APPENDICES 255 INDEX 277 CHILD LABOR IN CITY STREETS CHAPTER I THE PROBLEM OF THE STREET-WORKING CHILD--PUBLIC APATHY--RELATION TO OTHER PROBLEMS The efforts which have so far been made in the United States to solve the child labor problem have been directed almost exclusively toward improvement of conditions in mines and manufacturing and mercantile establishments. This singling out of one phase of the problem for correction was due to the uneducated state of public opinion which made necessary a long and determined campaign along one line, vividly portraying the wrongs of children in this one form of exploitation, before general interest could be aroused. Within very recent years this campaign has met with signal success, and many states have granted a goodly measure of protection to the children of their working classes as far as the factory, the store and the mine are concerned. The time has now come for attention to be directed toward the premature employment of children in work other than that connected with mining and manufacturing, for there are other phases of this problem which involve large numbers of children and which, up to the present, have received but little thought from students of labor conditions. The three most important of these other phases are the employment of children in agricultural work, in home industries and in street occupations. This volume will deal with the last-named phase--with the economic activities of children in the streets and public places of our cities, their effects and the remedies they demand. The street occupations in which children commonly engage are: newspaper selling, peddling, bootblacking, messenger service, delivery service, running errands and the tending of market stands. The first three are known as street "trades," owing to the popular fallacy that the children who follow them are little "merchants," and are therefore entitled to the dignity of separate classification. Careful usage would confine this term to newsboys, peddlers and bootblacks who work independently of any employer. Many children are employed by other persons to sell newspapers, peddle goods and polish shoes, and such children technically are street traders no more than those who run errands, carry messages or deliver parcels. Consequently the term "street trades" is limited in its application, and by no means embraces all the economic activities of children in our streets and public places. Wisconsin has written into her laws a definition of street trading, declaring that it is "any business or occupation in which any street, alley, court, square or other public place is used for the sale, display or offering for sale of any articles, goods or merchandise."[1] This covers neither bootblacking nor the delivery of newspapers.