him for some time, and then followed close 
 upon his heels, speering the face of each 
 warm and well-fed citizen that we passed. 
 For myself, done up in a huge overcoat, with 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 177 
 
 goloshes, comforter and the rest, the Glasgow 
 air chilled me to the bone. But what was 
 even colder was the vacant stare that each 
 man and woman that we passed threw on the 
 little naked boy ahead. In not one eye did 
 I note the glint of pity. There was no 
 curiosity, nor amazement either. This was 
 a usual sight, a thing familiar. In many 
 English towns that lad's progress would have 
 been stopped at once by anxious and excited 
 inquirers. In France the agents of the law 
 would have taken him home and demanded 
 an explanation from his parents. In Scot- 
 land we have no use for little ill-fed children, 
 who need to be warmly clad in our bitter 
 climate. If they take cold and die, well, 
 here the battle is to the strong. 
 
 In Edinburgh one is less exposed to the 
 beholding of such sights. That is thanks to 
 the manner of its construction. The upper 
 classes in Edinburgh are actually so. They 
 live on the heights. It is in the awful pit 
 below that the very poor swarm. Yet in 
 the matter of cruel imposition on the little 
 
 12 
 
178 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 ones Edinburgh may veil its exalted head. 
 Of the 1,406 children to whom I have 
 referred, 307 are ten years of age or under. 
 Four of them are six years old, and eleven 
 are seven years of age. 
 
 We hear of boys working seventeen hours 
 (from 7 a.m. to 12 p.m.) on Saturdays. 
 For children to work twelve, thirteen and 
 fourteen hours on Saturdays is quite common. 
 The average wage seems to be three farthings 
 an hour, but one hears of children who are 
 paid one shilling and sixpence for over 
 thirty-eight hours of toil. And we have to 
 bear in mind that " a great number of the 
 children belong to families who are quite 
 comfortably off." 
 
 Amongst the excellent citizens of Edin- 
 burgh, those who trouble about the matter 
 at all seem for the most part of opining that 
 out-of-school work is beneficial rather to the 
 children. This optimistic view is not, how- 
 ever, shared by those who have the best 
 opportunities of watching the effects of such 
 toil on the children's physique and morale. 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 179 
 
 A schoolmaster at one of the schools in the 
 centre of the town says : "I am seriously 
 convinced that in all cases where employ- 
 ment takes place before breakfast or after 
 dark, the results are very marked on the 
 physique. Dwarfing, stooping, and the loss 
 of stamina are symptoms. ... A lower 
 result and a smaller quantity of brain activity 
 is usually obtained. Morally, the results are 
 disastrous in most cases. Insolence, coarse in- 
 tonation, swearing, lying, pilfering and lewd- 
 ness are the chief products of message-going 
 by boys." 
 
 Here, too, as in London, we find parents 
 who, obtaining for their children exemption 
 from school by doctor's certificate, force them 
 to continue their productive work. One hears 
 of a little girl of nine who, exempted from 
 school on account of some bad skin disease, 
 was found plying her trade as milk-carrier. 
 The mother said that " as the can was shut 
 it didn't matter." 
 
 As in London, the labours of the school 
 children are in no wise apprenticeship or pre- 
 
i8o The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 paration for their future lives. The grocer's 
 httle errand-boy will be discharged when he 
 grows bigger and needs higher wages ; the 
 chemist's runner is not in training to become 
 a chemist. The three farthings an hour on 
 the one hand and the physical, moral and 
 intellectual degeneration on the other, are 
 all that the little ones here, as elsewhere, get 
 out of toil from which many a grown man 
 would shrink. 
 
 The " Marchioness," or diminutive slavey, 
 such as we found in such numbers in the 
 East End of London, is in little request in 
 Edinburgh, or, indeed, anywhere in Scot- 
 land. In twenty-four out of thirty-two 
 schools under the Board in Edinburgh, only 
 six little girls were found who were engaged 
 out of school hours in domestic work. This 
 is no doubt because of the difference in the 
 ways in which Edinburgh people on the one 
 hand, and Londoners on the other, are lodged. 
 In the Scotch cities the foul tenement house 
 is usual. The poor in London live in cottages. 
 
 The foul tenement-house. There is no 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. i8i 
 
 other word for it, and it is when we see these 
 children in their homes in Scotland that 
 we understand the awful results that were 
 obtained by the Physical Commission. The 
 Edinburgh homes are bad enough, but what 
 shall be said of Glasgow ? We learn that in 
 this city there are over thirty thousand 
 families living in one-room dwellings. In 
 many cases these single rooms are both the 
 " home " and the workshop of the family. 
 One needs to have visited some of these 
 homes to appreciate their horror. They are 
 to be found in every district in the town. 
 
 In the fashionable Sauchiehall Street you 
 are within two minutes' walk of Cowcaddens, 
 where you may almost pick your house at 
 random. My investigations took place 
 mainly in the Garngad Road, but I visited 
 Piccadilly also, amongst other places, and 
 Go van. In Go van, what is called the 
 " sunk " apartment is very common. Here 
 one lives below the level of the street. In 
 England these cave-dwellings are every- 
 where being closed up. Even Leeds has 
 
i82 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 awakened to a sense of their civic disgrace. 
 But for the most part the one-room dwellers 
 live up interminable flights of dirty and 
 reeking stairs. Water is often only supplied 
 to these houses in the form of drippings 
 from the skies. The walls ooze with damp. 
 "It is almost impossible," says Miss 
 Irwin, " to give any adequate idea of the 
 dreary squalor of many of these places, 
 which have to do duty both as homes and 
 workshops, and which do not meet the most 
 elementary requirements of either. The 
 rooms themselves are sometimes over- 
 crowded with dirty lumber representing fur- 
 niture, sometimes almost destitute of furni- 
 ture of any kind. The bed, which is really 
 the architectural feature of the apartment, 
 is most frequently that supreme abomina- 
 tion peculiar to Scotland, known as the 
 ' box ' or concealed bed. It has been sug- 
 gested that this may be a lingering relic of 
 our cave-dwelling ancestors. By day it 
 serves indifferently as a wardrobe, a larder, 
 a playground for the children, and a sort 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 183 
 
 of free coup for the household odds and 
 ends. It has to receive the vests, trousers, 
 shirts, and other garments on which the 
 mother has been working, the unwashed 
 dinner dishes, the aihng baby, or its grand- 
 mother, as the case may be. It may also 
 have consigned to its friendly shade the 
 person of that member of the family com- 
 monly referred to by his better-half as 
 ' him there ' during periods when circum- 
 stances, alas ! render a temporary retirement 
 from society advisable." 
 
 Here are hundreds of such " homes " 
 where, as in many parts of England, the bed 
 is only a heap of filthy rags, the furniture a 
 few old orange-boxes. 
 
 The Municipahty of Glasgow does what it 
 can to force the poor to house themselves 
 with some regard to the exigencies of hygiene. 
 These one-roomed houses are ticketed. That 
 is to say, that on the door of the home there 
 is nailed a small metal plate, on which is 
 indicated the number of cubic feet in the 
 room and the maximum number of people 
 
184 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 who may occupy it. These ticketed houses 
 are visited by sanitary inspectors — at least, 
 this is what is supposed to take place — and 
 any infraction of the ticket or licence by 
 overcrowding leads to prosecution and fine. 
 But as the magistrates often take the cir- 
 cumstances of those prosecuted into con- 
 sideration and remit the penalties where 
 their sympathies are engaged, the respect 
 for this law is not very great. 
 
 It has been seriously suggested in the 
 Council Chamber that people should be 
 forced to live in homes of which the rent 
 shall be proportionate to their incomes. 
 This is the favourite theory of Mr. James 
 Motion, Inspector and Clerk of the Glasgow 
 parish. Mr. Motion wants the Council to 
 " hustle " parents who, able to afford 
 better accommodation, prefer to live in the 
 cheapest rooms. He says : " The working- 
 classes spend readily on food, drink, dress 
 and amusement, but rent is grudged." He 
 mentions cases of men earning thirty-five 
 and thirty-eight shillings a week who pay 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 185 
 
 the least possible rent, and he wants the 
 Council "just to hustle this class of men 
 ' up and out/ " to push them, to shove 
 them, into better homes, so as to make room 
 for the poorer classes who, because they 
 cannot find proper accommodation, have to 
 herd together. This he would do " by legi- 
 timate or illegitimate means ; everything, 
 really, that one can stretch as far as one 
 possibly can, to bring things to a better 
 condition." After the expulsion of the 
 tenant, his " filthy belongings " would be 
 cleared out with a hose. 
 
 It is certain that there ought to be powers 
 in the hands of the authorities to force 
 parents to house themselves properly where 
 they are able to do so, for the children's 
 sake. The homes of many thousands of 
 Glasgow children are but ante-chambers to 
 the grave. The foulest diseases flourish here. 
 Enteric is common, small-pox flourishes 
 amain in Glasgow, and from the slough and 
 mire of the awful streets the deadly plague 
 ever and anon raises a menacing head. As 
 
i86 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 to the very poor, Mr. Motion would have 
 them removed forcibly from the kennels 
 which they inhabit. He would have them 
 sent to prison or the poor-house, anywhere 
 to get them out of their lethal surroundings. 
 And the poverty of Glasgow, even amongst 
 the workers, is appalling. The pay for a 
 casual labourer at the docks is fourpence an 
 hour, and a man may be discharged at any 
 hour in the day. In the iron foundries men 
 working full time are earning i8s., i6s. and 
 15s. a week. One hears of men with nine chil- 
 dren who have to subsist on such wages. And 
 the work is, of course, intermittent. Street- 
 sweepers, under the Corporation, earn 22s. 
 a week. The " Black Squad Labourers," 
 as the dockers are called in Glasgow, earn 
 from 15s. to 21S. a week. Barrowmen (dust- 
 men) get good wages, 30s. a ton per filth 
 removed, but are exposed to all the 
 contagions of the contagious town. The 
 wretched chemical workers of the Clyde, 
 exposed to a hundred cruel haps, get i6s. 
 or 17s. a week. The wages of the women- 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 187 
 
 workers are so miserable that even the 
 small sums that their children can earn for 
 them are indispensable additions to the 
 resources of the family. 
 
 A recent inquiry made by the Glasgow 
 School Board has revealed the fact that 
 over 4,000 children attending the Glasgow 
 schools are employed out of school hours. 
 In Govan we hear of children of five years 
 of age who work ten hours a week, and in 
 Glasgow of children of seven working be- 
 tween forty-five and fifty hours out of 
 school hours. At some mills in Greenock, 
 belonging to a member of Parliament, the 
 half-time system is in force, and here we 
 find children of twelve working five hours 
 a day. 
 
 The bulk of the Glasgow children to whom 
 the statistics of the School Board refer are 
 employed, like the Edinburgh children, in 
 errands, carrying milk and bread in the 
 mornings, and working for shops at night. 
 They are for the most part miserably fed ; 
 they live in homes which are hot-beds of 
 
i88 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 disease, and as a general rule they are bare- 
 footed and in rags. At one of the schools 
 which I visited, I was introduced to several 
 of these errand lads and lasses. There was 
 
 Master -, who is nine years of 
 
 age, and who runs with milk-cans from 
 5 a.m. to 7 a.m., and again from half-past 
 four till six. For these services he earns 
 ninepence a week. There was Master 
 
 , who told me that he was 
 
 ten years old, but who looked like a sickly 
 child of seven. He works from six in the 
 morning till eight, and again in the evening 
 
 from six till half-past eight. Miss 
 
 , who is ten, carries milk from six 
 
 till nine, and again from half-past four till 
 seven. She earns one-and-ninepence, and 
 has not yet been able to buy either stockings 
 
 or shoes. Miss — — , whose little feet 
 
 felt and looked like pieces of frozen meat, 
 earns one-and-sixpence for the same amount 
 of work in the same number of hours. 
 
