THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1910. FOR THE CHILDREN.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10077, 26 August 1910, Page 4

THE Wairarapa Age. MORNING DAILY. FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 1910. FOR THE CHILDREN.

A year or two back there was an outcry in New Zealand against what was described as "child slavery." City newspapers turned up their eyes in holy horror, ,as it were, at the thought that a few healthy youngsters, before and after school hours, assisted their parents in the cow byre. No mention was made of the hatless, bootless brigade that I

tramped the city selling newspapers, magazines, etc. Now that the milking machine has deprived the country child ( of its healthy occupation and the city newspapers of tlieir humane

pursuit, it may not be too much to ask thai: a little attention be devoted to the waifs and strays of our larger centres. Nobody can visii Auckland, or Wellington, or Christchurch, or Dunedin, without feeling deeply pained at the evidences of poverty which stalk the cities, and at the number of ragged urchins who frequent the streets and slums. It is right to ask if our philanthropic societies, our Churches, our leaders of social reform are doing all that they might to ameliorate the condition of the unhappy youngsters

who .are born in destitution and reared in hovels of despair. Although we may not possess the same destitution as is to be found in the great cities of the Old World, we still have i at our doors sufficient evidence of acute poverty and distress to excite the sympathy and the commiseration of all possessed of the finer human instincts. Out of compassion for afflicted and homeless children, it ' is wes tfiat the public shoulg'be- ]

made aware of the condition of affairs as it exists, and if the city newspapers will not do tlieir duty in this matter, it will remain for the

country press to expose the social degradation and unhappiness of the ill-clad, half-starved youngsters who roam the streets of our cities. It is gratifying to find that in the Old Country philanthropic societies and education officers have swept the homeless hoys and girls from the streets. A further advance is now

proposed. A Departmental Committee has been inquiring into the question of the employment of children, and it recommends that street trading for boys shall be absolutely prohibited until they are seventeen years of age, and for girls until they are eighteen. The Committee declares I that for a lad or girl to engage in

street trading involves exposure to

all manner of serious moral perils. In. this connection it might not be out of place to suggest that a similar Committee be set up in New Zealand. The streets of some of our cities, especially on Saturday nights, are a disgrace to our boasted civilisation, and a reproach upon every individual and institution pretending a | for the social and moral well-being of the rising generation.