The new North-west., 1886-02-19
UNPROTECTED WORKERS.
HOW CHILDREN ARE ovERWORkED
IN GERMANY.
Evils Which are Exciting the Attention
of the GovernHient-Fearful Mortal
ity of Children Employed in Fac
tories-Trade Regulations.

How totally unprotected the German
working population is few people know out
side the sufferers and the men and women
whose lives are spent in arousing discomfort
and revolutionary hatred among them.
In England and Switzerland, and to some
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 the 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
been twice mangled by the ministerial
shears, are most painful reading.
The trade regulations forbid employers
binding 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 were 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 50
far that, when the motion to impose tax
upon sewing cotton was before the reichstag,
a committee was appointed to canvass the
employees of all such establishments in Ber-
lin and compare their statements with those
oft 4ho Tbo %bo
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 IL 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 1883, when the last available
statistics were published, 1885 such chill
dren were employed in those industries
altns 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
sanls 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-
pioyment evil is in relation to the factory
inspectors. There are not one-tenth as many
of tn, 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 50 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 |
years on"
FEARFUL MORTALITY OF CHILD-':N. |
According to The Conservative Monthly |
there are in Germany ne less than 46O, ,474 |
children under Is years of age supporting |
themselves OF these, i42, ,263 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 800 children are en-
ployed. Brick, porcelain and glassworks
employ 5,744 more children, large proper
ton of whom are employed at home in
glass-hlowing, a 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-
itably follow from them are terrible Be-
sides the {, ,942 child spinners, there are a.
600 persons ranging in age from Is to 20
years, 81, goo in the years between 20 and
30, and but Is, 700 between 80 and 40. The
majority of these workers are women.
The natural consequence is the fearful NOR
tality of children in spinning and weaving
districts slch as Silesia, a mortality which
has increased of late years In Breslau,
for instance, this mortality has increased
from 2T1 per LOCO children as the average
Of the years from 1S76-1SS0 to 800 in 1888
In Leignitz, during the same time, the in
FAINT mortality increased from 2sS to 296 per
1,0O0. In Oppelu it increased from 211 to
226 per ! 600, and in the whole province !
from 255 TO 266 per ], 1,000 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
/ 900. The population of Landeshut is oc-
cupied in textile manufacture and here the
mortality reached 4S6 per 1000. Yet the
employment Of children, according to the
latest reports of the factory inspectors, is
steadily increasing g.-Foreign
Cor. Philadelphia Times