The saddest aspect of this question of Italian immigration is the traffic in Italian children, which has been for so long carried on in this country under the auspices of the _padroni_, and which continues to flourish despite all the efforts which have been made to check it. "Child-slavery in England" it has been called; and certainly the condition of these poor children is in many respects little better than that of slaves. I have spoken and written so much about this matter,[13] that there is little now left to be said; still, in spite of laying myself open to the charge of repeating an oft-told tale, I must needs allude to it once more, since no treatise upon Italian immigration would be otherwise complete. The traffic is carried on in this wise:--The children are brought over from Italy by men who obtain them from their parents upon payment of a very small sum; for a few ducats annually (a ducat equals 3_s._ 6_d._), and upon undertaking to clothe and feed them. The parents who thus dispose of their children are for the most part poor peasants living in Calabria, and the south of Italy. Sometimes the parents will bring the children to England themselves, and sometimes they are confided to relations; but often it is a traffic, and they sell their children into what is a veritable slavery without troubling about their future, and glad to be relieved of the responsibility and expense of their maintenance and education. The _padroni_--that is the masters--having thus gained possession of the children, they bring them to England. Some travel by railway, but many of them actually journey on foot, walking from town to town, village to village, all the way up to Dieppe or Calais, and from thence crossing over to our shores. The children are imported here simply for the purpose of following one or the other of the vagrant professions in the streets of London and throughout the country. They are sent out early in the morning with an accordion, concertina, or other instrument, and told to sing or play before houses, and then to wait for money. As a rule they do not openly beg for alms, as this would bring them within the reach of law; but they just stand and wait, and benevolent persons, attracted by their picturesque appearance, are moved to compassion, and give them money, ignorant or forgetful of the fact that this money benefits them personally not at all, but the _padrone_ whose property they are.