The true northerner. [volume] (Paw Paw, Mich.) 1855-1920, 1871-08-18
Juvenile LabOrers i'm England.

In the course of recent debate in
the British House of Lords, it was
shown.that the brick-yards of the king
dom employ nearly 10000 children and
young persons, ranging in age from
three and half to seventeen years.
The work required Of these youthful
laborers from nine years and upwards is
something prodigious. One child, a
little over eight, weighing only tifty-two
and half pounds, was found TO be en-
ployed carrying forty-three pounds of
clay on his head distance amounting
daily TO over seven miles, which with
the return made him walk some fifteen
miles day, working seventy-three
hours week. A girl about thirteen
years old is reported as carrying twenty
five pounds on her head and mass of
equal weight in her arms, pressed
against her body. These are but two of
out of thousands Of similar instances.
Children thus loaded and overworked
have necessarily little opportunity to
grow, mentally or physically, and when
they become men and women in years,
are stunted in growth and dwarted IN
intellect. AS the sexes mingle freely
together in this employment, and are
at best very scantily clad, their inter
course results in the grossest forms of
immortality. The high wages offered for
this kind of work, however, serves to
hold those who have once become en-
gagged in it, and it appears that girls
who 90 out TO service in the winter, re-
turn TO the brick fields in summer.
One reason for the severity of the
labor is that brick making can only be
carried on in summer, and fair weather
at that, where the works are not cov-
cred over. Employers and laborers are
therefore DESTROYS of working as long as
possible, when circumstances favor, so
that they may receive the largest re-
turns, no matter what may be the ulti-
mate results. Sometimes the labor is
increased by compelling the children to
toll all night in the kilns. Similar mis-.
use of child-labor in England has been
prevented IN other employments 10y the
Factories and Worship Act, passed some
time since and it is gratifying to know
that the same philanthropists who were
instrumental in procuring the enact
ment of those laws, have now turned
their attention to the wrongs of the
CulluIeU III the Uilck-HeluS, ana VIII not
rest content until something is done for
their protection. The thought that the
greed of manufacturers and parents is
compelling thirty thousand children to
grow up in ignorance and vice is sutfi-
GENTLY appalling to arrest the attention
of the most indifferent, but the inter
vention Of the law is needed to stop the
wrong, and stop its extension. 1t is re.
markable to notice that the Bishop Of
London testities that some of the worst
of this slavery is practiced within his
diocese. Yet, perhaps there are no
places where vice and practical heathen-
ism are more rampant than in and near
the great business centers of the Old
and New World. Laws limiting the
number Of hours children can be EN-.
ployed in any trade, and compelling
parents and employers to send them to
school a portion of each year, are need
ed wherever manufacturers are found
to use child-labor, or parents poor or
indolent enough to be willing to compel
them to work before their strength has
been fully developed.