Produced by Richard Tonsing, Bryan Ness and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) THE BITTER CRY OF THE CHILDREN [Illustration] [Illustration: A TYPICAL SCENE The matron of a Day Nursery examining a child’s throat. The two “Little Mothers” are typical. ] THE BITTER CRY OF THE CHILDREN BY JOHN SPARGO WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY ROBERT HUNTER AUTHOR OF “POVERTY” New York THE MACMILLAN COMPANY LONDON: MACMILLAN & CO., LTD. 1906 _All rights reserved_ COPYRIGHT, 1906, BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. Set up and electrotyped. Published February, 1906. Norwood Press J. S. Cushing & Co.—Berwick & Smith Co. Norwood, Mass., U.S.A. TO MY FRIEND MRS. WILLIAM SHARMAN _Fide et Amore_ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ INTRODUCTION I count myself fortunate in having had a hand in bringing this remarkable and invaluable volume into existence. Quite incidentally in my book _Poverty_ I made an estimate of the number of underfed children in New York City. If our experts or our general reading public had been at all familiar with the subject, my estimate would probably have passed without comment, and, in any case, it would not have been considered unreasonable. But the public did not seem to realize that this was merely another way of stating the volume of distress, and, consequently, for several days the newspapers throughout the country discussed the statement and in some instances severely criticised it. One prominent charitable organization, thinking that my estimate referred to starving children, undertook, without delay, to provide meals for the children. In the midst of the excitement Mr. Spargo kindly volunteered to investigate the facts at first hand. His inquiry was so searching and impartial and the data he gathered so interesting and valuable that I urged him to put his material in some permanent form. The following admirable study of this problem is the result of that suggestion.