THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1907. CHILD WORKERS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8519, 26 August 1907, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age MORNING DAILY. MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1907. CHILD WORKERS.

Evidence continues to be piled up of child slavery in Great Britain. The report of the Inspector of Factories shows that the child workers in factories last year numbered 390,869, an increase of 29,291. Of these, 42,613 were "half-timers" under the age of fourteen. Terrible revelations have been made of the work of children in the home lace industry at Nottingham. The vicar of the parish in which most of the slavery exists says that children begin lace-making at five or six. Most of the children do the drawing, that is, the pulling out of the threads one by one, until the eyes grow dim and the head dizzy. The following case is said to be typical of many others: —"The youngest child, a girl of seven, is called from her bed at six o'clock. She starts work, pulling, pulling till nearly nine. Then she has a meal of bread and jam, and after that goes to school. Dinner consists of a halfpennyworth of fried fish and a halfpennyworth of pickles. This is consumed during a short interval from work; and tfter school in the evening the same weary round goes on. She reaches her bed again at eleven." A prominent manufacturer explained to a representative of the London Daily Express that he gave his work to a presumably respectable woman, she returned it finished, and there his responsibility ended. The author of a new book on the question reveals a similar condition of things in London. Mites of five and six learn to make artificial flowers, or elastic belts at three-half-pence per dozen, On a diet of tea and stale bread. In many a room little children toil at mangles from dawn till dark, earning perhaps a p-2nny an hour. "The little backs are bent, the aims grow twisted, and terrible eye-strain results, for the tremendous muscular force put forth by these tiny bodies causes the eyes to protrude." Often these tired children are sent ofF to school to pick up what learning they can, but on their return they must continue their dreary work till they go to bad. "And these children," says the author, "are the heritage of the foremost nation of the world!"