 Many of these children " play the wag " 
 on Wednesdays, and hire out their services 
 
A Milk-Carrier in Glasgow. 
 
 \To face page i8 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. i8g 
 
 for cleaning stairs. In Anfield Street School 
 one may be introduced to a young gentle- 
 man of eleven, who carries milk in the morn- 
 ing and bread in the evening. He works 
 43I hours in the week, of which 1 2 hours are 
 on Saturdays, and he earns rather less than 
 three farthings an hour, on which income 
 boots are, of course, out of the question. In 
 Thomson Street School there was, not very 
 long ago — one hopes his earthly toil is over 
 — a little lad of ten, who, working in the 
 morning for a milkman and in the evening 
 for a grocer, " put in " out of school hours 
 an eight-hour day of work. From Monday 
 till Friday he worked thirty hours, and on 
 Saturdays and Sundays eighteen hours. 
 Many of my young friends told me that the 
 grocers were the worst masters to work for. 
 " They always keep the longest errands till 
 the last." The shop shuts at 10 p.m., and 
 at that hour the child is sent out with some 
 parcel to be dehvered miles away. These 
 are the employment and the hours and 
 wages of the children who observe the regu- 
 
igo The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 lations of the School Board. There are 
 others. 
 
 The abuse of the medical certificate is as 
 common in Glasgow as in any other part of 
 the three kingdoms. On the form used by 
 the doctors the words " soul and conscience " 
 are italicised. It often happens that so 
 doubtful is the doctor of the genuineness of 
 the malady for which exemption is claimed 
 that he will run his pen through these words. 
 Sometimes the parents themselves, taken with 
 altruistic scruples and fearing for the doctor's 
 spiritual welfare, will themselves efface these 
 words. But once the certificate has been ob- 
 tained, the exempted children are sternly put 
 to the many miserable forms of home labour 
 in which the women of Glasgow engage. For 
 my particulars about these various forms of 
 labour I am indebted to the admirable Miss 
 Irwin, Secretary of the Glasgow Council for 
 Women's Trades. 
 
 There is shirt finishing, which is paid for 
 by the dozen shirts, and which may bring in 
 ijd. per hour, although cases have been 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 191 
 
 met with where the rates were as low as one 
 farthing an hour. Then there is finishing 
 trousers, as to which Miss Irwin relates : 
 " I met one woman who had finished trousers 
 at a halfpenny the pair, each pair taking 
 two hours to finish, and the worker finding 
 her own thread. Finally, she gave it up, 
 finding, as she said, ' that it was easier to 
 starve without the work.' " 
 
 Shirt finishing has, of course, this advan- 
 tage, that at night the shirts make quite nice 
 sheets for the " bed." In these houses at 
 least one sees the white glint of linen. In- 
 deed, in all these trades there is this per- 
 quisite. You can use the clothes on which 
 you are working both to lie on and to cover 
 yourself with at nights. There is fourpence 
 a dozen to be earned in Glasgow for making 
 aprons and pinafores throughout. The 
 sewing has to be " very particular," and 
 three days' steady work may produce an 
 income of one shilling. In all these trades 
 the needles of the children can contribute 
 something to the earnings, and if that some- 
 
192 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 thing be less than a farthing an hour, we are 
 to remember that many a mickle makes a 
 muckle. One starves at the trade, no doubt, 
 but there is consolation even in that. 
 
 " God took most of my bairns," said one 
 of these home-workers to Miss Irwin. " He's 
 the best friend we poor folks have." 
 
 This Glasgow mother was only voicing a 
 thought which I have heard many a ragged 
 Rachel express in many a British town. 
 This employment of children by the home- 
 workers tends to reduce the wages paid in the 
 factories. The starving children are taking 
 bread out of the mouths of others, but not, 
 alas ! for their own nourishment. " Home- 
 workers," said a work-hand to Miss Irwin, 
 " are used as a screw to reduce the others. 
 Married women take the work home and sit 
 up half the night to do it, and lots of them 
 get their children to help them after school 
 hours. They can thus lift fairly good wages 
 at the week-end, and when we complain the 
 manager says : ' Look at So-and-So's big 
 pay. Why can't you make this with the 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 193 
 
 same rates ? ' " And in the end the rates 
 are reduced for everybody — after school 
 hours, and during them too, where a certifi- 
 cate can be obtained. 
 
 At the miserable trade of paper-bag making 
 both boys and girls can work, and with in- 
 dustry may earn their three farthings an 
 hour. Plain bags are paid at the rate of 
 ninepence per 2,000, and it takes a woman 
 about six hours to turn out this quantity. 
 Little children cannot, of course, work so 
 fast. The paste for the work has to be 
 supphed by the workers and costs sixpence 
 a week. The cost of hght is another extra 
 when one is working " half the night." In 
 some houses artificial light has to be kept 
 burning all day, for the sun never shines 
 upon their wretched tenants. You are not 
 to expect luxuries, such as air, or water, or 
 hght, when you only pay a shilling rent a 
 week. "I am bound to say," said Mr. 
 Motion, " that there are a good few houses 
 in which it is necessary to burn artificial 
 light all day." 
 
ig4 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 In the paper-bag trade it is again the com- 
 petition of children that has reduced the rates 
 of pay. The boys in the Industrial Schools 
 are largely employed in this industry. There 
 are foggers, or middlemen, in this trade, sub- 
 contractors we call them in Glasgow. The 
 sub-contractor pockets about sixty per cent, 
 of the money paid for the work. When a 
 child has cut and pasted a thousand bags he 
 has made twopence for himself and twopence- 
 halfpenny for the fogger. 
 
 Many little girls assist their mothers in 
 " shawl- fringing," either in the Birling or 
 the Kinching departments. This is em- 
 phatically a " Kinchin lay," such as Fagin 
 described it to Noah Clay pole. In birling a 
 large Scotch plaid you have to go round it 
 three times, three threads being tied together 
 at a time. For that you get fourpence-half- 
 penny. One hears of a widow who has a 
 little girl of twelve, who by working from 
 6 a.m. till lo p.m., with the little girl helping, 
 can earn an average of six shillings a week. 
 I fancy this must be the same woman of 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 195 
 
 whose household budget Miss Irwin tells us. 
 This is how this woman and child manage 
 to live : — Rent, one room, 2s. a week ; a 
 quarter pound of tea, 4d. ; 2 lbs. of sugar, 
 3d. ; flour, ijd. ; oatmeal, 2jd. ; \ lb. 
 margarine, sjd. ; six eggs (chipped), 3jd. ; 
 ham, 2jd. ; coals, 3d. ; onions, or other 
 vegetables, i|-d. ; bread, 4jd. ; making a 
 total, with an allowance for " kitchen," of 
 about four-and six a week, the remaining 
 eighteenpence being for the few other ex- 
 penses of civilised life which are not included 
 in the above schedule. 
 
 Twopence a week for bread seems the usual 
 allowance in these too miserable homes. 
 One hears of a single woman who keeps her- 
 self alive on twopence worth of bread, three 
 farthings worth of sugar, twopence worth of 
 tea, and fourpence-halfpenny worth of 
 " kitchen " a week. Of milk we know 
 nothing except that as children we have 
 carried it in cans up innumerable flights of 
 steps in the early mornings. 
 
 The list of home industries in which the 
 
 13* 
 
196 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 children of Glasgow are constrained to take 
 a part is a long one, but as to the number of 
 children employed by their parents we know 
 nothing but what we can guess. People 
 who " steal their children from school " are 
 not ready with information, and direct evi- 
 dence is difficult to obtain. But we know 
 from the amount of work which some 
 married women turn in in a week that they 
 must be helped by their children. When a 
 woman, who is the mother of several children, 
 turns out 2,000 paper bags in three hours, 
 we know that she cannot have done that 
 work unaided, for we know that the most 
 skilled and the most indefatigable workers 
 cannot produce that quantity in any less 
 time than four hours. 
 
 One wonders what may be the feelings of a 
 family of workers, mother and children 
 sitting round the table in a ticketed house, 
 where artificial light has to be burned all 
 day, engaged in hemming ministers' bands. 
 It is very fine needlework, which cannot be 
 done by machine. The same may be said 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 197 
 
 of the sewing of widows' weepers. This last 
 work may tend to gloomy thoughts, but as 
 to ministers' bands, one fancies that the 
 workers must feel elated by the reflection 
 that in their way they are contributing to 
 the propagation of the knowledge of that 
 Christianity to which they owe such inesti- 
 mable privileges. It must also tend to the 
 fostering of a truly Christian spirit to sew 
 children's wool dresses at two shillings a 
 dozen when, a child oneself, one is half- 
 naked and bare-footed. At this class of 
 needlework a woman, helped " a little " by 
 two of her children, " often up half the 
 night," and pa5dng eighteenpence a week 
 for her sewing machine, can earn an average 
 of six-and-sixpence a week. 
 
 In the days of hand-loom weaving, pirn 
 winding was a large home industry. One 
 could make a shilling a day by working hard. 
 It would seem to have been towards the 
 children a kindly industry. It sent them 
 quickly back. To-day there are still a few 
 pirn- winders left. By hard work a woman 
 
ig8 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 of whom we hear earns three shiUings a week. 
 Her nine children cannot help her, for they 
 are all dead. All dead, too, the nine children 
 of a weaver's widow, who earns from four to 
 four-and-six a week. She lives in a garret 
 room and pays four-and-six a month for it. 
 
 There was much indignation in Dundee 
 when two or three years ago it was proposed 
 by the authorities to raise the age at which 
 children might be employed at half-time in 
 the factories from eleven to twelve. Doctors, 
 members of Parliament, and other prominent 
 Dundee citizens clamoured against this in- 
 terference with the rights of children. It 
 was the " firm opinion " of one certifying 
 surgeon, " that if this change were carried 
 into effect, a great injury would be done." 
 In a letter to Sir John Leng he wrote : 
 " The children affected will be shut out for a 
 year longer from the working of this system, 
 under which, as seen in Dundee, they benefit 
 so largely. But the harm done will not be 
 Umited to the children. It will affect, more 
 or less, the whole community. A large pro- 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 199 
 
 portion of these children, belonging as they 
 do to the lowest class, live amidst wretched 
 surroundings, and for many of them the pro- 
 posed change would simply mean that they 
 must be left for one year more to run wild, 
 with the risk of getting little or no education, 
 and of becoming more deeply infested with 
 vice, and probably not a few of them drifting 
 steadily into the habitual criminal class." 
 
 This is a very fair specimen of the argu- 
 ments used by those who uphold the half- 
 time system, and amongst the masters and 
 their friends in Dundee the consensus of 
 opinion is that it is a very excellent thing 
 for everybody concerned that children should 
 work in the mills at as early an age as possible. 
 No doubt, exactly the same arguments were 
 put forward in 1891, 1879 and 1878. Up till 
 January ist, 1879, the mill-owners were 
 entitled to employ children of eight years of 
 age in their factories. On that date the 
 minimum age was raised to nine. In 1880 
 it was raised to ten. Twelve years later 
 it was raised to eleven, and, finally, in 1902, 
 
200 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 in spite of all the efforts of those interested 
 in child slavery, it was prohibited to employ- 
 any child on half-time who was under the 
 age of twelve. At the age of fourteen, it 
 must be noticed, a child ceases to be a child 
 in the eyes of the law, and is raised to the 
 dignity of " young person." As such he or 
 she may be employed full time — that is to 
 say, to ten hours on five days of the week and 
 five hours on Saturdays, A child's four- 
 teenth birthday brings with it the privilege 
 of working exactly the same stretches as 
 grown-up people, but not perhaps the extra 
 strength required for the double task. 
 
