Child Labor in City Streets

by Edward Nicholas Clopper

Great Britain

Attention was called to the problem of street trading by children in England for the first time, in a comprehensive way, in 1897. A few close observers of social conditions noticed that the situation was so grave as to demand an immediate remedy, and accordingly, upon their initiative, an organization was effected for the purpose of studying the subject. This organization took the form of a private association known as the Committee on Wage-Earning Children. The committee conferred with the officers of the board of education and succeeded in arousing their interest to the extent of securing a promise for the collection of a return from the elementary schools of England and Wales concerning the labor of public school pupils, their ages, and other relevant information. In 1898, the House of Commons ordered this inquiry to be made, and in June of that year copies of a schedule were sent by the educational department to all the public elementary schools in England and Wales. Many schoolmasters misunderstood the meaning of this schedule and failed to report the children of their schools who were actually engaged in various forms of work outside of school hours. Only about half of the schedules were filled and returned, but these showed that 144,026 children were following some kind of gainful occupation in addition to attending school. Many schoolmasters reported pitiable cases of child exploitation, as, for example, the following: "Boys helping milkmen are up at 5 o'clock in the morning, whilst those selling papers are about the streets to a very late hour at night. During lessons many fall off to sleep, and if not asleep the effort to keep awake is truly painful both to boy and teacher. The educational time, as a consequence, is materially wasted."[150] "These are sad cases, viz. one boy (aged eleven, in Standard III) works daily, as a grocer's errand boy, for 1s. 6d. a week, from 8 to 9 A.M., from 12 to 1.30 P.M., and from 4.30 to 7.30 P.M. On Saturday from 8 A.M. to 10 P.M. Another boy, aged ten in Standard III, works also as a grocer's errand boy for 1s. 6d. per week, from 8.30 to 9 A.M., from 12 to 1.30 and from 5 to 8 P.M., and on Saturday from 8.30 A.M. to 11 P.M." And all this in addition to twenty-seven and one half hours of school every week! A boy who works for 56-3/4 hours a week, selling papers, is employed as follows: "Monday to Friday, from 7 A.M. to 8.45 A.M., from 12 to 1 P.M., and from 4 to 10 P.M., and on Saturday from 7 A.M., to 10 A.M., from 12 to 2 P.M. and from 3 to 11 P.M." "This is a very bad case: called at 2 and 3 o'clock A.M., the boy (aged eight) is so tired that he is obliged to go to bed again, and is often absent from school, and made to work in the evening as well."[151] Many schoolmasters also testified to the need of a remedy; one of these wrote on the schedule: "May I be allowed to express my gratitude to the education department for making this inquiry, and express the hope that the department will be able to frame some regulation to meet and relieve the onerous conditions under which many of the young have to gain education. Without exaggeration I can truthfully assert that there are to-day in our national and board schools thousands of little white slaves."[152]

Nothing more came of the movement until January, 1901, when the Secretary of State for the Home Department appointed an interdepartmental committee "to inquire into the question of the employment of children during school age, and to report what alterations are desirable in the laws relating to child labour and school attendance and in the administration of these laws." After making careful investigation this committee declared: "In the case of street-trading children very strong powers of regulation are required. These children are exposed to the worst influences; they enter public houses to ply their trade, they are kept up late at night and exposed to inclement weather, and the precarious nature of their trade disinclines them to steady work, and encourages them to dissipate their earnings in gambling ... there should be power to prohibit street trading by children; to make regulations as to the age and sex of street traders, and the days and hours on which they may ply their trade; to grant licenses to those permitted to trade and to require the wearing of badges or uniforms; to forbid street traders to enter public houses or to importune or obstruct passengers; and generally to control their conduct and to cope with the evil in every reasonable way."[153] The committee further reported: "Our main recommendation is that the overworking of children in those occupations which are still unregulated by law should be prevented by giving to the county and borough councils a power to make labour by-laws; ... further we suggest that the gaps that may be left by local by-laws should be filled up by a general prohibition of night labour by children and of labour manifestly injurious to health."[154] This committee reported that the number of children in England and Wales attending school and also in paid employment was far greater than as reported by the parliamentary return, estimating that the total number was no less than 300,000 in 1898.[155]

