The Corvallis times. (Corvallis, Or.) 1888-1909, 1903-03-07
CHILD TOILERs.
THEIR LITTLE BODIES STUNTED
AND DEFORMED BY OVER
WORK.

Lives Over at .Forty-In-
vestigation of Noted
Specialist-Other
| News.
New York, Mar. :3.-"In this city
20, 900 children, too tender to even
know what work means, are at
work, and stunted and diseased
bodies are to be their heritage. They
are old at seventeen; their lives are
over at forty. And the pity of it
is that not necessity, but greed
pitiless, grasping, selfish greed
| is the source of this lamentable
condition"
This declaration was made last
night by DR. Louise Fiske Bryson,
the noted woman specialist, who
has just concluded an exhaustive
investigation among the child toll
ers of this city as a part of the gem
Feral campaign for better child labor
laws which eliminated in the hear
ling at Albany yesterday.
Her investigation was for the
purpose of showing the evil physi-
cal effects of work on the children.
tits convincing array of evidence
that she has procured scores of pho
tographs Of little sufferers
whose ailments have been traced to
premature work, forming the most
startling average that has yet been
presented in the fight against child
slavery.
DR. Bryson has made an exhaus-
tive study of the districts in which
| the children live, .and has inspec-
/ ted not less than 1000 cases at
home and in the hospitals. The
result of her work formed one of
the most effective features of yes
terday's hearing before the Labor
and Industry Committee at Albany.
"Poor little things" said Dr
Bryson, "they are rather damned.
than born into the world. Upon
the conditions in which they are
brought up it is producing a nation
of dwarfs. To thousands of little
children the country Is free in only
lone senses Free to die in.
"My Investigation has been as to
the physical effect that work has
upon the little toilers. It would
make ones heart bleed to see what
II have seen. The photographs
which have had taken of the lit
tie victims of this brutal system
form terrible incident. I wish
that I might make them public, so
that the whole world could be
astonished at the evil that is going
on right under its very eyes and to
which good men and good women
are Indifferent.
''This child labor is the greatest
prolific source of tuberculosis there
is. Stamp out this evil system and
consumption will >go. The poor
little toiler who is growing while he
works, is helpless against the invas-
ion of the germs, contact with which
is almost constant in the particular
lines of work in which these little
children are engaged.
! 'sThey should be growing up
not working. They are peculiarly
prone to tuberculosis. Abolish
child labor in the tenements, in
stores, in the shops, in the mills
and laundries, in the streets after
night, and you will blot out con-
SUMPTION
sHundreds of cases have been
brought to my attention during my
investigations. Many were little
mites of humanity not over ten, ap-
parently, who have been put to
work. Think of that. little fellows
of ten put out to work!
81 have found that the worst
cases are traceable to seven danger
Gus trades. In all of these some
form of poison ia incidental to the
trade itself. For example, lead in
glass polishing, arsenic in wall pa
per, mercury in rubber work, the
poisonous dyes used for textile fab
RIGS, and many others in which lurk
germs which the constitution of the
child is ill-6tted to combat.
Il have found the bodies of the
little workers stunted, in some cases
defefned, and usually ill.nourished
and Unhealthy. It is not natural
that the child should be healthy,
who at the period of its growth is
cooped up in way which would
injnre strong men.
"a manning and disfguring dis
ease, which | have found common