 There were employed on half-time in the 
 mills in Dundee a fortnight previous to my 
 visit to that town 1,149 children. These 
 children were working five hours a day. 
 There were 524 children " over thirteen," 
 who having passed the standard had been 
 licensed to work as full-timers ; or, in other 
 words, enjoyed the privileges of " young 
 persons " a year before the fixed minimum 
 age. These 524 children, however, were 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 201 
 
 obliged to attend evening continuation 
 schools, and no doubt after ten hours in the 
 hot and noisy mills they would bring a clear 
 brain and a rested body to their studies. 
 Yes, we have in Dundee 524 children of 
 thirteen, who are working in the mills for 
 fifty-five hours a week, and improving their 
 minds in the evening. The upholders of 
 the system are as enthusiastic about it as 
 ever. 
 
 I visited Baxter's Schools and found the 
 master a great supporter of the system. 
 This school is run in connection with some 
 big mills, and all the children who attend it 
 are half-timers. They may come to school 
 in the mornings, after having put in three 
 hours in the mills — that is, from 6 a.m. to 
 9 a.m. — with the prospect of another two 
 hours' work before them. This gentleman 
 has occupied the position of headmaster of 
 this school for close upon thirty years. His 
 plea in favour of the half-time system may 
 be pro domo ; it is certainly a very em- 
 phatic one. He says that his children appear 
 
202 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 well-fed, and that they are comfortably 
 clothed, " to which results the wages they 
 themselves earn materially contribute." His 
 children do well in after-life. " The fact that 
 they have been half-timers does not in any 
 way affect their prospects." He points with 
 some satisfaction to the fact that amongst 
 his former pupils one is a certificated sani- 
 tary officer, one, a manager to a spinning 
 company, and one, sub-editor of a popular 
 newspaper. 
 
 I visited two of his class-rooms. In one 
 of these rooms the aspect of the children was 
 certainly most satisfactory. I did not see 
 any naked feet, and for the most part the 
 cheeks were red and plump. And that their 
 five hours of daily toil in the whirr and the 
 heat of the jute-mills had not affected them 
 mentally was borne in upon me by the sight 
 of the blackboard, on which was chalked an 
 arithmetical problem, which, fancying my- 
 selfj for the moment back at school and 
 standing before the board, sent cold shivers 
 down my anticipating back. " A problem," 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 203 
 
 said the headmaster, " in mental arith- 
 metic." 
 
 In another class-room, however, six boys — 
 half-timers, of course — stood out, and I do 
 not think that I ever saw worse physical 
 specimens of childhood. Degeneration was 
 writ large over the sulky and averted faces. 
 Here the brutalizing of the mills had done 
 its work. For the thing needs no argument. 
 A child of twelve should not be employed 
 five hours a day in any factory. It earns 
 its wages there at the cost of its lungs, of its 
 eyesight, of its very blood. The mill anae- 
 miates, the mill shatters the nerves, the mill 
 loads the lungs with noxious dust. 
 
 As I was leaving Glasgow for Dundee, a 
 man, who lives amongst the workers of Scot- 
 land, said to me, " Keep your ears open for 
 the barking of the half-timers." This barking 
 is the chronic cough which is gained by 
 inhahng the dust and floating fibres of the 
 mihs. Fortunately, in spite of its many 
 interested supporters the half-time system 
 is dying out in Scotland as it is dying out in 
 
204 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 England. The Education Act (Scotland), 
 1 90 1, has raised many impediments in the 
 way of this exploitation of children and 
 " young persons " of thirteen. When 
 parents to-day apply to the Dundee School 
 Board for exemption for their children, they 
 are obliged to fill up a form with many par- 
 ticulars. At the bottom of this form the 
 following is printed : " It is the intention of 
 the Act not to give a right to a claim for cur- 
 tailment of school attendance, in respect of 
 a child who satisfies certain conditions pre- 
 viously laid down ; such as, for example, 
 the obtaining of a merit certificate, but only 
 in respect of those cases where special cir- 
 cumstances, irrespective of any standard of 
 attainment, appear to justify curtailment." 
 The special circumstances are the poverty 
 of the parents. If you are poor in Dundee, 
 your children may go, if not to the dogs, at 
 least to where they will be brought to bark. 
 If this is wrong for the children of the 
 better classes, who are presumably well-fed 
 and fairly housed, why should the protection 
 
Child-Slavery in Scotland. 205 
 
 of the Government be withdrawn from the 
 children of the very poor, who, badly-fed and 
 housed under the worst conditions, have 
 certainly not the stamina necessary to resist 
 the varied onslaughts of the mill ? All the 
 more so that the work at the mills is, as the 
 French say, " without prejudice " of further 
 money-making employment in what spare 
 time there is. The half-timers are pluralists 
 also. They will trade in the streets, they 
 will ply the hundred-and-one miserable little 
 crafts that the Scotch cities find for their 
 httle ones to do. One has heard of half- 
 timers who are half-timers both by night 
 and day. They sew sacks for half the nights, 
 and whilst they sew they bark. 
 
206 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 On Child=Slavery in Liverpool and 
 otlier Towns. 
 
 It was rather as representative places than 
 because of any special ill-repute that at- 
 taches to them in the matter of the en- 
 slaving and ill-usage of children that I 
 selected the different cities whose treatment 
 of their little ones has been described in full 
 detail in the past seven chapters. The evil 
 is general throughout the country, and there 
 are few, if any, places in any one of the three 
 kingdoms of which their citizens can say 
 that here, at least, one may look in vain for 
 evidence of what in the many injustices of 
 our social system is the most cruelly unjust. 
 We are to remember that the number of 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 207 
 
 children in England alone, who combine 
 school attendance with paid employment, 
 is close upon 400,000. We are also to re- 
 member that in the eyes of the law a child 
 ceases to be a child at the age of fourteen, 
 or even of thirteen, and at once develops into 
 a " young person," from whom as a whole- 
 timer the full exertions of an adult can be 
 exacted, and who may be delivered up by its 
 parents, with the sanction of the law and the 
 award of society, to the fatigues of the most 
 laborious as to the intoxications of the 
 most poisonous of our national industries. 
 
 The evil is general. It is as common in 
 the agricultural districts as in the great 
 cities ; indeed, in some respects child-slavery 
 is worse in the country than in the towns. 
 If the country children have at least the 
 advantage of pure air, the tasks laid upon 
 them are, owing to the absence of inspectors 
 and School Board officers, even heavier, as a 
 rule, than those to which the tiny helots of 
 our cities are constrained. In certain sea- 
 sons of the year there are children working 
 
2o8 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 on the land fourteen hours and more each 
 day, week after week. In the towns it is 
 only on Saturdays and Sundays that we find 
 children employed for this number of hours. 
 In the matter of feeding, of course the 
 country children are even worse off. In the 
 country there are no motherly gutters nor 
 garbage heaps for victualling. On the other 
 hand, the industries of the children on the 
 land are not deadly, as are so many in the 
 towns ; and it appears, as a general rule, the 
 children are fond of their tasks, in spite of 
 the prolonged efforts demanded from them. 
 An exception is the profession of scarecrow, 
 against which the dignity of our little British 
 yokels has at last revolted. The farmers 
 in Lincolnshire are loud in their complaints 
 that they can no longer hire boys to " tent " 
 crows, and I for one am very glad to hear 
 it. Self-respect is the mainspring of all civic 
 effort. 
 
 If the city of Liverpool were sincere in its 
 recognition of this truth, it would be entitled 
 to a high place amongst the cities of England. 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 209 
 
 In the better parts of the town the stranger 
 is not, as in so many other British towns, 
 startled by ragged and appaUing apparitions 
 of child-hfe, very scarecrows in partibus. 
 Liverpool saves appearances in a manner 
 essentially British. The children of the poor, 
 who are driven on to the streets to trade, must 
 present a respectable exterior. They have 
 in Liverpool what they style the Liverpool 
 Police-Aided Clothing Association ; the 
 police " aid " by recommending cases to the 
 charity. Liverpool does not want strangers 
 to see the distress of its little ones. Re- 
 spectability must be assumed at any cost. 
 One might leave the city, after wandering 
 about the better quarters, under the pleasing 
 delusion that here at least the children are 
 protected. It is the boast of the place that 
 it was the first of all English towns to deal 
 with the question of street trading. Indeed, 
 in this respect, it certainly did lead the way, 
 and, theoretically, the Liverpool Corpora- 
 tion Act of 1898 is a model of its kind. Under 
 this Act, boys under the age of fourteen, and 
 
 14 
 
210 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 girls under the age of sixteen, who wish to 
 trade on the streets have to be hcensed, and 
 their conduct is subject to certain regula- 
 tions, such as one which forbids them to 
 enter public-houses to sell their wares. Ex- 
 cellent regulations, if the children only would 
 or could observe them. For the rest, it is 
 fair to say that the other Corporations which 
 have followed Liverpool's lead, and have 
 studied the workings of the Act on the spot, 
 describe it as most effective. Before Bir- 
 mingham, for instance, passed its Corpora- 
 tion Bye-laws on the subject of street- 
 trading, Mr. Aston was sent to Liverpool to 
 study the system there. He spent three 
 days and nights in Liverpool, reported en- 
 thusiastically and still speaks so. I pointed 
 out to him that in three days there are many 
 things that even a trained observer may 
 overlook. As in Manchester, as in Birming- 
 ham, as in many other towns, where bye- 
 laws have been passed, the laws are passed 
 by. Children trade without licences. Chil- 
 dren misrepresent their ages to obtain 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 21 1 
 
 licences. They disregard the hmits of hours 
 fixed for their observance and they ply their 
 trades in public-houses or anywhere else 
 where they are likely to earn money. All 
 the regulations in the world will not prevent 
 them from disregarding the law when star- 
 vation and ill-treatment at home are the 
 certain punishment which awaits them if 
 they do not bring back a minimum of profit 
 which too often represents a maximum of 
 effort. Indeedj the Liverpool magistrates 
 seem to understand the circumstances, and 
 deal leniently with offenders against the Cor- 
 poration Act. Out of 265 children who were 
 brought up before the Liverpool Bench for 
 trading without licences, 227 were purely 
 and simply discharged, and were, no doubt, 
 hawking again the same evening, whilst in 
 the neighbouring public-houses their parents 
 toasted the magistrates with enthusiasm 
 and the Corporation Acts with irony. 
 
