The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1897-05-08
RAISING WORKERS.
New England Mills Supplied with
Operatives
The Children Are Brought Up In the
Harness So a. to Provide for
the Parents When They
Get Old. -,

proposal of the French government tc
offer premiums for large families, hop
ing by this inducement to restore The
native population to its size of a quar-
ter of "a century ago, merely breach,
as something novel, system which has
for reasons not of statecraft, but mere
ly personal, long been in operation in
eastern Connecticut
In the mills, which are to be found
wherever in this hilly portion of the
state there is a water power, the work
crs are French Canadians. Big mills,
with their hundreds and even thousands
of operatives, are numerous, and little
mills, each employing from 20 or 80 to
100 or 200 workers of both sexes, are
tucked down between the hills in ell
sorts of possible and seemingly impos-
sibie spots.
In the large mills is to be found q
sprinkling of women of other national
tiles, but fully 80 per cent. are French.
In the smaller mills there are prac-
tically none but French workmen-
What surprises the visitor who has
come out of a New England city like
Hartford or New Haven to see how cot
ton and wooden goods are made is the
number of children in the factories.
Should this visitor ask the superin-
tendent of small mill to point out the
children of one family he will name
half dozen in the room in which he
happens to be; indicate another on tbs
stairs and four or five more in the vari-
Gus workrooms.
The father and mother may or may
not be workers in the factory. If the
family Is large enough the mother is
the housekeeper, and the onerous duty
of the father is to escort his offspring
to and from work. He gees to the
mill with them in the morning and
knows that they are all inside the gate
before the hour for starting the ma
chinery. At noon he conveys them
home to dinner and back to the factory.
At night he may come to take them
home, but this is not an imperative
duty. On pay day he comes to the fac
tory and draws the wages Of all Of
them.
A mile from Dayville, and about five
miles from this city. is factory from
which man, who can neither read nor
write, draws over 800 a month for the
labor of his children. The size Of his
family is indicated by an extract from
the factory books showing that the
children earn from two to four dollars
and half week.
This Frenchman Is merely one of
many who have found profit in largo
family. He is now making hay while
the sun shines, and in q few years he
will retire to farm in Canada with
from $1,000 to $4,000 in his canvas bag.
There he will live, nabob among his
people, the remainder of his life.
This child farming IS but one act Of
the drama of French factory life. The
years during which all tho children
worl, and the father draws the wages
are necessarily few. The fund for
life of ease. must be made quickly. The
female child, which at IA is the source
Of greatest profit, is ready to marry one
of her own class at 16, and she does
SO promptly. The new husband and
wife will work on in the mill for the
Eext five years, with occasional inter-
ruptions when there are additions to
the family, and then they vanish. They
have gathered their savings and gone TO
Canada to raise family. They make
no fuss about the matter. It is the regu-
lar thing. Ten years later, or even
sooner, they Will be back with big
string Of boys and girls to earn money
for them; they will gather the profits
and retire for life to the Canadian farm,
as their fathers and mothers did.
1t is noticeable of late years that the
operatives are more in haste to be rich
than formerly. They rush back to the
factories with smaller families than
were common 20 years ago. Indeed. it
is rarely now that families of more than
- are found, and few in the factory
tenements exceed ten in number.-Put,
nam Comm Cor. n. Y. Times.