Child Labor in City StreetsClopper, Edward Nicholas
History
Child Labor in City Streets
Clopper, Edward Nicholas
Child labor
Although the British departmental committee of 1910 was not favorably
impressed by the results of regulation as a cure for the evils of
street trading, nevertheless it gave due credit to the city of
Manchester for what had been accomplished there under the license
system. Referring to this city, the report says: "In Manchester such
good results as can be arrived at by the method of regulation were,
perhaps, more apparent than anywhere else. In that city the entire
evidence testified to the fact that the regulation of street trading
is very highly organized; a special staff of selected, plain-clothes
officers, giving their whole time to the work, knowing the traders
personally, visiting the homes, advising the parents, clothing the
children and apparently exerting a most beneficial influence. All that
can be done through the instrument of regulation seems to be done
there, the various authorities working together to that end."[168]
An English writer says that regulation in Manchester "has greatly
improved the conditions of the newspaper boys and others who earned
their living by hawking goods in the streets. It is something to the
good at any rate that a boy should be compelled to be decently
dressed and so avoid the obvious temptation of appealing to the
sympathies of the public by the picturesque raggedness of his
clothing. At the same time one cannot help feeling that halfway
legislation of this sort is only playing with the problem and that the
only really satisfactory law would be one which prohibited street
trading by children altogether."[169]
_New South Wales_
The British Colony of New South Wales has adopted some mild
restrictions under the Employment of Children Act, 1903, and the
president of the State Children Relief Board for New South Wales
states in his report for the year ending April 5, 1910, that "the
Board is not favorably impressed with the principle of street trading
by juveniles, realizing that even under the most careful
administration children, when once licensed to engage in street
trading, are exposed to great temptations."
_Canada_
The province of Manitoba, Canada, forbids children under twelve years
from trading in the streets at any time; licenses are issued to boys
twelve to sixteen years old, who are not allowed to sell after 9 P.M.
Some boys have been denied licenses because of their poor school
record, others because of lack of proof as to age, others on account
of not being physically qualified, and still others because there was
no need for their earning money in this way. The licensed boys are
kept under supervision; their attendance at school is watched; and if
they persist in selling after 9 P.M. or disobey instructions, their
licenses are revoked.[170]
_Germany_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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