 For one who knows Liverpool, the aspect 
 of the comfortably-clad children of the gutter 
 affords the saddest contemplation. Here re- 
 
 14* 
 
212 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 spectability masks gaunt hunger and life 
 amidst surroundings the most dreadful. 
 Liverpool, in the matter of its slums, plays 
 with its cards on the table. It has not the 
 hypocrisy of London or of Glasgow. You 
 can find districts in Liverpool where you 
 may walk for hours through streets of pes- 
 tilence and death. Liverpool displays its 
 sores. It packs its poor into awful canton- 
 ments, and it is, for instance, in that dreadful 
 district of which Limekiln Lane is the main 
 thoroughfare that you can peep behind the 
 mask of the children's respectability, police- 
 aided. This most dismal slough is the habi- 
 tation of casual labourers, of sailors, of the 
 unhappy men who do odd jobs at the docks. 
 In very many of these homes it is the 
 miserable earnings of the children that are 
 for weeks together the only income of the 
 family. Here it is not parental greed that 
 is to blame for the enslavement of the little 
 ones ; it is what is so radically wrong in the 
 social conditions of the town. So over- 
 crowded is the city of Liverpool and so falla- 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 213 
 
 cious are the hopes of employment that its 
 docks hold out to the thousands who pour 
 into its slums from the country, that the 
 casual labourer who can get one full day's 
 work in a week of days may deem himself 
 one of the elect of fortune. I have seen men 
 who have beaten the town and the docks for 
 six weeks and who have only earned one day's 
 wages. But for the puny efforts of the chil- 
 dren there would not enter these cottages a 
 single scrap of food. Indeed, what money 
 is earned either by the mother with a 
 hawker's basket, or by the children in the 
 various employments which are open to 
 them, usually suffices not more than to pay 
 the rent and to help the miserable families 
 to play at hide-and-seek with starvation. 
 Tea — that is to say, tea-leaves stewed over 
 and over again — and bread are the staple 
 articles of diet in these regions, and very 
 often there is no bread to go with the tea. 
 Mothers surrounded with children in these 
 awful homes have often said to me in answer 
 to a question : " Yes, sir, we have had our 
 
214 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 dinners. We all had a cup of tea at noon." 
 The days when a halfpenny-worth of soup 
 can be fetched from the soup-kitchen of the 
 Food and Betterment Association are red- 
 letter days in the squalid annals of these un- 
 fortunates. Under these circumstances, it 
 will be easy to understand that the children 
 must work. The average rate of pay which 
 a boy or girl can earn in Liverpool is slightly 
 over a penny an hour, and given a lad can 
 put in forty-eight hours out of school-time, 
 the rent for that week is at least assured. 
 Where the children are too young to go on 
 the streets, the difficulties of the mother 
 are enhanced. She must go out with her 
 basket and the children must be left at home. 
 One hears of babies being roasted slowly to 
 death during the forced absence of their 
 mothers. A staple industry with the chil- 
 dren of Liverpool is that of knocker-up. 
 So many men have to be down at the docks 
 at early hours in the morning that it is 
 necessary for them to be roused. That big 
 men may not oversleep, little children must 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 215 
 
 undersleep. They knock themselves down 
 figuratively whilst knocking others up. On 
 bitter, dark winter mornings you may see 
 little shivering wraiths flitting from house 
 to house, beating tattoo on the murky 
 window-panes, till a volley of oaths betokens 
 that the task is done. I believe that a 
 sedulous knocker-up with a good connec- 
 tion can earn from eighteenpence to half-a- 
 crown a week, and by the time his rounds 
 are over the hour has come for him to begin 
 the delivery of milk. The curing of fish is 
 another local industry which gives much 
 employment to children. In filthy rooms, 
 haddock and codling are smoked into table 
 dehcacies. The room is full of evil-smelling 
 smoke, and from the pallet on the floor on 
 which the smaller children are lying, the 
 noise of continuous coughing accompanies the 
 greasy sizzling of the fuel. There is a little 
 money to be got at this trade, but it has 
 its drawbacks, and you can tell a child who 
 is a curer of fish by the chronic inflamma- 
 tion of his eyes. I know two lads who in 
 
2i6 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 this way keep a home over their mother's 
 head. The home is one room in a three-and- 
 sixpenny cottage. The woman's husband 
 is at sea most of the time and his wages are 
 very small. The woman's only resources, 
 apart from the labour of her children, are 
 obtained by borrowing on the security of her 
 absent husband's wages from one of the 
 women-usurers of Liverpool. The rate is 
 one penny on every shilling for one week, 
 and if you fetch the shilling on Friday 
 evening the interest is due all the same on 
 Saturday morning. It is of course incon- 
 venient, the woman being an invalid with 
 lung-trouble, that the smoking of the fish 
 should be carried out in the one room where 
 she lies coughing, but these are things 
 which cannot be helped. 
 
 If leaving Liverpool you visit the neigh- 
 bouring towns of Widnes and St. Helens, 
 you will be struck by the beauty and the 
 healthy appearance of the children. Of the 
 children, I say, in contradistinction to the 
 " young persons." When at thirteen or four- 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 217 
 
 teen a child becomes a young person and may 
 be sent to the chemical works as a full-timer, 
 the gradual devastation of Nature's beautiful 
 temple begins. In quite young people you can 
 already note the inroads that the poisonous 
 gases of the stills are beginning to make. On 
 the teeth first of all, then on the eyes, and 
 then on the lungs, the devihsh influence of 
 the lethal air exerts itself. I do not know 
 which spectacle is more chiUing to the heart : 
 the man, still in the prime of life, who, " three- 
 parts killed in the chemical works," is being 
 finished off in the workhouse, half-blind, 
 toothless, choking with asthma and groan- 
 ing with chronic kidney disease, or the young 
 person upon whose face and body the dread- 
 ful stigmata of the trade have already been 
 imprinted, vouchers for the fulfilment of his 
 certain and terrible destiny. 
 
 In this matter of the enslavement of 
 children the condition of the young person is 
 indeed the saddest of all. One is a child at 
 thirteen. Indeed, it is just at that age that 
 the growing boy or girl has most need of 
 
2i8 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 protection and care. It is the first climateric 
 of life. Yet it is at that age that boys and 
 girls may by law be exposed to dangers from 
 which even the strongest men are not im- 
 mune. Many of these children, who by 
 birth certificates are of the age of the whole- 
 timer, are by physique fit for nothing but 
 the nursery. Bad food, neglect, evil housing, 
 excessive fatigue during their infant years, 
 have rendered them at the time when, 
 according to the law, they enter upon the 
 inheritance of man or womanhood, entirely 
 unfit for the duties which then devolve upon 
 them. Children of that age, even under the 
 best physical conditions, should not, if any 
 humanity overhung our social order, be 
 exposed to many of the national industries 
 where as " whole-timers " their services are 
 required and allowed. Look at the little 
 boys and girls who in the pottery districts 
 are employed in the dipping-houses, and re- 
 membering to what their tasks expose them, 
 admit that a devil is indeed abroad. Has 
 the typical case been forgotten of Albert 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 219 
 
 Timmis ? He was a delicate boy and he 
 was employed in a dipping-house in Hanley. 
 He began this work just after his thirteenth 
 birthday. That was in November. One 
 day about four months later, just as he was 
 entering the works, he fell back in a con- 
 vulsive fit. He died five days later. For 
 weeks past he had carried about on his face 
 and person the stigmata of approaching 
 death. He had " drop- wrist " ; he had the 
 blue-gums of saturnine poisoning, and he 
 had a contracted abdomen. The doctor 
 declared that the death was caused by lead 
 poisoning. He added that he did not think 
 that weak boys should be allowed to work in 
 the dipping-houses, and the coroner said 
 that if the law allowed children who had 
 just left school to work in dipping-houses, 
 which were death-traps, the sooner the law 
 was altered the better. In France a law is 
 being hurried through the Chambers to 
 abolish altogether the manufacture and use 
 of white lead. During the discussion on 
 this Bill it was proved that, whilst lead- 
 
220 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 poisoning can never be eradicated from the 
 system, in seventy per cent, of cases the 
 poison is transmitted to the descendants of 
 the sufferer. The children of lead-workers 
 are almost invariably puny and doubly pre- 
 disposed to the intoxication. But there are 
 only three out of fourteen doctors who were 
 consulted on the question who deny that 
 " young persons " are infinitely more sus- 
 ceptible to lead-poisoning than adults, just 
 as it has been clearly established that women 
 are far more susceptible to it than men. 
 Dr. Baumgartner says : " There are many 
 cases of illness from lead in young people." 
 Dr. Whamond says: "The younger ones 
 are decidedly more affected by lead than 
 older ones." Dr. Newton says : " The 
 younger they are, the more liable to be 
 affected by lead," and Dr. Gray finds 
 that, as a general rule, young persons lose 
 their fresh colour after twelve months' work. 
 The pay for this deadly work is miserable. 
 Boys can earn from five to six shillings a 
 week by dipping kettles. The rate by piece- 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 221 
 
 work is one shilling for dipping twenty dozen 
 kettles. There are twenty dips for a penny 
 into this lucky-bag where the grand prize 
 is the avoidance of death in one of its most 
 cruel and painful forms. Indeed, in all these 
 poison trades, the zest of gambhng is never 
 absent from the occupation. The thing is a 
 gigantic and continuous lottery. If you are 
 in the potteries or the white-lead, and you 
 are a puny, predisposed young person, you 
 win a prize every day, which does not show 
 that fatal blue Hne along your gums. If you 
 are in the chemical works, each day that a 
 tooth does not fall out is a lucky one, and if 
 you are making matches with red phos- 
 phorus and avoid necrosis you have the good 
 fortune to draw a blank. Each day in many 
 hundred English workshops there is revived 
 for little children the excitement of that 
 game which was played at the time of the 
 French Revolution, the Lottery of Saint 
 Guillotine. Only in comparison to lead- 
 poisoning, " getting gas " and necrosis. Saint 
 Guillotine was a kindly goddess. 
 
222 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 In Sheffield many of the young persons 
 who are apprenticed to the file-cutting trade 
 get lead-poisoning, and it is the lucky ones 
 who escape with nothing worse than fingers 
 twisted out of human shape. We know 
 what becomes of little girls who work in the 
 enameUing factories, and how they are forced 
 to take long holidays just in order to muster 
 up sufficient strength again to affront the 
 dangers of an employment where " about 
 eight shillings a week " is spoken of as high 
 pay. The young persons, and children who 
 are not yet young persons, who work on 
 mother-of-pearl, polishing it, cutting it, 
 fitting it on to the thousand articles which 
 industry so beautifies, are in constant danger 
 of a disease which has not yet been classified, 
 and which, I believe, is ignored by the 
 faculty in England. In France it is ranked 
 as a kind of necrosis, or rather ostitis, and is 
 recognised as one of the by-products of the 
 mother-of-pearl industry. We have heard 
 the half-timers of the jute works barking as 
 they go to their work, and we have seen 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 223 
 
 what are the effects in Lancashire of the 
 half-time system ranging from anaemia to 
 various diseases of the eyes. It is said that 
 the young persons who work in the flax- 
 mills in Belfast, up to their ankles in water 
 most of the time, that few get beyond the 
 age of twenty without serious lung-trouble. 
 The weak ones die long before they have 
 emerged from childhood. 
 
