Bellows Falls times. [volume] (Bellows Falls, Vt.) 1856-1965, 1871-04-14
How Children are Manned in New
York,

ing the health aud educational interests
of children by keeping them at mechan-
ical drudgery nearly all their waking
hours, certain kin1sof labor they perf,rm
are absolutely dangerous to life and limb.
At the evening school We heard o!
girls who, while working in twine manu-
factories, had lost one and two joints OF
their fingers. The principal Of one school
stated that last winter she had ten girls
who had lost the initial finger from the
right hand, and therefore could not be
taught to write One child, who learned
to write with the left hand, came to
school afterwards with the initial finger
of that hand gone also. 1t was taken
off in the twisting machinery at twine
factory.
Determined to see this terrible ma
chine, we learned the address of the
largest twine establishment in the city,
and away up town, nearly to Central
Park, we vent one bitter cold day, so
cold that to keep our courage up it need
ed the reflection that little girls, thinly
clad, struggle through such weather all
winter long, plunge into it from hot
work-roooms and with vitality consumed
by labor in impure air.
We found about three hundred persons
at work, two hundred of them being
children under fifteen years of age, and
nearly all girls, who spin, wind, and
twist the flax.
We were shown very picturesque
machine for hacking the flax, tended by
ten sturdy little boys of twelve or thir.
teen years of age, FIVE on each end.
They were mounted upon platform to
enable them to teach and change the
clamps which held the flax. This mon.
sler machine, which supersedes the small
hackers upon which our grandmothers
dressed their fax, requires to be fed at
either end continuously, and it wo. ks
with The regularity and remorselessness
Of fate. Not discovering this peculiarity
at first, and observing the the boys work.
ing fo. dear life, we remarked to the pro-
prietor "These boys seem to be trying
10 show off before you." No" he re-
piled, "the machine keeps them at it. ,
Is it not better for them than run.
uing in the streets p asked the proprie-
( tor.
Better than that, yes; but how are
they to be educated 2"
They nearlyall 60 to evening schools. :
Studying in the evening after working
like this all day No wonder they fall
asleep over their lessons.
This tread-mill of machine made me
1 forget for moment the terrible twisters
we came to see. Only for a moment
Descending 20 the next floor we find a
few women at work, and few boys, but
nearly all girls, Of various ages, and en-
gagged in many different labors, but al
of one complexion-sooty, grimy, dusty
faxy all were dressed 10 a coarse skir
of hemp, often ragged and tattered
They ran from one corner of the room tC
another, carrying heavy boxes and arms
ful of bobbins.
Here are the dreadful twisting ma
chimes. very disappointing in appearance
seeming to be only long rows of spindle
stretching from one end of the room tt
the other, with nothing peculiarly dan
gerous about them. The proprietor il
anxious to confirm the impression caused
by their harmless appearance.
"a few girls" says he,' have hac
| their fingers hurt in these machines bu
it was always in cases where they forgo
or neg ected their work TO talk or play
The twisters are not more dangerous
than other machines at which childrel
work."
/ asked little girl who had lost th,
fourth finger of her right hand, how i
happened, and she replied:
at was the rule that we 60 to help tn,
others, and | went to help girl, and sh'
! kept twisting the twine so" giving he
hands great flourish. But my littl'
finger always did stick out from the 9th
ers, and it got caught among the fax
and knew it would take my hand off
and | jerked it out with all my might
and only lost half the finger. If hat
been slow, my hand would have beeI
taken off,"
This is the simple story of girl 0
twelve years. She was trying to imitat
one more skiilful than herself Tn,
stories of other fingers lost in twine fac
tories would differ out slightly from this
A moments forgeifulness of the danger
but Que moment of yielding to the uni
versal childish impulse TO play, and tn
mischief is done.-Frona " Children WI
Work, IN Scribner's for March.
Boy, why did you take an armful o
I .-,