Even in the few localities where regulation of street trading has been attempted, the delusion that there is some essential difference between child labor in factories and child labor in streets persists in the legislation itself. The latter form of exploitation is assumed to merit a wider latitude for its activity, hence it is hedged about by much less stringent rules. Attention is invited to this inconsistency by the report of a recent investigation in New York City: "We have in New York 4148 children between 14 and 16 years employed in factories with their daily hours of labor limited from 8 A.M. to 5 P.M., while in mercantile establishments there are 1645 more of similar age limit, none of whom can work before 8 in the morning or after 7 in the evening. But on the streets of New York City we have approximately 4500 boys licensed (to say nothing of the little fellows too young to be licensed) to sell newspapers. That means 4500 legalized to work at this particular trade from 6 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock in the evening (save during the school year, when they are supposed to attend school from 9 A.M. to 3 P.M.) any day and every day, seven days to the week if they so desire to do."[9] _Broader Aspects of the Problem_ Let us consider the matter from another point of view and discuss the opportunities for constructive work rather than confine our attention to the need of the merely negative remedy of restrictive legislation. The street is painted as a black monster by some social workers, who can discern nothing but evil in it. Nevertheless the street is closely woven into the life of every city dweller, for his contact with it is daily and continuous. If it is all evil, it ought to be abolished; as this is impossible, we must study it to see what it really is and what needs to be done with it. It is the medium by which people are brought into closer touch with one another, where they meet and converse, where they pass in transit, where they rub elbows with all the elements making up their little world, where they absorb the principles of democracy,--for the street is a great leveler. Dr. Delos F. Wilcox, in speaking to the subject "What is Philadelphia Doing to Protect Her Citizens in the Street?" recently said: "The street is the symbol of democracy, of equal opportunity, the channel of the common life, the thing that makes the city.... I fancy that the civic renaissance which must surely come, ... will never get very far until we have awakened to a realization of the dignity of the street--the common street where the city's children play, through which the milk wagon drives, where the young men are educated, along which the currents of the city's life flow unceasingly."[10]