 The horror of the half-time system is that 
 the hours worked by the children in the 
 factories are usually in addition to the hours 
 taken up in other forms of money-earning 
 employment. One has heard of a little girl 
 in Lancashire who used to work half-time 
 in the mills in the mornings or afternoons, 
 and who in the evening appeared on one of 
 the stages of Manchester. In Bolton the 
 case was recorded of a lad of twelve, who, 
 in addition to working thirty hours a week 
 at the mill, was sent out to sell papers in his 
 " spare time." His total earnings amounted 
 to eight shiUings a week. Bolton is, by-the- 
 way, a good place at which to study the 
 
224 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 half-time system. At the Noble Street, 
 Folds Road, and Sunning Hill Schools a 
 great number of children are afforded the 
 dispensation which enables them to enter 
 the mills at the age of twelve. One fancies 
 here that is is parental greed rather than 
 want which accounts for the number of half- 
 timers. The wages earned by these children 
 are small. The piecer can make from 
 4s. 6d. to 5s. 3d. a week for twenty-eight 
 hours of work, but the tether weavers make 
 barely a penny an hour, and in the heald 
 works the average remuneration is two 
 shillings for twenty-eight hours' work. Most 
 of these children belong to families engaged 
 in the mills, and their wages go to swell the 
 reserve-fund at home. Apart from the half- 
 timers, there were at the time that the Com- 
 mission was sitting 117 children employed in 
 various forms of labour. There are no home 
 industries in Bolton. We find one child of 
 six engaged and seven of eight years of age. 
 There were twelve employed as lather boys 
 at the barbers', with an average wage of a 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 225 
 
 penny an hour. Of at least one child it was 
 recorded that he was working forty-five 
 hours a week. The additional hours worked 
 by the half-timers was not recorded, but we 
 can be certain that many of them were on 
 the streets at nights. The Factory Act only 
 regulates the number of hours that may be 
 worked in the mill — i.e., thirty. According 
 to the opinion of everybody who has had to 
 deal with children this is in itself too much. 
 " The allowance of the Factory Act," says 
 Mr. Waddington of the Bolton School Board, 
 " is more than sufficient for a boy of twelve. 
 A boy in the weaving shed at a temperature 
 of ninety degrees has had more than suffi- 
 cient." 
 
 At Lowestoft — one can pick one's towns 
 at random on the map of Britain in investi- 
 gating this evil — opinion is still stronger 
 against the half-time system. In this town 
 we find fifty-six children engaged as half- 
 timers in a variety of occupations. Of these 
 children five girls and twenty-two boys are 
 just twelve years of age. The boys earn from 
 
 15 
 
226 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 IS. 6d. to 6s. a week and the girls from 
 IS. 6d. to 2s. 6d. We find here half-timers 
 unloading colliers, employed in bakehouses, 
 in net-mending and in wood-chopping. The 
 inflamed eyes of some will tell you that they 
 are curers of fish. The hours worked by 
 these children range from thirty to forty-six 
 hours a week. And when one remembers 
 that the half-timers have to spend thirteen 
 hours a week at school, it will be admitted 
 the total is considerably longer than many 
 men work, and that their health and strength 
 must necessarily suffer in consequence. The 
 boy bargee is a disgrace to a civilised country, 
 as one sees him at Lowestoft, staggering 
 under the heavy weight of the coals which he 
 carries from the colliers. Indeed, that to- 
 wards the immense fortunes of our coal 
 barons the overstrained efforts of little boys 
 and girls should contribute in all parts of 
 the country is not a matter for felicitation 
 to anyone concerned. There are boys in 
 Lowestoft who, besides working their full 
 time at school, carry coals from the colliers 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 227 
 
 for between fifty and sixty hours a week. 
 There has never been any question that 
 these hours are far too long, and that the 
 loads are heavy, and yet the thing goes on. 
 These boy bargees are perhaps the child- 
 slaves in the mining industry who are most 
 to be pitied. In the collieries round Wigan 
 we have, it is true, boy colliers and mine- 
 maidens, and there are very young children 
 amongst those who descend into the bowels 
 of the earth ; or, if they are girls, perform the 
 acts of beasts of draught along the muddy 
 paths at the mine-head. How young they 
 are, or what may be the number of children 
 so employed, who ought to be at school, is 
 not known, and never probably will be 
 ascertained. Even the Government has to 
 console itself with the statement that the 
 number of children (except full-timers) em- 
 ployed in the mines of England is incon- 
 siderable. " Except full-timers," there lies 
 the serpent as we know. It is all the easier 
 for parents here to exploit their young chil- 
 dren, that the bulk of this population in these 
 
 15* 
 
228 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 districts have no homes of their own, but 
 Uve in common lodging-houses. In Wigan 
 there is a street, of which one whole side is 
 taken up with lodging-houses. On a home- 
 less and shifting population the School Board 
 officers have no hold, and one hears of chil- 
 dren of eleven, and even younger, who work 
 in the coal-pits. For the rest the boys like 
 the work. I suppose to the young mind 
 there is something in the mystery and 
 glamour of the mine that attracts. What 
 may be the lives of these children spent 
 either in the blackness of the pit or in the 
 squalor and blasphemy of a common lodging- 
 house one can hardly grasp, but one thing is 
 certain that, as far as comfort goes, com- 
 pared to the miserable homes which I have 
 seen in many parts of the country, children 
 so housed are better off than in their own 
 " homes." The deputy will allow no ver- 
 min, and though you may be as filthy as 
 you like of tongue, you must keep your bed 
 in some semblance of cleanliness. Morals, 
 of course, go to ground after a very few days 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 229 
 
 of this life, and you can hear boys and girls 
 in this district whose command of lewd and 
 blasphemous oaths will surprise the philo- 
 logist. This is all the more distressing, be- 
 cause we have evidence that, given other sur- 
 roundings, the menace and the mystery of the 
 mine has upon poor and ignorant people an 
 influence of refinement. One has but to 
 frequent the mines of Cornwall to learn 
 this fact. Here there are boys and girls also 
 employed, " spoiling maidens " on the grass 
 or surface, either " grass " boys (and as such 
 exposed to the ridicule of the girls) or em- 
 ployed even as the men in the depths and 
 amidst the perils of the mine. But here you 
 shall hsten in vain for blasphemy, and though 
 the Uves are hard and poor, the dangers ever 
 imminent and the evil hazards, when they 
 do reaUse themselves, terrible indeed, you 
 will never hear a Cornish miner complaining 
 of his lot. Here God is always in their 
 thoughts. Gentleness, piety and resigna- 
 tion are the characteristics of the Cornish 
 miner from boyhood up, and amongst the 
 
230 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 poor " spoiling maidens," who earn for heavy 
 work with shovel and pick a shilhng a day, 
 modesty and womanly virtue are general. 
 The contrast between the miners of the 
 North and the miners of Cornwall is as 
 strange as is that between the nail-makers 
 at Bromsgrove and those at Cradley Heath. 
 Both at Cradley Heath and at Bromsgrove 
 the nailers starve, but whilst at Cradley 
 Heath they swear and drink, at Bromsgrove 
 they sing hymns, ^. 
 
 There are upwards of 50,000 children of 
 school-age who are employed on the land. 
 What number of " full-timers " are so occu- 
 pied one has no means of saying. It is a 
 general and pleasing theory amongst the 
 well-to-do that it would be a very good thing 
 indeed if the surplus populations of our 
 cities could be sent back to the land, and 
 when one speaks of children working in the 
 country one conjures up before the eyes 
 scenes of ruddy and rustic fehcity. Alas ! 
 for the difference between what imagination 
 evokes and what in reahty exists ! If so 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 231 
 
 many thousands annually pour into the 
 towns from the country it is for the same 
 reason that drives the wolf out of the forest. 
 There is food in the towns and some possi- 
 bihty of getting a share of the same. In 
 the country there is abundance of fresh air, 
 no doubt, but for the poor very httle else 
 besides. Indeed, poverty on the land is 
 infinitely more dour than in the worst 
 kennel in a city. In town one has neigh- 
 bours and human sympathy. In the country 
 the starving man faces his destitution in 
 despairing solitude. 
 
 That people are only too ready to go back 
 to the land when there is anything to be got 
 there is shown by the swarms that during 
 harvest-time pour out of every town into the 
 country. Nor is it only in harvest-time, 
 but whenever there is any work to be done. 
 For instance, numerous school children are 
 engaged during the winter in stone-picking 
 in the districts on the top of the chalk hills, 
 picking stones to clean the ground for the 
 farmers. There is httle of romance or rus- 
 
232 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 ticity in this occupation. It is bitterly cold, 
 the pay, per square yard, is infinitesimal, 
 and as for lodging the children with their 
 parents sleep where they can. The picking 
 of green gooseberries, which begins towards 
 Whitsuntide, is work under more favourable 
 conditions, and the profits to the parents of 
 the children are such that they will " steal 
 their children from school," although the 
 fine of five shilhngs has been raised to one 
 pound. Any handy child can earn at this 
 business a pound a month. The children who 
 are the hardest worked in the country are 
 those who minister to the pleasures of sporting 
 gentlemen. The employment lasts during 
 November and December, and during the 
 shooting season you will find small boys en- 
 gaged in beating from four o'clock in the morn- 
 ing till seven o'clock at night. In Yorkshire, 
 on the principle of similia similibus, little 
 human weeds are exported from the cities on 
 to the land to weed the growing crops of runch 
 or charlock, and during this time the schools 
 are closed. It sounds pleasant this life in 
 
Child-Slavery in Liverpool. 233 
 
 the open fields under the bright canopy of 
 the heavens. But, as a matter of fact, agri- 
 cultural labour is the hardest and the most 
 tiring of all, as any well-fed citizen who has 
 essayed himself at gardening in his villa- 
 grounds knows only too well. These pleas- 
 ing rustic tasks have pains which are all 
 their own, and weeding done by little chil- 
 dren who are badly fed and who are lodged 
 " anyhow " becomes torture long before the 
 ninth or tenth hour of the weeding-day is 
 reached. For many of these agricultural 
 pursuits the remuneration is only nominal. 
 One hears of " hardcrust Nannies," who are 
 little girls who work for bits of bread. 
 
 And perhaps the little girls who are only 
 paid in truck are not so much to be laughed 
 at and pitied as their cash-earning brothers 
 and sisters seem to think. Our Nannies, it 
 may be presumed, at least get enough of the 
 bread received. Of the hundreds of thou- 
 sands of other little child-slaves paid in 
 hard cash at the rate of from one to three 
 or four farthings an hour can this be said. 
 
234 ^^^ Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Their slavery is of^that desperate kind where 
 it is not even to the interest of their task- 
 masters, who are too often their parents, to 
 feed them properly so that they should have 
 strength for their excessive tasks. " Use 
 'em up and git others " was the theory of 
 Legree in his dealings towards his blacks. 
 It seems towards our httle white slaves the 
 principle generally accepted in England. Of 
 raw material there can be in this fruitful 
 land no possible lack. The babies push 
 forward daily in increasing battahons. Let 
 them get used up by every device of extor- 
 tion, oppression and neglect, and there are 
 others, more and more others, to take their 
 places. " Thank God, they have gone 
 back " is the elegy that the woman of Crad- 
 ley Heath sings over her children who have 
 died. " God is the best friend of us poor," 
 echoes a mother in Glasgow. " He has 
 taken away the nine children He sent me." 
 The pity of it all ! 
 
 FINIS. 
 
APPENDIX. 
 
237 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 On the Feeding of Children. 
 
 I FIND my own observations on the feeding of the 
 children in the slum areas amply confirmed by many 
 of the witnesses who were heard by the Physical 
 Deterioration Committee. Here, for instance, is 
 what was said on this all-important subject by Dr. 
 Alfred Eichholz, M.D., one of His Majesty's 
 Inspectors of Schools, Fellow and Lecturer of 
 Emmanuel CoUege, Cambridge, etc., etc. 
 
