Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1910-11-12
S DRILLED TO
THROUGH
HOP TRAP-D0ORS
J. Labor Bureau Reports
wful Condition of Child
Labor in Europe.

SHINGTON, Nov. 12.-Sensational
es of repulsive conditions in child
in continental Europe are made
special report published in the
st issue of the bulletin of the
tied States bureau of labor. The
port, which covers more thar 400
ages Of the bulletin, was made by
DR.. c. w. A. Veditz, a professor Of
sociology in George Washington Uni
yersity, who made a special investiga-
tion in Austria, Belgium, France, Ger
many, Switzerland and Italy. The in
v~estigator gathered all his data from
official records and sources of informa-
ton.
Child labor in Belgium not paid at
all; children in Austria beginning work
before six years of age; child laborers
In France drilled to disappear through
trapdoors at the approach of inspectors.
The general conclusion is hat child
labor laws abroad are in many essen
tial respects poorly enforced and that
the penalties imposed for violations are
ridiculously small and of practically
no deterrent value.
Child labor in Austria is not regu-
lated in workshops, in household indus-
tries or in commercial establishments
Hence the factory laws, so far as they
have reduced child labor at all, have
simply driver it out of the factories
into the homes of the workers, into
small workshops and into establish
ments lying outside the scope of the
labor laws.
Many Begin to Toll at Age of Six.
A recent official investigation dis
closed the fact that abou half of the
children began work before they were
S years old, while a very large number
began before they were 6 years of age,
Their compensation varied all the way
from food and certain articles of cloth
ing to $14 a year for those in agricul-
tural occupations. A large proportion
received wages of SO cents to $3.50 a
month. Those employed in saloons and
bowling alleys usually average four
cents an hour plus free beer, some
times left over by guests.
O~ne-fourth of the child laborers in
Belgium under 16 years of age either
get no money wages at all or earn less
thar ten cents a day; more than one
half of them receive between 10 and
20 cents a lay, and less than one-fifth
receive 80 cents or more.
At the end of 1908 there were still
1915 establishments subject to the
law that had never been visited even
once by an inspector. In fact, in 1908
alone 1888 establishments were not
visited.
Although the French law provides
that working children must be sub
jected to a physical examination if the
work they do is apt to prove injurious
to their health or their physical de-
velopment, the provision is admitted by
the inspectors to be wholly ilusory.
Some of the glass works drill their
child laborers to quickly disappearing
through trap doors to avoid detection,
and the employers offer prizes for the
children most agile in that perfor-
nance. Among the most frequent n
most fragrant violators of the rules
governing child labor are religious and
charitable institutions such as orphan
ages, says the report, in which the chill
dren usually get no wages for their
labor, are worked overtime n under
conditions violating not only the aw
but the ordinary rules of hygiene, and
in which ~lamentable provision is fire.
quently made for their education.
Traffic in Child Labor.
II France official g certificates are
often forged or altered, and a traffic
has sprung up especially among the
italian children imported into France
in droves for employment, mainly in
glass works, brickyards and as Chin
ney sweeps and bootblacks.
Germany's industrial code, regulating
y the employment of child laborers, was
recognized as having not so much aboi-
ns ished child labor as having forced 1t
Tout of the factories int home industry.
1t A small proportion of the employers
,aund violating the Law receive punish
.bIent, although in 1908, for instance,
YRl99 establishments illegally employed
epersons under Is years of age, and the
1 total number of offenses was 20,Sl7.
Only 1897 persons were punished.
In Italy the whole institution of fac
tory inspection is of so recent date, and
as yet so poorly organized that it may
be said to be ~non-existent throughout
a large part of the kingdom.
: In Switzerland, whose labor law of
I1877 was regarded radical at the time of
its enactment, conditions do not differ
very essentially from those prevailing