One of the witnesses before this committee was a London truant officer of eighteen years' experience, who testified that every month he met with hundreds of cases of milk boys who "go to work at 5 A.M. and knock off at 8.30 and get to school at 9.45. At twelve they return to work, and after school at 4.30 they go again and wash up. The latest hour they work is about 8 P.M. I have frequently seen these children fast asleep in school. It is a common thing to see children of tender age outside the different theatres trying to sell newspapers at 11 o'clock at night. The percentage of cases in which this work is necessary is very small; it simply means that a little more money is spent in the public houses."[156] The report of this committee contains a great mass of testimony from persons in many walks of life, nearly all of whom declared that street trading by children is bad and should be regulated. They differentiated between the hawking of articles in the streets and their delivery for employers, and one of the witnesses from Liverpool testified that the local regulation of street trading by children in that city did not apply to bootblacks nor to boys who carried parcels because they were not selling anything.[157]

In 1902, an interdepartmental committee was appointed to study the subject in Ireland, and in its report stated: "The principal dangers to which they [street traders] are exposed are those arising from late hours in the streets, truancy, insufficient clothing, entering licensed premises to find sale for their goods, obstructing, annoying or importuning passengers, begging, fighting with other children, playing football or other games in the streets, using bad language, playing pitch and toss (a gambling game), smoking—all of which are matters of common observation, and have been testified to by many of the witnesses. In our opinion these evils can be lessened, if not entirely removed, by the simple system of regulation, licenses and badges."[158]

The direct result of the reports of these committees was the passage by Parliament of the Employment of Children Act, 1903. Section 3 of this act provides, first, that no child under eleven years shall engage in street trading; second, no child under fourteen years shall be employed between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M.; third, no factory or workshop half-timer shall be employed in any other occupation; fourth, no child under fourteen years shall handle heavy weights likely to result in injury; fifth, no child under fourteen years shall engage in any injurious employment. Sections 1 and 2 of this act give to local authorities power to make by-laws regulating the employment of children. The provisions of Section 2 concerning street trading are in substance as follows: any local authority may make by-laws with respect to street trading by persons under the age of sixteen years and may prohibit such street trading subject to age, sex or the holding of a license; may regulate the conditions on which such licenses may be granted and revoked; may determine the days and hours during which and the places at which such street trading may be carried on; may require such street traders to wear badges and may regulate generally the conduct of such street traders; provided that the right to trade shall not be made subject to any conditions having reference to the poverty or general bad character of the person applying for this right, and provided also that the local authority shall have special regard to the desirability of preventing the employment of girls under sixteen years in streets and public places.

Section 2 b of the Prevention of Cruelty to Children Act, 1904, imposes a penalty upon adults who cause, procure or allow boys under fourteen or girls under sixteen to trade in the streets between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M.

An official report made in 1907 gives the names of all counties, boroughs and urban districts in Great Britain which had up to that time made by-laws to regulate street trading by children. In England and Wales, 2 counties, 60 cities and boroughs and 4 urban districts had done so; in Scotland, 3 burghs and the school board districts of 11 burghs and 12 parishes; and in Ireland, 4 cities and boroughs and 1 urban district had made such by-laws.[159]

By 1910, out of 74 county boroughs in England and Wales, not less than 50 had made street-trading by-laws, and these included most of the larger places; but out of 191 smaller boroughs and smaller urban districts only 41 had done so; while among 62 administrative counties only 3 had made by-laws. In addition to these, 4 county boroughs and 2 of the smaller boroughs had made street-trading by-laws under local acts.

In Scotland, of the 33 county councils empowered to make by-laws, not one had done so by 1910; while of 56 burghs only 3 had passed by-laws; of 979 school boards only 27 had made such regulations. Edinburgh passed by-laws under a private act.

In Ireland, out of 33 county councils not one had made by-laws; of the 43 councils of urban districts with a population of over 5000, only 5 had passed regulations.

In 1909 the Secretary of State for the Home Department appointed a departmental committee to inquire into the operation of the Employment of Children Act, 1903, and to consider whether any and what further legislative regulation or restriction was required in respect of street trading and other employments dealt with in that act. This committee confined its report, which was submitted in 1910, to the subject of street trading; and its great contribution to the cause of child welfare is its recommendation that street trading should be prohibited rather than regulated. The statute of 1903 prohibits all work by children under the age of eleven years, and its restrictions on street employment by children above that limit, out of school hours, are prohibitions of night work after nine o'clock, consequently a child above the age of eleven years who engages in street trading is restrained, during the day, only by such by-laws as may have been adopted by the local authority. The committee found that even in communities where by-laws had been adopted they were not always observed, and also that where no by-laws had been passed the minimum statutory restrictions were frequently ignored. The report declared that: "A considerable amount of street trading is still done by children under eleven. Special censuses taken in Edinburgh revealed the fact that children as young as seven were trading in the streets. The great bulk of the evidence received in and from Scotland points to the conclusion that the Act [of 1903] has been almost a dead-letter in that country.... Infringements of the Act in Ireland are no less common. In Waterford newspapers are sold by children of nine years old up to 11 P.M. and later."[160] The issuance of licenses and badges was denounced as giving the stamp of official approval to what is recognized as an evil, the adoption of by-laws resulting merely in a partial improvement of conditions even when rigorously enforced.