 " Then as to the feeding — and the whole question 
 practically centres round the feeding — there is the want 
 of food ; this is the first factor that we have to recog- 
 nise. Then there is the irregularity in the way in 
 which they get their meals ; that is the second factor. 
 Then non-suitabiUty of the food, when they get it, is 
 the third factor. And these three circumstances — want 
 of food, irregularity, and unsuitability of food — taken 
 together are the determining cause of the degeneracy in 
 
238 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 children. The breakfasts that these children nominally 
 get are bread and tea, if they get it at all. There is 
 bread and margarine for lunch, and the dinner is nor- 
 mally nothing but what a copper can purchase at the 
 local fried-iish shops, where the most inferior kinds of 
 fish, such as skate, are fried in unwholesome, reeking, 
 cottonseed oil. They frequently supplement this with 
 rotten fruit, which they collect beneath barrows, when 
 they are unable to collect it from the top. . . . One 
 of the most important points to which I would draw 
 attention is the absence of fresh milk. In these dis- 
 tricts the only milk which many of the children ever 
 know is tinned milk, which does not possess the nutri- 
 tive power of fresh milk, and ought therefore to be 
 abolished from the dietary of a young growing child." 
 
Appendix. 239 
 
 SIR JOHN GORST AND DR. MACNAMARA :— 
 
 " The most uncompromising advocacy of public 
 responsibility came from Sir John Gorst and Dr. 
 Macnamara, and as the first-named appealed to the 
 authority of the other, it is fair to treat his proposals 
 as put forward in the names of the two." — Report, 
 Physical Deterioration Committee. 
 
 Dr. Macnamara, having kindly given me per- 
 mission to make any use I like of his writings, I 
 think that by reprinting the following article, 
 which he recently contributed to the Daily Mirror, 
 I shall best be able to give an idea of the proposals 
 referred to above. In this article he only deals 
 with London, but his scheme, of course, applies to 
 the three kingdoms, and if brought into force would 
 be carried out in every school in the country. 
 Another reason that prompts me to quote this 
 article is that it wiU help people to understand, 
 from its style, what a genial, large-hearted, and yet 
 thoroughly practical man is its author, the chil- 
 dren's champion. 
 
 THE PROBLEM OF THE POOR. 
 By De. Macnamara, M.P. 
 You may take it from me that this morning of the 
 763,000 children in attendance at London's elementary 
 schools 3,000 went to school with nothing at all inside 
 
240 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 their stomachs, and 60,000 with just that crust of bread 
 which will leave them ravenous at twelve o'clock. 
 
 You may take it from me further that another 10,000 
 got a breakfast hopelessly insufficient in quantity and 
 painfully inappropriate in quality. Well ! We are 
 not going to build empire like this ! 
 
 What can be done ? Leave the ministration to these 
 children's need to the precarious hand of charity ? 
 Certainly not. Do as other nations do. Make the 
 matter one of grim and serious public responsibility. 
 
 What do I suggest ? Three things : — 
 
 1. No London child must go to school hungry. We 
 can't afford to let him. 
 
 2. Parents who can make proper provision for their 
 youngsters must ; if they neglect their duty — as 
 many do — through drunken, thriftless, self-indul- 
 gent habits, scarify them. Develop a conscience 
 in them through the medium of sharp, relentless, 
 continuous punishment. 
 
 3. Parents who cannot — as a result of ill-health, mis- 
 fortune, or lack of employment — make due provi- 
 sion must have that provision made for them 
 without any suspicion of pauperisation. 
 
 How would I go to work ? I would schedule all the 
 slum areas for my feeding scheme. The schools in those 
 areas would be linked together by threes and fours 
 and each group provided with a dining-hall. 
 
 Parents would be informed that books . of coupon 
 
Appendix. 241 
 
 tickets were procurable at all public offices in the dis- 
 trict. They would go and get them, paying for them 
 if they could ; getting them gratuitously if they could 
 not. 
 
 In the morning, before going to school, each youngster 
 will get his dinner coupon from his mother or father. 
 All coupons would be identical, whether paid for or not. 
 At midday the youngsters would march off to the 
 dining-hall, hand in the coupons, and get a good square 
 meal of soup, rice-pudding, jam-pudding, and so on. 
 
 I begin with the dinner. The breakfast, where 
 needed, could be rapidly added. Children unsupphed 
 with dinner coupons would get them from the teachers. 
 After having fed the youngsters I would come back on 
 the parent, and, if he was in a position to pay, and 
 hadn't done so, would make him stump up. Machinery 
 exists to-day in the Education Acts, the Industrial 
 Schools Acts, and the Prevention of Cruelty to Children 
 Act, which, with a shght alteration in either case, would 
 enable me to get back on the parent and keep his nose 
 to the grindstone where he had manifestly been seeking 
 to shake off that duty to his youngster which he was also 
 manifestly easily able to accomplish. 
 
 To the others, the sick, the unemployed, and the un- 
 fortunate, I wouldn't say a word, except of genuine 
 commiseration and practical sympathy. 
 
 The cost ? I would ask voluntary subscriptions. I 
 would collect at all marriages at West End churches 
 for the Free Dinner Fund. I would dip into the Im- 
 perial Exchequer. Lots of money is spent in this 
 
 16 
 
242 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 country on far less wise projects than this. I would 
 take the fee of the paying parent, and collect the fine 
 from the non-paying parent who could pay but 
 wanted to shuiHe out. 
 
 On the Paris estimate — Paris does all this — I should 
 want about Jd. in the pound, at the outside, from the 
 London rates. Why not ? Real Empire-building this. 
 
 The ratepayer is now maintaining at heavy cost in 
 infirmary and workhouse the derelicts to whom, as 
 neglected scraps of humanity twenty and thirty years 
 ago, he didn't give a second thought. Why not contri- 
 bute when they are young, and make them effective 
 members of the community ? 
 
 A ha'penny in the pound ! Well ! The school rate 
 in London is now is. 2d. It is mostly wasted where it 
 is most needed, because the youngsters are physically 
 unfit to learn. Make it is. -z^d. and secure a fruitful 
 and beneficent result from your whole expenditure. 
 
 A ha'penny in the pound ! Well, remember what 
 Disraeh winds up " Sybil " with : — " And the youth of 
 a nation are the trustees of posterity ! " 
 
 T. J. Macnamara 
 
Appendix. 243 
 
 On Doorstep Girls and " Doing for Jews." 
 
 The evidence referring to " doorstep girls," 
 which was given before the Inter-Departmental 
 Committee on the Employment of School Children, 
 is rather conflicting. Some of the witnesses seemed 
 to think that the work was well paid and beneficial 
 to the children in more ways than one. Of this 
 number was Mr. Crutchley, School Board visitor 
 at Deptford, who said that some of these girls 
 earned eighteenpence a morning, and that he did 
 not think that the work did the girls any harm. 
 " But," he added, " it finds money for some parents 
 who are willing to live on their children." In 
 answer to another question, he said that the girls 
 seemed well fed. Mr. A. Spencer, chief officer of 
 the Public Control Department of the London 
 County Council, estimated at one penny per step, 
 or about one shilling a week, the wages paid to the 
 large number of doorstep girls who had come under 
 his notice. He said that many of them were em- 
 ployed by the General Cleaning Company. Miss 
 Florence Melly, speaking of Liverpool on this sub- 
 ject, said : " Now, I should like to say one word 
 about the step-cleaning work. I have not myself 
 found in this inquiry any case of a chUd being so 
 employed, but I know from an experience of 
 
 16* 
 
244 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 twenty-five years in that school the very terrible 
 effects that follow that particular employment, 
 and I noticed yesterday, when I was talking to 
 the children about this, how it was regarded by 
 them. I said to the Standard III. children : ' Is 
 there anybody step-cleaning here ? ' and there 
 was a perfect pause, and then they said : ' Oh, 
 no. Miss Melly ! ' and they were perfectly shocked. 
 It is considered the lowest work that any girl can 
 be employed in — even worse than selling chips." 
 Miss Mary Dendy, of the Manchester School Board, 
 said that in her district the doorstep girls were 
 known as " hard nanny girls," and with the 
 knockers-up and Jews' iiremakers, were, in her 
 experience, an exceedingly low type of girl, parti- 
 cularly the doorstep girls. The Chairman, referring 
 to her expression, " a low type of girl," asked : 
 " Does it make them lower ? " Miss Dendy 
 answered : " Yes, morally, but they would not be 
 there unless they were unfit to do anything better. 
 When a girl goes from door to door to clean door- 
 steps and is paid with crusts of bread — those are 
 the ' hard nanny ' girls, and it means a very hard 
 lot indeed." Several witnesses stated that a 
 " moral taint " attached to the children who were 
 sent out on these tasks. 
 
 The report of the Committee referred in the 
 following terms to the employment of children in 
 
Appendix. 245 
 
 " domestic work " for hire : " The employment of 
 girls in baby-minding and as housemaids is much 
 more extensive and less satisfactory. Under good 
 conditions it is, of course, useful work, and it may 
 even extend to several hours a day without doing 
 much harm. But far too often where girls of school 
 age are employed in this way, it is in very poor 
 houses, and they are in many cases kept at it for 
 undue hours, and subjected to very severe strain." 
 Not less than 50,000 children, boys and girls, are 
 employed for wages in domestic work of various 
 kinds. 
 
246 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 On Barbers' Boys. 
 
 In the same report the consensus of opinion re- 
 garding the employment of boys to lather customers 
 in barbers' shops is summed up in the following 
 terms : " The worst form of shop work is that of 
 the lather boys in barbers' shops. The hours 
 worked by these boys are longer than in any other 
 trade — five hours every evening, with fifteen hours 
 on Saturday and six or seven on Sunday, are not 
 uncommon — the sanitary conditions of the shops 
 are sometimes exceedingly bad, and in the lower 
 quarters of the town they are said often to be the 
 meeting-places of gamblers, and the conversation 
 and surroundings are the worst possible for chil- 
 dren. Many witnesses named this as the one em- 
 ployment for boys which they would wish to see 
 totally prohibited." 
 
 In London alone there were employed in 1900 
 619 children in barbers' shops. The approximate 
 range of hours of work varied from 20 to 50, and 
 the approximate range of pay went from is. to 
 3s. 6d. 
 
 Death has resulted from the strain and exhaus- 
 tion of these long hours of work, under bad con- 
 ditions. 
 
Appendix. 247 
 
 On Street=Trading by Boys in Manchester. 
 
 Here is an of&cial description of the kind of life 
 led by the boy street-traders of Manchester. Could 
 there be any worse training for manhood and 
 citizenship ? 
 
 " Most of the boys who are engaged in street-trading 
 live in common lodging-houses, and it is interesting to 
 remember that however greatly their profits vary from 
 week to week, and however wide the differences between 
 the takings of one class of street-sellers and another, 
 what we may call domestic expenses are practically 
 the same for all. These boys make two meals in the 
 day — a late breakfast and a supper. About 4d. is 
 spent on each of these meals. 
 
 "New clothes are, of course, very rarely bought, and 
 the payment for them is made by instalments. More 
 often clothes are acquired by exchange, or in return 
 for occasional jobbing. It is not necessary, therefore, 
 in making an account of the ordinary expenditure to 
 include the item of clothing. There remains, then, 
 besides food, the expense of lodging. 
 
 " There are some lodging-houses in which a bed can be 
 got for 3d. a night ; but most of the street-traders 
 lodge in fourpenny houses, when they are able to afford 
 lodging at all. Sometimes, of course, they are forced 
 to go without lodging, or spend the night as best they 
 may under arches, or in railway sheds and waggons. 
 
248 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 The landlord of a fourpenny house allows a reduction 
 to those who pay for a week's lodging in advance, 
 charging 2s. a week instead of 2S. 4d. 
 
