The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1903-02-10

sacrifice OF child life to secure it. In
deed the State will grow richer by pre-
serving the health and developing the
minds and hearts of these children than
il can possibly grow by the creation C
any values which their puny arms can
win. For the sake of humanity, there
fore, and in the name Of the children OF
the State it becomes your high privilege
to secure them against the ceaseless
wear Of mind and body necessary in the
performance day after day and week after
week indoors, Of labor. which not hard
in itself, becomes painful to children By
its unceasing regularity"
We also append a letter written by
one Of the noblest women in North
Carolina. She is the wife of one of the
richest mon in North Carolina, who is
largely interested as a stakeholder IN
cotton mills. He has seen and his wife
has seen the need Of saving the children
from working in the mills during their
tender years. Her appeal ought to-and
1t will-make a profound impression. She
writes:
APPEAL OF A NOBLE WOMAN.
To the Editor: The appeal that comes
from all parts of our State in behalf of
the abused childhood, that is allowed
and encouraged to be spent between fac
tory walls. is not one that comes from
the heart alone. We know it emanated
there, Tor where is the seeing man or
woman who can 90 into our mills and
come out, without feeling sympathy for
the little souls and bodies that spend
tIoir a = apd ,, oy,on ,noir ni1b+C
ever the looms aud amid the whirr OF
spindles?
The heart set the brain in motion and
now we are beginning to realize that
unless we change conditions decidedly,
we are going to work the greatest harm
to our State through its citizens of ten
and twenty years hence-thoSe who are
children today.
Morally, mentally and physically have
we been allowing these to be stunted;
almost as one blind. have we stood
alphabetically by and let these conditions
prevail, until now we are beginning to
see hat when the new franchise law
goes into effect many who Will be entitled
by right of birth to vote, viii be de-
barred therefrom through the short
sightedness of those who now have con
troll of affairs.
IL pCllooHCo ' man aho Ohio IL
the State to do his utmost to see that
their rights are given to the children.
At least until it is twelve years of age
ought every one be excluded from the
mill and factory. Send them to school,
where heart, mind and body may be
trained, and then into the sunshine for
the play that will make the work better
and happier when it has to be taken up.
Let this cry go up to every man in our
General Assembly, that he do his utmost
and best for the rights of the children
of today, the men and women of the fu-
ture!
Apropcs, 1 request you to publish the
following extract, in point, from Mrs.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning's beautiful
poem, The Cry of the Children"
Do you hear the children weeping, O
my brother?
They are weeping bitterly:
They are weeping in the playtime of the
others,
In the country of the free.
They look up with their pale and sunkcn
faces,
And their look is sad to see,
For the mans heavy anguish draws and
presses
Down the checks of infancy
Your old earth,' they say, sis very
dreary,'
Our young feet they say, ARE very
weak
For 90 say the children, eve are weary,
And We cannot run or leap"
For all day the wheels are droning, turn |
ing,
Their wind comes in our faces,
Till our hearts burn, our heads, with
pulses burning,
And the walls turn in their places,
Turns the sky in the high window blank
and reeling,
Turns the long light that drops adown |
the wall,
Turn the black flies that crawl along the
ceiling,
All are turning, all the day and we |
with all.
And all day the iron wheels are droning,
And sometimes we could pray
20, We wheels (breaking out in mad
moaning)
'Stop! Be silent for the day"
Ay! Be silent. Let them hear each 9th
er breathing
For a moment, mouth to mouth:
Let them touch each others hands, in a |
fresh wreathing
OF their tender human youth.
Let them feel that this cold metallic no
ton |
Is not all the life God fashions or |
reveals;
Let them prove their living souls against
the motion
That they live in you or under you, o |
wheels.
Still all day the iron wheels go onward. |
Grinding life down from it's mark;
And the children's souls, which God is
calling sunward,
Spin on blindly in the dark.
THE VOTE is 16 TO /