Audubon County journal. (Exira, Iowa) 1884-1993, 1897-10-21
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CHILD SLAVERY IN FRINGE.


CHILD SLAVERY IN FRINGE.
Disclosures Concerning the Sale Of italian
Boys to Agents of Glass Works.
Public attention has been turned to
form of slave trade now carried on in
France and Italy by disclosures which
are being made on the subject The VIC
tins are Italian children who are bought
from their parents by padrones and
forced to work in glass factories, chiefly
in the central part of France. Formerly
large numbers of these children were
sold into virtual slavery as beggars,
when mutilations were practiced upon
them to excite sympathy, as musicians
and as chimney sweeps That slave
trade was suppressed, but the law does
not reach the present form.
The children bring from 100 to $50
francs $3.50 to $3O) and are sold for
period Of three years. It is so much
money found and mouth less to fill,
the peasants say. The contracts are du-
ly executed before o notary, and the
village priest blesses the departing con-
voy Of little ones. There are no statis
tics of the mortality among them, but
it was calculated formerly that of 100
children taken from their homes by pa
drones 20 returned home at the end of
their period of slavery, 80 settled per-
manently in their new surroundings,
and the other 80 died, and in view Of
the conditions in which they find them
selves at the glass works there is no
reason to suppose that the mortality is
any less now. Their ages vary from II
to Is years The French law forbids
the employment of children less than
10 years old at such work, but that is
evadcd easily. Their services are sold
to the manufacturers at from 81 to $13
month, according to the locality. and
they work ten hours day. The pa
drones pocket all their wages and some
times even the gratuities that may be
distributed among the employees of an
establishment upon special occasions.
Their condition in the factories is de-
scribed as shocking. They work in a
superheated atmosphere, charged in adj
dition with noxious gases, and are con-
stantly exposed to severe accidents,
while their injuries do not receive prop
er treatment. They are especially sub
ject to lung troubles Bad as their nor
NAL state is, in many cases it is aggra-
waited by tho brutality Of the regular
workmen, who hate them both for being
Italians and for working at far below
the regular scale of wages. They are
naturally i'll fed. A magistrate who
was called upon to make an investiga-
ton in certain case found that their
chief fare was soupe aux legumes and
bread, with occasionally bit of cheese
and some wine, but never any meat. II
is estimated that the cost Of sustenance
Of these children ranges from to s
cents q day each to the padrone. In one
case the cost of feeding 10 Of the little
slaves was found to be 40 cents day.
The children are as wretched in appear
ance as is to be expected. They are
lodged in i'll smelling tenements, three
and four on mattress of sodden straw
with rarely any covering, even in win
ter. They are clothed in rags, for thu
padrones do not permit them to carry
any luggage from their homes to say,
expense.
The number Of these children cal
only be guessed at. It is estimated tina
in two departments 1900 are employ
ed. More children are constantly bein,
brought into France from Italy to taxi
the place of those who die or becom
incapacitated for work and to suppl,
the increasing demand for cheap labor
So great has the demand become of lat
that girls as well as boys are being sol,
by their parents. The attention Of tn
French and the italian governments ha
been called to the matter, and the trad
will be regulated if not suppressed. :
Exchange.