Bismarck weekly tribune., 1886-04-09
UNPROTECTED WORKERS.
HOW CHILDREN ARE ovERWo oRKED
4. IN GERMANY.
Evils Which are Exciting the Attention
of the Government-Fearful Mortal
# ity of Children Employed in Fac
tories-Trade Regulations.

extent in America, factory inspectors are
especially instructed to prosecute for breach
of the factory acts In Germany they are
especially instructed not to do So They. re-
port to the governments of the several prin-
cipalities and kingdoms, who revise and ex-
cerpt at discretion and then forward the re-
suit to the government of the empire, which
carries thu process of dissection one step
further and then publishes as much of the
twice mutiliated remains as it thinks proper,
and still the reports, even after they have
sso1 twice mangled by the ministerial
a wars, are most painful reading
Gle trade regulations forbid employers
tassunlg their hands to work on Sundays.
So no one is bound, but every one works
for fear of dismissal Necessaries of life, if
furnished to the hands by employers, must
be supplied at cost price, but tools and ma
terials may be furnished at any price that
the employers see fit to set upon them, and
the enormous profits demanded by firm in
Bielefeld We're the cause of the strike, tu-
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 exactions of profits upon
the sewing materials which they supply so
upon sewing cotton was before the reichstag,
a committee was appointed to canvass the
employees of all such establishments in Ber-
of the employers. The result was the revel-
alton of extortions almost incredible
THE EMPLOYMENT OF CHILDREN.
Children under 12 years of age may not
be employed in factories and the terribly
rigorous enforcement of compulsory educa-
tion up to 10 years of age probably secures
obedience to this command of the law, but
children from 12 to IA years of age may be
employed six hours per day. The teachers
of the empire at their convention in Darn
stadt last summer called attention to the
fact that in 1888, when the last available
statistics we're published, 1885 such chill
dren were employed in those industries
alone which were under the surveillance
of the factory inspectors, while
the number employed in industries
carried on by the workers in their dwell
ings and in handicrafts was probably much
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 children's en-
ployment evil is in relation to the factory
inspectors There are not one tenth as many
of these functionaries in the first place as there
ought to be and the few who exist are ex-
pressly forbidden to prosecute for breach of
the law. Hence the abuse of the employ
ment Of children goes so far that such sheet
as The National Liberal Leipsicer Tageblatt
recently observed: eff the inspectors would
pause in many place in Saxony towards
9, 10 and II at night in the vicinity of ma
chine made lace works they would see how
many children are employed beyond the
legal hours, among them children from z
years on"
FEARFUL MORTALITY OF cH1LDr IN
According to The Conservative Monthly
there are in Germany no less than 46O, ,474
children under Is years of age supporting
themselves. Of these, 142,262 are engaged
in manufacture, 2s,629 of them being girls.
There is scarcely branch of industry in
which children are not employed In mines
and salt works alone s, 500 children are en-
ployed. Brick, porcelain and glassworks
employ 5,744 more children, a large proper
tion of whom are employed at home In
glass-hlowing, kind Of work especially
hurtful for breathing apparatus which is
still in process of development In spinning
mills there are 6,942 children The figures
touching the spinning industry are very
complete, and the conclusions which inev-
1tably follow from them are terrible. Be-
sides the 6,942 child spinners, there are 34,-
600 persons ranging in age from Is to 20
years, 81 900 in the years between 20 and
80, and but Ii, 700 between 80 and 40. The
majority sof these workers are women.
The natural consequence is the fearful NOR
tality of children in spinning and weaving
districts such as Silesia, mortality which
has increased of late years. In Breslau,
for instance, this mortality has increased
from 27 per 1000 children as the average
Of the years from 1876-1SSO to 20O in 1888
In Leignitz, during the same time, the in
fant mortality increased from 2SS to 296 per
1000 In Oppelu it increased from 211 to
226 per 1000, and in the whole province
from 255 to 266 per 1000 But these figures
are by no means the worst. In the actual
seats Of manufacture the statistical showing
is frightful Beuthen and Waldenburg have
a very dense population chiefly employed
in mining and smelling. In both the pro.
portion of deaths of children was 43O per
1000 The population of Landeshut is oc-
cupied in textile manufacture and here the
mortality reached 1856 per 1000 Yet the
SAAAk'AoJ AAoAo VI SlAAuItu, dCCOiu11S 10 CQe
latest reports Of the factory inspectors, is
everywhere steadily increasing Foreign
Cor. Philadelphia Times
English Anecdote of Horace Greeley.
We suspect that wealthy Americans get
''the people" crammed down their throats
till they grow as weary ss the late Horace
Greeley, most liberal giver, who once
answered request for money to save a
few souls with the snarl: "Get out There
amt half the souls damned that ought to
be"-London Spectator.
A Long Felt Want in Africa.
English enterprise will soon supply want
which has been long felt in west Africa,
viz: an investing and commercial bank.
THE COmnanY is now Eeino fo,.mad with a