Child Labor in City StreetsClopper, Edward Nicholas
History
Child Labor in City Streets
Clopper, Edward Nicholas
Child labor
The dangers to the morals of children are particularly emphasized by
those who have given this subject any attention. Mr. John Spargo says:
"Nor is it only in factories that these grosser forms of immorality
flourish. They are even more prevalent among the children of the
street trades,--newsboys, bootblacks, messengers and the like. The
proportion of newsboys who suffer from venereal diseases is alarmingly
great. The superintendent of the John Worthy School of Chicago, Mr.
Sloan, asserts that 'one third of all the newsboys who come to the
John Worthy School have venereal diseases and that 10 per cent of the
remaining newsboys at present in the Bridewell are, according to the
physician's diagnosis, suffering from similar diseases.' The newsboys
who come to the school are, according to Mr. Sloan, on an average of
one third below the ordinary standard of physical development, a
condition which will be readily understood by those who know the ways
of the newsboys of our great cities--their irregular habits, scant
feeding, sexual excesses, secret vices, sleeping in hallways,
basements, stables and quiet corners. With such a low physical
standard the ravages of venereal diseases are tremendously
increased."[86]
The economic aspect of this work is magnified by most people beyond
its true proportion; the earnings of street-working children are not
needed by their families in most cases, and even in those instances
where their poverty demands such relief it is wrong to purchase it at
the price paid in evil training and bad effects of every kind.
Commenting on this point the chief truant officer for Indianapolis
says: "A large number of truants are recruited from that large
unrestricted class whose members are to be found competing with one
another on our street corners from early until late. The pennies which
many of them earn are a material aid in replenishing the depleted
resources of some of our homes. Yet, it is a question whether such
child laborers will not in the future bequeath to society an abundant
reward of human wreckage which may be traced to such traffic and its
many temptations."[87]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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