The democrat. [volume] (Weston, W. Va.) 1868-1874, 1871-03-27
Ever so many years ago,
Under the naples. Jenny and l.
How Children are Manned in New York.

How Children are Manned in New York.
In addition to the outrage of sacrifc-
ing the health and educational interests
of children by keeping them at mechani-
cal drudgery nearly all their waking
hours, certain kinds OF labor they perform
are absolutely dangerous to life and
limb At the evening schools We heard
of girls who, while working in twine
manufactures, had lost one and two
Joints of their fingers. The principal in
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 also gone. 1t was taken of
in the twisting machinery at n 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 went 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-rooms 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 fax.
We were shown very picturesque
machine for hacking the fax, 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 reach and change the
clamps which held the fax. This mon
ster machine. which supersedes the small
hackers upon which our grand-mothers
dressed their flax, requires to be fed at
either end continuously, and it works
with the regularity and remorselessness
of fate. Not discovering this popularity
at first, and observing the boys working
for dear life, and We remarked to the
proprietor "These boys seem to be
irving to show off before you" "No,"
he replied, the machine keeps them at
it"
"Isit not better for them than run
ming through the streets ?" asked the
proprietor.
"Better than that, yes, but how are
they to be educated 2"
"They nearly all go to evening
schools"
Studying in the evening after working
like this all day No wonder they fall
asleep over their lessons.
This tread-miIl Of machine made me
forget for moment the terrible twisters
we came to see. Only for moment.
Descending to the next floor We find a
few women at work, and few boys, but
nearly all girls, of various ages, and
engaged in many different labors, but all
OF one complexion-sooty, grimy, dusty,
Aaxy: all were dressed in coarse skirt
of hemp, often ragged and tattered
They ran from one corner OF the room
to another, carrying heavy boxes and
armfuls of bobbins
Here are the dreadful twisting ma
chimes, very disappointing in appearance,
seeming to be only long rows of spindles
stretching from one end OF the room to
the other, with nothing peculiarly dan
perous about them The proprietor IS
anxious to confirm the impression caused
bv their harmless disappearance. ,
"a few girls" he says, "have had
their fingers hurt in these machines but
II was always in cases where they forgot
or neglected their work to talk or play.
The twisters are not more dangerous
than other machines at which children
work ,,,.h.
fourth finger Of her right hand how 1t
happened, and she replied:
lit was the rule that We go to help
tbe others. and l went to help girl,
and she kept twisting the twine so," CIV
inc her hand a great flourish. " But
nv little finger always did stick out from
t5s others. and it got caught among the
gar and | knew it would take my hand
off and / jerked it out with all my
might and only lost half the finger; Ii
/ had been slow, my hand would nave
been taken of.
-. This is the simple story OF a girl o.
twelve wears. She was trying to initiate