Public ledger. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1865-1893, 1874-02-25

aims from door to door. But to the poor
children the life to which they are doom
ed is, in most cases, early physical
decay, and in all instances moral death.
| The shame and sorrow the Italians
residing or travelling abroad experience
upon witnessing so fragrant deg
radiation Of their poor countrymen are
most poignant, and they have at all times
done their utmost to engage both their
own rulers and the authorities of other
countries either to proceed against the
| kidnappers and torturers of the children
with such measures as would put an end
to the trade, or at least to extend such
protection to the children as would in
sure them better usage. But the diff
culties in the way of such endeavors
have been almost always and every.
where insurmountable. In some well.
established cases of savage ill-treatment
and actual starvation, the brutal masters
have been both by English and Ameri-
can magistrates visited with the utmost
rigbr of the laws, but heavy fines and
even Imprisonment have seldom had any
better effect than to sharpen the rogues'
cunning and aggravate their animosity
against their wretched victims, inducing
the tyrants to torture from deliberate
vlndictiveness those whom they had
hitherto only ill-used from sheer reck-
lessHess and on speculation. The
children frat subjected to this corrupt
ing and brutalizing tyranny were almost
exclusively recruited out of the poorest
population of the Apennines, on the
/ borders of Lucca, Genoa and Parma;
and, ifquestioned abouttbeir nationality,
| they always called themselves Parme-
sans, if organ. grinders, and Lucchese,
| if plaster cast sellers. But in progress
of time the fellows who went in quest of
them secured all the rural, chiefly the
mountainous, districts of the peninsula
ana did not even spare the larger towns,
from which, and especially from Rome
and Naples, they carried away girls as
well as boys--a most villainous innova.
tion in what was already an abomina-
BILE practice, as the females were expos
ed to danger of far worse description
than the hardships their brethren had to
encounter The bill, which has been
elaborated in both chambers at various
periods since 1868, is extremely credit
able to the Italian legislators, and will,
i; carried into execution, 90 as far to-
ward curing the evil it is intended to
| abolish as the unaided action of the
Italian government can reach. 1t enacts
that whoever delivers up to native Ital-
ians or to aliens minors OF less than
eighteen years of age, even if they be
their own children, or wards under their
guardianship, for the purpose of EN-
! ploying them in strolling trades (pro-
| fessioni girovaghe), such as mounte.
Banks, jugglers, charlatans, rope dancers,
fortune tellers, expounders of dreams,
itinerant musicians, vocalists or instru-
mentalists, exhibitors of animals and
mendicants Of any description, shall be
liable to fine of so francs to 250
francs (92 TO 9l0), and from one to
three months Imprisonment. The en-
ployers of minors not their own children,
and of less than eighteen years of age,
in any of the professions above men
toned, shall pay fine of 100 francs to
500 francs GA to e20), and sent to
prison for period of three to six months.
The parents and guardians who shall be
convicted of this offense shall, by the
very fact of the sentence pronounced
against them, become liable to forfeit
all their rights of guardianship or pa.
rental authority, at the discretion Of the
Judge, and for such time as may be
deemed advisable for the welfare of
the children These punishments may
be extended on a progressive scale of
severity up to fines of 500 francs |
to 1000 francs twenty to forty pounds
sterling) and Imprisonment from five to
seven and even ten years-hrstly, in |
cases in which the offense is committed |
out Of the Italian kingdom; secondly, in |
cases in which the children shall have |
been forsaken by their employers, or
their health shall have suffered from in
sufficient food, ill-treatment or cruelty, |
or when from any Of these causes they |
shall be driven to run away from their |
employers; thirdly, in cases in which the |
children shall have been kidnapped or
inveigled from their homes by fraud or
violence, and conveyed either to distant |
provinces or to foreign countries with
view to employing them as strollers and !
vagrants; the same penalties equally ap
plying to those who shall have employed |
unlawful means, and, fourthly, in cases
in which children obtained by such
means shall be forsaken, illfed, or i'll
treated. All. these penalties shall equally
extend to the accomplices of the princi
pal offenders, and they will be indicted
independently of any graver punishment
due to any crime with which the ofenses
above enumerated may be complicated
All contracts of apprenticeship within
the contemplation of the present law,
whether stipulated before or after its
publication, shall be null and Of no
effect under whatever pretext their OBJ
ject may have been disguised, and what
ever rights may have been transferred
by them from one person to another
either in the country or abroad.
The law proceeds to order the imme-
diate release and restitution of the |
children who. shall be in the employment 1
Of any person at home or abroad in any /
of the forbidden capacities, bidding pa
rents, guardians or any other persons /
who have given away children or wards /.
for such employment, or who so employ /
them. TO give notice of theiF doings TO /
the Syndic Of their Communes, If at |
home, or to the Kings diplomatic or I
Consular agents, if abroad; the children /
1