 " The lodging always includes, besides the bed, the 
 use of the kitchen fire for cooking (these boys are often 
 skilful cooks), and the use of a scullery or back kitchen 
 for washing clothes. Adding these two sums together — 
 
 Food, 8d. a day . . . . 48a week 
 
 Lodging, 4d. a night or ..20 „ 
 
 Total . . . . ..68a week, 
 
 we get a total of 6s. 8d. or 7s. a week. In other words, 
 about half of the earnings of the ordinary street-seller, 
 less than half the profits of the more prosperous, is 
 spent in the necessaries of life. The question arises, 
 what is done with the remainder ? The remainder is 
 spent in amusements and in gambling. The theatre 
 or the music-hall is very regularly attended and perhaps 
 IS. a week may be spent on these entertainments. 
 Boys will often go night after night to see the same 
 piece, or the same ' variety ' programme. 
 
 "But if we allow is., a large estimate (for admission 
 to the pit of the music-hall, most generally frequented, 
 is had for 3d.), as the weekly expenditure on amuse- 
 ments, there is still left a sum of, let us say, 6s. or 7s., 
 in the case of the poorer, and 9s. or los. in the case of 
 the richer street-seller, yet to be accounted for. 
 
 " This sum, half or more than half the total income, 
 is spent regularly, unhesitatingly, and cheerfully upon 
 
Appendix. 249 
 
 gambling. The money is almost invariably lost, and 
 does not circulate among the boys themselves, for 
 though they bet upon games of their own, they are 
 in the hands of sharpers, bookmakers, and others who 
 live upon them. The boys do not expect to win, though 
 sometimes they are allowed to get the advantage. But 
 they pay for the pleasurable excitement which they 
 get, and even when they go beyond their surplus, and 
 trench upon the living expenses, and have to go short 
 of food, they feel content. They think that they have 
 had their money's worth. 
 
 " The gambling is done upon ' nap,' ' pitch-and-toss,' 
 ' banker,' upon card games, and chiefly upon dominoes. 
 There is also, as we have suggested, some betting on 
 football matches and on horses, but (and this seems to 
 us a curious distinction) betting upon horses is much 
 more common among boys engaged in the regular 
 trades than among street-traders." 
 
250 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 On Street Gambling by Boys. 
 
 As at Monte Carlo, when the revolver, handled 
 by a ruined and desperate gambler, rings out, 
 breaking the strained silence of the night, not for 
 one moment is the eager intentness of those sitting 
 round the tables diverted. Such hideous egotism 
 can be noticed amongst our street children also. 
 
 As an example of the moral effect of gambling, 
 some days ago a man was taken ill in the streets of 
 London and fell to the ground dying. Some boys 
 were gambling hard by under a lamp-post. They 
 saw the man fall, and casually noticed his death 
 struggle. But they were so absorbed in their 
 sordid pursuit, that mere boyish curiosity, which 
 might have prompted them to run up, was entirely 
 submerged ; more than this, pity was quite dead 
 within them. Whilst the man was dying they 
 went on playing. When some time later the police 
 came on the scene and the man was found to be 
 dead, the boys were still gambling under the lamp- 
 post. 
 
 An immediate result to the children of this prac- 
 tice is that either directly on account of its com- 
 mission — gambling being an offence in the eye of 
 the law — or as a result of the offences to which it 
 leads, chief amongst other temptations is that they 
 fall into the hands of the police. 
 
Appendix. 251 
 
 Of children trading in the streets of Birming- 
 ham, there were during the first six months of the 
 year 1901, 713. Of these, 293 were boys and 77 
 were girls under the age of fourteen, the remainder 
 being children between the ages of fourteen and 
 sixteen. 
 
 Well, of these children, during that period of six 
 months 458 fell into the hands of the police and were 
 prosecuted on various charges — 185 boys for gamb- 
 ling. The gravest charge known to the English cri- 
 minal law is felony. This class of offence, within the 
 memory of many people living, used to be punished 
 with death. Ninety-eight boys and 17 girls, out 
 of the 713 children trading in the streets of Bir- 
 mingham, were prosecuted for felony. Of these 
 desperate criminals, 49 boys and 4 girls were under 
 the age of fourteen. Some of them had just passed 
 their seventh birthday. During the five years 
 from 1896 to 1900, 675 children between the ages 
 of seven and eleven were apprehended by the 
 Birmingham police. AU these children on arrest 
 went to prison, at least, until the magistrates had 
 finally dealt with their cases. 
 
252 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 On Sending Children to Prison. 
 
 It is a very terrible thing to think of — the im- 
 prisonment of little children. One of the most 
 striking passages in English fiction describes the 
 terror and anguish of little Jane Eyre, when she 
 is locked up, for some trifling offence, by her cruel 
 aunt. How truthful is Charlotte Bronte's descrip- 
 tion of this terror, and this anguish could be con- 
 firmed most fully by anyone who has seen children 
 under confinement in our gaols. I wish here to 
 quote from a letter which appeared some years ago 
 in a London newspaper the testimony on this sub- 
 ject of an eye-witness : 
 
 " The cruelty," he wrote, " that is practised by 
 day and by night in English prisons is incredible, 
 except to those that have witnessed it and are 
 aware of the brutality of the system. 
 
 " The present treatment of children is terrible, 
 primarily from people not understanding the 
 peculiar psychology of a child's nature. A child 
 can understand a punishment inflicted by an indi- 
 vidual, such as parent or a guardian, and bear it 
 with a certain amount of acquiescence. What it 
 cannot understand is a punishment inflicted by 
 society. It cannot realise what society is. . . . 
 
 " The child, consequently, being taken away from 
 
Appendix. 253 
 
 its parents by people whom it has never seen and 
 of whom it knows nothing, and finding itself in a 
 lonely and unfamiliar cell, waited on by strange 
 faces and ordered about and punished by the 
 representatives of a system it cannot understand, 
 becomes an immediate prey to the first and most 
 prominent emotion produced by modern prison 
 life — the emotion of terror. The terror of a child 
 in prison is quite limitless. I remember once, as I 
 was going out to exercise, seeing in the dimly-lighted 
 cell right opposite my own a small boy . . . 
 The child's face was like a white wedge of sheer 
 terror. There was in his eyes the terror of a hunted 
 animal. The next morning I heard him at break- 
 fast time crying and calling to be let out. His cry 
 was for his parents. From time to time I could 
 hear the deep voice of the warder on duty telling 
 him to be quiet. Yet he was not even convicted 
 of whatever small offence he had been charged 
 with. He was simply on remand. That I knew 
 by his wearing his own clothes, which seemed neat 
 enough. He was, however, wearing prison socks 
 and shoes. This showed that he was a very poor 
 boy, whose own shoes, if he had any, were in a 
 bad state. Justices and magistrates often remand 
 children for a week, and then perhaps remit what- 
 ever sentence they are entitled to pass. They call 
 this 'not sending a child to prison.' It is, of 
 
254 ^^^ Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 course, a stupid view on their part. To a little 
 child, whether he is in prison on remand or after 
 conviction, is not a subtlety of social position he 
 can comprehend. To him the horrible thing is to 
 be there at aU. In the eyes of humanity it should 
 be a horrible thing for him to be there at all. 
 
 " This terror that seizes and dominates the child, 
 as it seizes the grown man also, is, of course, in- 
 tensified beyond power of expression by the solitary 
 cellular system of our prisons. Every child is 
 confined to its cell for twenty-three hours out of the 
 twenty-four. This is the appalling thing. To shut 
 up a child in a dimly-lit cell for twenty-three hours 
 out of the twenty-four is an example of the cruelty 
 of stupidity. If an individual, parent or guardian, 
 did this to a child, he would be severely punished. 
 The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Chil- 
 dren would take the matter up at once. There 
 would be on all hands the utmost detestation of 
 whomsoever had been guilty of such cruelty. But 
 our own actual society does worse itself, and to the 
 child to be so treated by a strange abstract force, 
 of whose claims it has no cognisance, is much worse 
 than it would be to receive the same treatment 
 from its father and mother, or someone it knew. 
 The inhuman treatment of a child is always in- 
 human, by whomsoever it is inflicted. But in- 
 human treatment by society is to the child the more 
 
Appendix. 255 
 
 terrible because there is no appeal. A parent or 
 guardian can be moved and let out a child from the 
 dark lonely room in which it is confined. But a 
 warder cannot. Most warders are very fond of 
 children. But the system prohibits them from 
 rendering the child any assistance. Should they 
 do so, they are dismissed. 
 
 " The second thing from which a child suffers in 
 prison is hunger. The food that is given to it con- 
 sists of a piece of usually badly-baked prison bread 
 and a tin of water for breakfast at half-past seven- 
 At twelve o'clock it gets dinner, composed of a tin 
 of coarse Indian meal stirabout, and at half-past 
 five it gets a piece of dry bread and a tin of water 
 for its supper. This diet, in the case of a strong 
 grown man is always productive of illness of some 
 kind — in the case of a child, the child is, as a rule, 
 incapable of eating the food at all. Anyone who 
 knows anything about children knows how easily 
 a child's digestion is upset by a fit of crying, or 
 trouble, or mental distress of any kind. A child 
 who has been crying all day long, and perhaps half 
 the night, in a lonely dimly-lit cell, and is preyed 
 upon by terror, simply cannot eat food of this 
 horrible kind ! " 
 
 ' There you have in plain EngUsh a picture of the 
 immediate consequences which result to children 
 
256 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 who, exposed to the hazards of the streets on to 
 which they are driven to seek their Hvelihood, 
 because they have no other means of gaining it» 
 succumb to the hundred and one temptations of 
 these streets, and so fall into the hands of the 
 police. But these immediate consequences, terrible 
 as they are, are as nothing compared to the possible, 
 the probable, results from the initiation of a little 
 child into the freemasonry of crime. It is only, 
 say the French, the first step that costs. A child 
 who has once been in prison is likely to return there. 
 Its reputation is no longer intact. It bears the 
 moral brand-mark. Worse than this ; it has 
 gained familiarity with, and hence contempt for, 
 the punishment of evil-doing. Possibly amongst 
 its fellows in the slums and common lodging-houses 
 the fact of its having been once in prison passes as 
 a distinction. This may encourage it in evil- 
 doing. I must add, however, that speaking in the 
 spring of last year on this subject (the imprison- 
 ment of young children) at the meeting of the 
 Church of England Waifs and Strays Society at 
 Bristol, I was contradicted on the platform by one 
 of my fellow-speakers. He said that he was a 
 visiting justice, and that his opinion was that the 
 child-prisoners liked, their life in gaol so much that 
 they were glad to return there ; in fact, that their 
 treatment was not half severe enough. " And as 
 
Appendix. 257 
 
 to the bread," he added, " the dainty brown loaves 
 supphed to all the prisoners are so very nice, that 
 whenever I visit the prison I ask for a loaf or two 
 to take back home with me, where it is thoroughly 
 enjoyed at afternoon tea by my family." 
 
 I have underlined in this statement a passage 
 which more than confirms my remarks. As to the 
 brown bread, no doubt cut into thin slices, and 
 eaten with butter, or honey, or other " kitchen," 
 to the accompaniment of cups of fragrant tea, 
 duly softened with cream and sweetened with 
 sugar, it may be delectable provender. But other- 
 wise ! 
 
 17 
 
258 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 On the Physical Condition of Scotch Children. 
 
 My comments on the miserable way in which the 
 Scotch children in the big towns are clad and shod 
 provoked the comment that nothing better hardens 
 a child than to go " lightly clad," and to run 
 barefoot. The example of Mr. Gladstone's grand- 
 child has been quoted to me over and over again. 
 Every doctor, however, whom I have consulted, 
 and I have consulted many, confirms what is the 
 commonsense view of the question — namely, that 
 bad clothing and exposure of the feet to wet and 
 cold leads to disease and may cause death. Dr. 
 Eichholz clearly cited as circumstances noted in 
 connection with degeneracy of children, inter alia, 
 bad clothing, bad boots and exposure. 
 
