The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1905-01-01

sylvania Legislature. AS rule, the
higher the age limit, the higher must
be the age at which violation of
the law would be dared. The follow
ing States have an age limit of twelve
years with varying notifications,
Alabama, California and Rhode Is
land, Virginia, North Dakota and
Maine, North Carolina. South Caro-
lima aud New Hampshire, Iowa, KAN
Sas and Missouri. Louisiana. Texas
and West Virginia. The only State
having an age limit of ten years was
Vermont and that was during vaca-
ton and the law has recently been
changed, within the last few weeks.
Louisiana, in the true spirit of
Southern chivalry and with some re-
gard for the more delicate natures OF
the girls, especially at their most
critical time, has an age limit of
twelve for boys and fourteen for girls.
But in our Southern States there is
of course great difficulty in enforcing
the law if there is any disposition
on the part Of either the employer
or the parent to ovadc its require
meutS. We have no birth registra-
ton, and for many reasons, concern
ing education, employment and the
suffrage movement should pc
started in all our Southern Suites for
the registration of every child, white
We have no compulsory school laws.
though there is an encouraging move
ment to that end in North and South
Carolina, in Tennessee. West Virginia
and Maryland. We have no system
Of factory inspection. There should
be inaugurated such system, with q
competent factory Inspector IN every
Southern manufacturing State, so that
investigation will be q duty and not
quire that our banks be regularly ex-
amined for the protection OF orr dol
lars, those OF US who insist on put
ting the man above the dollar and
the child above the dividend should
sec to it that there is adequate and
effective factory inspection.
The Country Cotton N;ll.
Moreover. the factory conditions in
the South as q general thing are in
dnitely better than they are in the
other parts Of the country. We have
in the South what we may call the
country cotton mill.
The following description was writ
ten before the present child labor law
went into effect;
\ visit to the largest Of these mills
in North Carolina made an impression
which we wish we could reproduce
upon the minds of others. Picture q
village of twenty-five hundred souls,
pcrched upon the brow of a noble
hill. with the blue mountains in full
view. Though near the mountains it
| is in the midst of the cotton fields and
a hundred bales of cotton a day are
brought from these fields to the door
CT the factory. A mountain stream
with splendid fall is damned with a
high rock wall and near the founda-
tons of the mill two giant turbines
exert the strength of seven hundred
and fifty tireless horses. Steam sup
plements this with seven hundred and
fifty horse power more. Within the
mill are acres of spindles and acres
of looms, $4,000 spindles. Loco looms,
and the automatic wonders that are
performed are startling in the en~-
gestion of magic or of more than
human intelligence. And the nlu is
complete with every facility for tax
ing the baled cotton and converting.
it into baled cloth. with electric plant.
machine shop, and even an ice plant