The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-01-25
BREAD WINNING TOTS
STATISTICS ON CHILD LABOR IN
 THIS COUNTRY.
Census Report shows that Large Per- centage of Youngsters in Cotton Mills of South are
 Illffernfe.

Washington, Jan. 24.--The extent to which child labor is employed in the United States is set forth In bulle- tin issued by the Census Bureau to- day.
 The statistics presented are for 1900 and relate to the employment of chill. dren as bread winners. Of whou~ l, ,750.- GOO, In round numbers, between the ages of 10 and Is, were so employed. Bread winers are defined as those earnings money regularly by labor, contributing to the family support, or appreciably assisting in mechanical or agricultural industry. By far the more important occupation for children is that of agricultural laborern the mum Der of children 10 to is years sof age So employed being l.054stfe f9 Nexs ia importance cosiss domestic service or the occupations Of servants were employed most of them being girls.
 About one-third of the children em- ployed in gainful occupations were IS years of age and more than ona-half were 14 or Is years old. The num- Der under 14 was 790.623, or 4S.2 per cent.
 Of the total number of child bread winners I0 to 15 years of age, T2.2 per cent was boys.
 Almost invariably the percentage of bread winners is much greater among foreign born children than among native-born. The percentage among negro children Is much higher than among white children.
 The cotton mills furnish employment to children to a greater extent than any other manufacturing or merchant cal industry. Tn 1900, the number or cotton mill operatives 10 to 15 years of age was 44,427.
 of the 71,622 messengers and errand office boys in the United States, 62 per cent were district and telegraph mes- senRers and errand boys, 23.3 DOT cent were office boys and 14.7 per cent were bundle and cash boys, or girls. Nine tenths of the children in such service are boys.
 The occupation of the textile work CT or the needle trades furnishes em- ployment to 35,070 children between 10 and IS years of age, of whom 5,S15 were boys and 29,s3i were girls. The total number of children 10 to 15 years of age engaged in the tobacco and cl- gar factories were 11.462. of the 49.- sos glass workers, 5,365 or i0.7 per cent were from 10 to Is years ola.
 Of the 2s,657 children for whom sta tfstics were specially compiled, 17,D56 or. T5.9. per cent were living in homes with their parents; 3,3SO, representing I43 per cent, were living with widS owed mothers, and SIS. or "A per cent. with mothers who wore living apart from their husbands and whose ecv- homie position was, therefore, likely Go be analogous to that of widow. The number of children that were either fatherIess or were not living with fa- thers, were 4,943, representing about one-tifth of the total number.
 The per ceutage of school children fin the total population. to years old, enumerated In the Cnited States, 55.3 per cent which is only a little higher than tho per centage (50.S) shown for the selected families included in this study. Of the number of children. 10 to IA years of age in these families, only 31g per cent were at school while the corresponding per eentaEe for the total number of children of that age in the United States was 7s.S. But after these children reach the age at which the opportunIty for employment as wage eaTners begins, their school at- tendance suffers.
 Of the total number of children from 10 to IA years of age in the Uni ted States 7.1 per cent. were illiter- ate, as compared with 1S.6 of the child bread winners of the same age includ- ed in this tabulation. Of the pessen- gers and errand and office boys the Rpercentage of illiteracy is compara- lively small.
 By far the greatest degree of lilit- eracy is that shown for the children in the cotton mill Tn the South al- most one-h half of the cotton mill op- eratives 10 to 14 years of age are il- literate and about one-fourth of those Is to 20 years of age. The smaller percentage in the older group of op- aratives would indicate that a good many of these children learn to read and write after they are 10 years of age. But the percentage of initeracy in the older group Is still very high, rendering 1t probable that large mum hers of these children are destined to remain nllterate fo the rest of their lives.