The lives of children employed in circuses and similar spectacular public entertainments are always in danger. Any work which is disproportionate to the powers of the weak and undeveloped body of the child is injurious to the latter’s health. Arduous work interferes with proper growth, and the effects of such work may be especially disastrous in the female sex, giving rise to pelvic contraction, &c. By interfering with the proper development of individual organs, different forms of child-labour give rise to characteristic deformities. It is a well-known fact that the disease-rate and the death-rate are higher in youthful wage-workers and in apprentices than in other children. In this connection it suffices to refer to the so-called “diseases of occupation.” It is a matter of general knowledge that in those districts in which children engage in very arduous wage-labour, the percentage of adults found to be fit for military service is exceptionally small. The best example of this is found in those districts of Sicily in which children work in the sulphur mines. In the year 1827, King William III of Prussia ordered measures to be taken against excessive child-labour, in consequence of reports made to him to the effect that a large proportion of child-workers subsequently proved unfit for military service. When a child begins in early youth to work for wages, his school attendance is interfered with. If the child-worker does attend school, it is so tired that it cannot follow the teacher with sufficient attention. In districts in which a large percentage of the children are at work, the educational development of the whole population suffers, and not merely that of those who work for a living. Children whose occupation involves a very restricted use of their faculties become unfitted for other occupations, and, indeed, lose almost entirely the faculty of adaptation. In the streets of great manufacturing towns, large seaports, and like places, we find numbers of children engaged in the sale of matches, flowers, newspapers, &c., and they hawk such wares also in public-houses, coffee taverns, and the like. Most of them use this traffic merely as an excuse for vagabondage, begging, criminal practices, or the offer of their persons for use by sexual perverts. They frequent the streets by night as well as by day, and make no secret of the fact that their aim is to beg rather than to sell their wares. It will readily be understood that in the streets and other places in which they hawk their wares, such children get into very bad company, and are likely to become completely depraved. Those children who work in factories or workshops, and those who are employed in agriculture, are in continuous contact with adult workers, by night as well as by day, listen to their obscene conversation, and watch their improper acts. Some youthful workers are quite independent and free from all supervision. Such workers often earn comparatively good wages,