Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1884-1886, 1886-03-03
UNPROTECTED WORKERS.
HOW CHILDREN ARE OvERWORkEo
IN GERMANY.
Evils Which arc Exciting the Attention
of the Governmcnt-Fearful Mortal
ity of Children Employed In fsc-
tories-Trade Regulations.

How totally unprotected thu German
working population is few people know out
side the sufferers and the men and wou.er
whose lives are spent in arousing discontanf
and revolutionary hatred among them
In England and Switzerland, and To SONS
extent in America, factory inspectors ara
especially instructed to prosecute for breach
Of the factory acts In Germany they arc
especially instructed not to do 81 They re-
port Ia the governments Of the several prin-
cip,lities and kingdoms who revise and ex-
cerp: at discretion and then forward the re
suit 10 the government Il the empire, which
carries the process o! dissection one step
further and then PUBLISHES as much Of the
vice mutiliated remains il thinks proper,
and still the reports, even after they have
been twice mangled by the ministerial
shears, are most painful reading.
The trade regulations forbid employers
binding their hands 10 work ON Sundays
SO no one is bound, but every one works
for fear Il dismissal Necessaries Of life, II
furnished to ths hands by employers, must
be supplied ut cost price, but tools and ma
teriais may be Furnished at any price that
the employers sce fit TO set upon them, and
the enormous profits demanded by n firm IN
! Bielefeld were the cause Of the strike, tn
multi and uproar and consequent institution
of actual military siege in that town last
summer. The employers of sewing women
in the preparation of ready made clothing,
too, carried their exaetions of proa;s upon
the sewing materials which they supply 80
far that when the motion to impose a tax
upon sewing cotton was before the reichsts.c,
a committee was appointed to canvass the
employees Of all such establishments In Der
lin and compare their statements with those
Of the employers The result was the reval
ntion Of extortions almost incredible.
THE EMPLOYMENT oF CHILDREN.
Children under I2 years Of age may not
be employed in factories and the terribly
rigorous enforcement Of compulsory educa-
ton up TO IL years of age probably secures
obedience to this coiSrnand Of the law, bot
children from IL to IA years Of age may b.
employed six hours per day. The teachers
If the empire at their convention in Darn
stadt last summer called attention 20 the
fact that in 1888, when the last available
statistics wers published, s,8i5 such chill
dren were employed in those Industries
alien, which were under the surveillanc.
Of the factory inspectors, while
the number employed In industries
carried ON by the workers in their dwell
! larger. and the speakers laid due weight
upon the damage inflicted upon these thou
sands Of poor little toilers by their too early
removal from school Even in the mines
there are children employed, both boys and
girls
But the worst aspect Of the childrun's EN-
ployment evil is In relation TO the factory
inspectors There are not one-ienth rs many
Of thes. functionariss In the frs; place there
ought 70 be and the few who e1is. are ex-
presly forbidden to prosecute for breach Of
the law Hence the abuse Of the employ
ment OF children goes far that such n sheet
as The National Literal Leipsieer Tageblat'
recently observed: IF the inspectors would
pausc In many q place in Saxcny towards
y, 10 and II at night in the vicinity u ma
chine made lace works they would s,e how
many children are employed beyond tbs
legal hours, among them Children from
years on"