Thomas County cat. [volume] (Colby, Kan.) 1885-1891, 1885-08-20
1lllTERACY,
Joe Howard's Observations - to lite Prev
alence in New York and New England.

Joe H0ward's Observations - to lite Prev.
alence in New York and New England.
There are in the New England States
$50, 900 people over ten years of age who
can not write, and therefore. are classed
as CELEBRATES. In New York State
the number reaches the astounding
height of 100000, of whom $1,000 are
of the colored race.
These are doubtless men and women
who have been compelled to labor. or
seek their living off their wits. from ear
lest childhood. A child put at hard
working this way, is, as well known,
stunted IN growth or enfeebled in health.
He fails also to get what is considered
as indispensable in this country for the
safety of the State. q common-schoof
education. He grows up weak in body
and ignorant and unframed in mind.
The parent or relative wants his wages
and insists on his laboring in factory,
when he ought to be in an infant school.
The employer is in the habit of getting
labor where he can find it, and does not
much consider whether he is allowing
his little employees the time and leisure
sufficient for preparing themselves for
life. He excuses himself. too. by the
plea that the child would be half-starved
or thrown on the poorhouse but for this
employment.
The universal experience is that nei-
Their the benevOlence of the manufact-
urer nor the conscience of the parent
will prevent the steady employment of
children of tender years in factory work,
provided sufficient wages be offered.
Probably, if the employer were APP
preached by reasonable person. and
it was represented what a wrong he
was doing to SO young q laborer, or the
parent were warned of his responsibility
to educate a child he had brought into
the world. they would both agree to the
RESPONSIVENESS of the position and at
tempt to reform their ways. But the
necessities of capital on one side and
the wants of poverty on the other soon
put the children again at the loom, the
machine and the bench, and the result
is masses of little ones, bent and wan
with early trial and growing up mere
machines of labor. England has found
the evil terrible and, during the past
ten or fifteen years, has been legislating
necessarily against it; protecting help
less infancy from the tyranny of capital
and the greed of poverty. and securing
fair growth of body and mind for the
children of the laboring poor.
There are from l 500 to 2, 900 children
under fifteen years of age employed in
single branch here-the manufacture
of paper collars-while of those between
fifteen and twenty years the number
reaches some 5000. In tobacco fac
tories in New York, Brooklyn and
the neighborhood there are children
only four years of age-sOmetimes half
q dozen in single room. Others are
eight years of age, and range from that
up to fifteen years. Girls and boys Of
twelve to fourteen years earn from 81 to
s. week. Irvine factories, ink facto-
ries feather. pocket-book and artificial
flower manufacture. and hundreds of
other occupations reveal the same state
of things.
Now the question is what are we to do
with these children? Legislation to a
certain extent in New England and this
State has checked the grasping hand of
avaricious monopoly. making it mis- 2
demeanor to employ a child under
specified age. But that doesn't help
the child; it helps his physique. What
l want to get at is, what are we to do
for and with these children. l don't
believe in indiscriminate charity. and
besides that. in these days of swindling
and cheating the patrons of institutions
and reformatories are never certain that
the money goes to the places they wish
it to.
That is fact on the one side. while
on the other, doesn't experience prove
that there are professional paupers. peo-
pie who know all the tricks of rowing
and begging of life, whose faculties are
mainly directed to secure support by
other means than industry?-N. T. Cor.
Press.