After having devoted several months to the inquiry, during which evidence was gathered in London, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dublin, Belfast, Birmingham and Liverpool in addition to receiving the testimony of witnesses from Sheffield, Nottingham, Bolton and other centers, the committee made this very noteworthy and significant declaration: "We have come to the conclusion ... that the effect of street trading upon the character of those who engage in it is only too frequently disastrous. The youthful street trader is exposed to many of the worst of moral risks; he associates with, and acquires the habits of, the frequenters of the kerbstone and the gutter. If a match seller, he is likely to become a beggar—if a newspaper seller, a gambler; the evidence before us was extraordinarily strong as to the extent to which begging prevails among the boy vendors of evening papers. There was an almost equally strong body of testimony to the effect that, at any rate in crowded centres of population, street trading tends to produce a dislike or disability for more regular employment; the child finds that for a few years money is easily earned without discipline or special skill; and the occupation is one which sharpens the wits without developing the intelligence. It leads to nothing practically, and in no way helps him to a future career. There can be no doubt that large numbers of those who were once street traders drift into vagrancy and crime.... Much evidence was given to the effect that the practice of street trading, even though only carried on in the intervals of school attendance, tends to produce a restless disposition, and a dislike of restraint which makes children unwilling to settle down to any regular employment. So far as girls are concerned, there must be added to the above evils an unquestionable danger to morals in the narrower sense. The evidence presented to us on this point was unanimous and most emphatic. Again and again persons specially qualified to speak, assured us that, when a girl took up street trading, she almost invariably was taking a first step toward a life of immorality. The statement that the temptations are great, and the children practically defenseless, needs no amplification. An occupation entailing such perils is indisputably unfit for girls."[161]

The need for prohibition of street trading was realized by this committee, the change being urged in the following epoch-making statement: "After carefully considering the operation of the by-laws adopted since 1903, and comparing the present state of affairs with that existing before the passing of the act, we have come to the conclusion that the difficulties of the situation cannot be said to have been met, or any substantial contribution to a solution of the problem made, by the existing law and the machinery set up for its enforcement. Regulation, however well organized and complete, will not turn a wasteful and uneconomic use of the energies of children into a system which is beneficial to the community. Consequently we feel that we have no choice but to recommend the complete statutory prohibition of street trading either by boys or by girls up to a specific age. In the case of boys we feel that it would be wise to name an age which would render it likely that they would have had full opportunities of taking to regular work before they could legally trade in the streets. We think the most suitable age would be seventeen, which gives an interval of three or four years after the ordinary time of leaving an elementary school.... So far as girls are concerned, we feel that the arguments in favor of prohibiting trading increase rather than diminish in force as the age of the traders advances. The entire body of testimony laid before us has forced upon us the conclusion that street trading by girls is entirely indefensible, and that no system of regulation is sufficient to rid the employment of its risks and objections. On the other hand, we have not been able to discover any trace of hardship having resulted in any of those towns in which by-laws have prohibited trading by girls, or have restricted the ages during which trading is permitted. We think that the age of prohibition should be higher for girls than for boys, and, while we feel that it should, in any event, not be less than eighteen, we should be willing to see it fixed as high as twenty-one."[162]

As to the administration of the law, the committee declared that this should be delivered into the hands of the education authorities who could charge the regular truant officers with the work of enforcement or employ special officers for the purpose. The placing of responsibility upon the parents of child offenders was indorsed, but the committee criticised administrators because of the small penalties imposed as fines, the amounts being easily covered by the earnings of the traders, and hence an increase of the maximum fine was recommended.

A minority report was submitted by four members of this committee who declined to support the recommendation of the majority that street trading should be immediately and universally prohibited in the case of boys up to the age of seventeen. These members held that the cause of street trading should first be removed by organizing employment bureaus for children, by giving the children the benefit of vocational direction, and by promoting industrial education for boys both while attending the elementary schools and after.