Hot Springs weekly star. (Hot Springs, S.D.) 1892-1917, 1898-01-28
CHILDREN SOLD INTO SLAVERY.
italian Bsys Bought to Work in
French Factories,

italian Beys Bought to Work In
French Factories.
Public attention has been called to a
form of slave trade nov carried Oh in
France and Italy by disclosures which
are being made on the subject. The
victims 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 chill
dren We're sold into virtual slavery as
beggars, when multilations were prac-
toced upon them to excite sympathy,
as musicians and as chimney sweeps.
That slave trade was suppressed, but
law does not reach the present form.
The children bring from 100 to $50
francs ($2O to 500, and are sold for a
period of three years. 1t is SO much
money found and n mouth less to fill,
the peasants say. The contracts are
only executed before n notary, and the
village priest blesses the departing con.
voy of little ones. There are no sta
tistics Of the mortality among them,
but 1t was calculated formerly that Of
100 children taken from their homes
by padrones twenty returned home at
the end of their period of slavery, thir-
ty settled permanently in their new
homes, and the other fifty died; and,
in view of the conditions i'll which they
find themselves at the glass works,
there is no reason to suppose that the
mortality is any less now. The French
law forbids the employment of chill
dren less than ID years old at such
work, but that Is evaded csaily. Their
services are sold to the manufacturers
mt from So to $13 Il month, according
to the locality, and they work ten hours
a day. The padrones pocket all their
wages, and sometimes ven the sratui-
ties that may be distributed among the
employees of an establishment upon y e
cial occasions.
Their condition in the factories is de-
scribed as shocking. They work in a
s%upcrheated atmosphere, charged in
addition with noXious gases, and are
constantly exposed to severe accidents,
while their injuries do not receive prop.
er treatment. They arc especially SUBJ
jcct to lung troubles. Bad as their nor
mai state is, in many cases it is aggra-
waited by brutality of the regular Work.
men, who hate them both as being
Italians and as working far below the
regular scale of wages. They are nat.
urally ill-fed. a magistrate who was
called upon to make an investigation in
IL certain case found that their chief
fare was soupe auN lcgumcs and bread,
with occasionally Il bit of cheese and
Wine, but never any meat. 1t is est.
mated that the cost of %sustcnlnce Of
THESE children ranges from > to s cents
n day each to the padrones. In IL
case the cost of feeding thirteen of tho
little slaves was found to be 40 cents
a day. The children are wrctched in
appearance, as is to be expected. They
are lodged in ill-smelling tencmcnts,
three and four on IL mattress of sodden
straw, with rarely any coverings, ven
in winter. They are clothed in rags,
for the padrones do not permit them to
carry any luggage from their homes, to
save expense. The number of these
children can only be guessed at. 1t is
estimated that in two departments
1900 are employed. More children are
constantly being bought into France
from Italy to take the places of those
who die or become incapacitated for
work, and to supply the increasing de-
mand for cheap labor. So great has
the demand become of late that girls
as we'll as boys are being sold by their
--. NJ. ~ a1..,
and the Italian governments has been
called to the matter, and the trade will
be regulated, if not suppressed.