Child Labor in City StreetsClopper, Edward Nicholas
History
Child Labor in City Streets
Clopper, Edward Nicholas
Child labor
In his report Mr. Jones took up each by-law separately and discussed
it, recommending that it be either confirmed or rejected in accordance
with his findings. He also drafted a set of by-laws and submitted them
with the recommendation that they be adopted instead of the ones
originally passed by the London County Council. Referring to these, he
says: "An important respect in which my suggested by-laws differ from
the County Council by-laws is in differentiating between employment in
connection with street stalls and other forms of street trading. It
seemed to be the general opinion [of witnesses] that the former
employment, being under the supervision of some adult person, probably
the parent, is not so harmful in its effects on the morals of the
child as the latter, and it must be remembered that the main objection
to street trading was on the ground rather of its affecting the
morality than the health and education of the children."[166] The
regulations drafted by Mr. Jones were not even so drastic as those
proposed by the London County Council, and in recommending milder
restrictions Mr. Jones says: "A set of by-laws should not err upon the
side of overstringency, nor should they be in advance of public
opinion; the first, because taking a step more or less in the dark
might cause hardships impossible to avoid, and the second, because any
by-laws of this sort, being most difficult of enforcement, will
certainly be evaded unless backed up by the weight of public
opinion."[167]
The County Council, however, did not follow Mr. Jones's
recommendations in their entirety, but adopted a more stringent set of
by-laws which were put in force in October, 1906. In December, 1909,
the County Council again amended the by-laws, and an inquiry relative
to these changes was held by Mr. Stanley Owen Buckmaster in October,
1910. Mr. Buckmaster recommended a number of changes of minor
importance which were adopted by the Council, and accordingly the new
by-laws were adopted and took effect on June 3, 1911. This set of
by-laws will be found in the Appendix, page 264. The most significant
feature which they present is the raising of the age limit for boys to
fourteen years and for girls to sixteen years without exemption. The
old by-laws prohibited street trading by children under sixteen years
between the hours of 9 P.M. and 6 A.M., and this provision was
retained in the new by-laws, applying, however, only to boys, inasmuch
as girls under that age are prohibited from trading in the streets at
any time. These London by-laws on street trading are identical with
the provisions of the most advanced American child labor laws on
factory employment, and consequently they blaze the way for the
application of these provisions in the United States to street trading
as well as to employment in factories, mills and mines.
_Manchester_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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