 In the Report of the Committee on Physical 
 Deterioration, we read as to the Edinburgh chil- 
 dren : — 
 
 " In certain districts of Edinburgh no less than 45 
 per cent, of the population, according to information 
 given by Dr. Leslie Mackenzie, medical inspector to 
 the Local Government Board for Scotland, live in oiie- 
 roomed or two-roomed dwellings, a fact which largely 
 accounts for the sinister results attending the examina- 
 tion of 600 children conducted by Dr. Mackenzie' 
 under the direction of the Royal Commission on Phy- 
 sical Training (Scotland). 
 
Appendix. 259 
 
 " Dr. Mackenzie examined 600 children picked 
 from the Edinburgh schools and 600 children from 
 the Aberdeen schools, and the results of these com- 
 parative examinations are summarised in the fol- 
 lowing extracts from the Report of the Royal 
 Commission : — 
 
 " The number of rooms (inhabited by the children's 
 families) furnished a good indication of the social status 
 of the children. In Aberdeen ' the balance, in respect 
 of health and development, was found to be in favour 
 of children drawn from three and four (and upwards) 
 roomed houses,' and that city, most of whose school 
 children were drawn from three-roomed houses, had the 
 advantage over Edinburgh, whose school children are 
 drawn mostly from two-roomed houses. 31.3 per cent. 
 of the Aberdeen children lived in three-roomed houses, 
 while in Edinburgh, on the contrary, the predominant 
 number, 35.32 per cent., lived in two-roomed houses. 
 Indeed, of aU the Edinburgh children, 45 per cent, hved 
 in very small — i.e., one or two-roomed houses. 
 
 " The ratio of health in both cities harmonises with 
 these facts. Thus there are among all the children 
 examined in Aberdeen 0.5 per cent, in apparent poor 
 health ; while in Edinburgh there are 19.17 per cent. 
 
 " The same tale is told by the statistics regarding 
 the condition of nutrition of the children. Aberdeen 
 shows 9 per cent, of its children badly nourished, while 
 Edinburgh shows 29.8 per cent, (against 3.52 per cent, 
 of Enghsh school children according to Dr. Warner's 
 
 17* 
 
26o The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 tables). And similarly mental dulness was noted in 
 8.8 per cent, of the Aberdeen children, compared with 
 12.33 per cent, in Edinburgh (against 7.39 per cent, in 
 English schools). 
 
 " An affinity exists between conditions of nutrition 
 and health of body and mind, on the one hand, and mea- 
 surements of height, weight and girth on the other. 
 We are supplied with data. . . . The Edinburgh 
 children are throughout much below those of Aberdeen 
 in height and weight, and that to a somewhat startling 
 degree. Perhaps the matter may be most readily 
 focussed by saying that the Edinburgh adult man is 
 i| ins. taller and 12J lbs. heavier than the adult male 
 Aberdonian, the average Edinburgh school child is 
 1.35 ins. shorter and 4.97 lbs. lighter than the Aberdeen 
 school child. This shows a serious deficiency somewhere 
 in Edinburgh. The Aberdeen child (and both sexes and 
 all ages from six to fifteen are included in these com- 
 putations) is 0.07 in. taller than the average British 
 child, but weighs 0.63 lbs. less. The British child 
 stands 0.86 in. less and scales 2.3 lbs. less than the 
 American child. The Edinburgh child is the worst of 
 the four, being 1.28 ins. shorter and 5.61 lbs. lighter than 
 the British standard. No great amount of argument 
 is required to bring home to everyone the significance 
 of facts like these. Height, weight, pallor, bad health, 
 bad nutrition, want of alertness and bad carriage 
 distinguish Edinburgh adversely throughout as com- 
 pared with Aberdeen, and even Aberdeen, which pro- 
 bably is fairly representative of Scotland generally, as 
 
Appendix. 261 
 
 compared with the standard of the British Islands, 
 leaves something to be desired." 
 
 Glasgow. 
 
 With reference to Glasgow, I must quote a remark 
 made by the Chairman of the Physical Deteriora- 
 tion Committee in his examination of Sir Frederick 
 Maurice, K.C.B. : " It may be taken for granted, 
 I suppose, that the conditions of existence in Glas- 
 gow are perhaps worse for the great mass of the 
 population than those in any other town in the 
 British Isles ? " To this Sir Frederick answered : 
 " In many ways that is true." 
 
 Child Labour in Dundee. 
 
 First as to the half-timer, I cannot do better 
 in support of my remarks than quote the testimony 
 of Mr. Harry James Wilson, H.M.'s Inspector of 
 Factories and Workshops in Newcastle-on-Tyne, 
 who for five years was inspector in Dundee. 
 
 After agreeing with Doctor Scott, another wit- 
 ness, " that Dundee was, in respect of child labour, 
 probably the worst town in Scotland, or even Great 
 Britain," Mr. Wilson spoke of the Dundee half- 
 timers as follows : " Personally, the poorest speci- 
 mens of humanity that I have ever seen, both men 
 and women, are working in the preparing and 
 spinning departments of certain Dundee jute mills. 
 
262 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 There are special reasons, of course, why they 
 should be so extraordinarily bad there." 
 
 The Chairman : " Because the wages are poor, 
 and they come from the very poorest class ? " 
 
 Mr. Wilson : " Yes. I think in my annual 
 report for 1900, to the Chief Inspector of Factories, 
 I made some remarks about the textile industries 
 of Dundee. I could give particulars of 169 boys 
 and girls that I weighed. I am now speaking of 
 the number of half-timers. By far the largest pro- 
 portion of children in the district are employed in 
 Dundee itself, the number engaged outside being 
 relatively small. I append a table showing the 
 substantial and steady decline in the numbers of 
 children working in Dundee during the five years 
 I have been in that district : — 
 
 In 1896 there were 2,793 children 
 
 1897 >, 
 
 2,617 
 
 1898 „ 
 
 2,437 
 
 1899 „ 
 
 2,195 
 
 1900 „ 
 
 1,824 
 
 I believe that now it is down to about 1,200. If 
 this reduction continues for a few years more, 
 child labour in the staple industry will become a 
 thing of the past. As you are aware, I have re- 
 marked, year by year, upon the poor physique of 
 the typical Dundee half-timer, and suggested 
 
Appendix. 263 
 
 certain causes for this unfortunate condition of 
 affairs. Many of these children are bom and 
 brought up in single and double-roomed houses, or 
 in large tenements, where the conditions of life are 
 almost as unnatural and injurious as it is possible 
 to imagine. Overcrowding often exists, in con- 
 junction with general squalor and intemperance on 
 the part of one or both parents. Injudicious and 
 unsuitable feeding during the susceptible period of 
 infancy, exposure to inclement weather and general 
 neglect appear to be the largest causes of infantile 
 deaths, as the children who survive seem to suffer 
 more or less from weak constitutions throughout 
 life. The latter class are often very short and far 
 below the normal standard in weight. Undoubtedly 
 factory life, although not specially injurious to 
 workers, who have naturally strong constitutions, 
 or who commence labour after having reached 
 maturity, nevertheless neither fosters growth nor 
 development, and has a distinctly harmful effect 
 on undersized, on badly-nourished young persons. 
 Thus I have frequently conversed with full-grown 
 men of twenty years and upwards, who do not 
 stand more than five feet, or five feet one inch in 
 height, and who scale less than nine stone. These 
 men have not the physical strength for heavy 
 manual labour, or, indeed, any tasks which demand 
 prolonged efforts, but must accept unskilled 
 
264 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 labourers' wages in mills or factories all their 
 lives." 
 
 Mr. Wilson then produced the figures of the 
 children that he weighed and measured, and said 
 that, as compared to the average English or Ameri- 
 can child, the Dundee children would be remarked 
 as decidedly deficient in both weight and height ; 
 indeed, the contrast was remarkable. He added 
 that " it would be hardly credited that children of 
 these diminutive dimensions are earning their 
 bread at laborious work." 
 
 Mr. Wilson's remarks on the Dundee " young 
 person " should also be noted. I am inclined to 
 think that the " young person," just after leaving 
 school, merits almost more sympathy than the 
 child-slave. The law has little heed of him. " Im- 
 mediately on the expiration of the compulsory 
 school attendance period, fourteen years of age, 
 this child will commence to labour for his own bread. 
 If he resides in a textile district, employment at 
 relatively good wages will be found for him, but the 
 hours will be long, fifty-five per week, and the 
 atmosphere he breathes very confined, perchance 
 also dusty. Employment of this character, especi- 
 ally if carried on in high temperature, rarely fosters 
 growth or development ; the stunted child elon- 
 gates slightly in time, but remains very thin, loses 
 colour ; the muscles remain small, especially those 
 
Appendix. 265 
 
 of the upper limbs ; the legs are inclined to become 
 bowed, more particularly if heavy weights have to 
 be habitually carried ; the arch of the foot flattens 
 and the teeth decay rapidly." 
 
 " You think," asked the Chairman, " that the 
 recruiting returns indicate the effect upon health ? " 
 
 " Yes," said Mr. Wilson, " I think so from exami- 
 ning them. Hundreds of factory youths answer 
 to this description, and an examination of the 
 Recruiting General's annual reports will confirm 
 my statement. Were the females submitted to a 
 corresponding examination they would be found 
 little superior. They exhibit the same miserable 
 development, and they possess the same sallow 
 cheeks and carious teeth. I have also observed 
 that at an age when girls brought up under whole- 
 some conditions usually possess a luxuriant growth 
 of hair, these factory girls have a scanty crop, 
 which when tied back is simply a wisp or rat's 
 taU." 
 
266 The Child-Slaves of Britain. 
 
 Hope for the Child°Slaves. 
 
 In view of the terrible state of things which I 
 have endeavoured to describe, it is comforting to 
 find that something is Ukely to be done by the 
 authorities for the child-slaves. This prospect is 
 held out in Paragraph 14 of the Summary of Re- 
 commendations drawn up by the Inter-depart- 
 mental Committee on Physical Deterioration. This 
 paragraph runs as follows : — 
 
 " As a preliminary to any further legislation on 
 the subject of the hours of employment, particularly 
 employment of women and children, it is, in the 
 view of the Committee, highly desirable that there 
 should be a strictly scientific enquiry into the 
 physiological causation and effects of over-fatigue, 
 as recommended by the Brussels Congress." 
 
 When next, accordingly, I see a little child- 
 slave, some barber's boy, for instance, late of a 
 Saturday night, terminating his sixteen-hour day, 
 after a week's work (in addition to school) of from 
 fifty to sixty hours, some baby sorting safety-pins 
 at 2 a.m. in a Birmingham slum, or some Dundee 
 half-timer, drenched with perspiration and clogged 
 with dust, I shall be able to tell him to be of good 
 heart ; that we intend to find out, as recommended 
 
Appendix. 267 
 
 by the Brussels Congress, by a strictly scientific 
 enquiry, what is the physiological cause of his 
 over-fatigue and what are likely to be its effects. 
 
 Unfortunately, a very large number of witnesses, 
 who could have deposed before the proposed Com- 
 mittee of Enquiry, exist now only as entries in the 
 books of the registrars and fleck the surface of our 
 land with tiny graves. 
 
 END OF APPENDIX. 
 
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