Peddlers and Market Children
The licensed peddlers of Boston are under orders not to engage little children to sell for them with or without compensation. "These peddlers have hitherto crowded the markets of this city by inviting children to help them in the business, frequently for no other compensation than the offal of their pushcarts or stands."[71]
The peddling of chewing gum is a common form of street occupation for children. In reality it is merely begging in disguise. The Chicago Vice Commission reports that its agents found boys under fourteen years of age selling gum late at night in the segregated districts of the city. At intervals of from two to three hours their investigators returned to the same neighborhood and found these little children still engaged in this very questionable form of work. One agent reported having seen two little girls of about eleven years in the company of a small boy of about eight years selling chewing gum in front of a saloon in the vice district between nine and ten o'clock at night.[72]
The following table gives the sex, age, nationality, standing in school, orphanage and occupation of seventeen children found by one person in a single trip through the markets of Cincinnati:—
| Boys | Girls | Age | Grade | Nationality | Father Living | Mother Living | Selling | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Yes | No | Yes | No | ||||||
| 1 | 9 | 2d | Italian | 1 | 1 | baskets | |||
| 1 | 10 | 4th | American | 1 | 1 | fruit | |||
| 1 | 10 | 3d | German | 1 | 1 | vegetables | |||
| 1 | 10 | 2d | Italian | 1 | 1 | fruit | |||
| 1 | 10 | 4th | Italian | 1 | 1 | fruit | |||
| 1 | 10 | 3d | Italian | 1 | 1 | baskets | |||
| 1 | 11 | 4th | Italian | 1 | 1 | fruit | |||
| 1 | 11 | 3d | Italian | 1 | 1 | baskets | |||
| 1 | 11 | 6th | German | 1 | 1 | vegetables | |||
| 1 | 12 | 4th | American | 1 | 1 | vegetables | |||
| 1 | 12 | 3d | American | 1 | 1 | baskets | |||
| 1 | 12 | 4th | American | 1 | 1 | sassafras | |||
| 1 | 12 | 6th | Italian | 1 | 1 | fruit | |||
| 1 | 13 | 5th | Italian | 1 | 1 | baskets | |||
| 1 | 14 | 3d | American | 1 | 1 | sassafras | |||
| 1 | 14 | 8th | American | 1 | 1 | vegetables | |||
| 1 | 14 | 4th | Italian | 1 | 1 | fruit | |||
Of these seventeen children nine were Italians, six were Americans, two were Germans. Five of the children, all of whom except one were Italian, were engaged in selling baskets to the passers-by in markets. Six of the children, all of whom except one were Italian, were selling fruit. Six of the children were selling vegetables and herbs, all of them being Americans and Germans. The occupational characteristics of these different peoples are shown by their children, the Italians predominating in the sale of fruit, the Germans in the sale of the products of their market gardens, the Americans, all of whom were boys, in the sale of the herbs they had gathered or the vegetables cultivated on their home farms.
Of these seventeen children nine were in their normal grades at school, while eight were backward and none ahead of their proper grades. This large percentage of retardation is due principally to the lack of time for preparation of school lessons on the part of these children, as much of their afternoons and evenings is taken up either with the work of selling in the markets or with the work of assisting with the garden duties at home. Of the eight backward children, four were Italians and four were Americans. One of the backward Italian girls was fourteen years of age and had left school three weeks prior to the inquiry; she was the oldest of six children; her father was dead, and she was working for her mother in their fruit store selling the fruit from early morning until midnight every day in the week except Sunday. As she was the oldest child in the family, it is of course easily seen that her retardation in school was largely due to her having been kept at work in the shop during the afternoons and evenings while she was still attending school. An American boy, who, although twelve years of age, was only in the third grade at school, was employed by his parents to sell baskets in the market, in spite of the fact that his father had a store and was fully able to support the child properly. This boy was found, as were many other such children, selling baskets in the market at eleven o'clock at night after having been there since early in the morning. A thirteen-year-old Italian boy was only in the fifth grade; he was selling baskets in one market in the morning and in another market during the afternoon and evening; both of his parents were living, and his father had a "city job." There were six children in the family, two of whom were older and employed. The entire family of eight persons occupied two rooms.
It is noteworthy that the fathers of twelve of the children were living, only five being dead; while the mothers of fifteen were living, only two being dead. Not a single child was a full orphan. In the great majority of cases it was not necessary for these children to work so prematurely.
[CHAPTER V]
MESSENGERS, ERRAND AND DELIVERY CHILDREN
Accustomed to seeing messenger boys engaged during the day in the unobjectionable task of delivering telegrams to residences and business offices, one is likely to regard this service as an occupation quite suitable for children and to give it no further thought. However, the character of the work done by the messenger boy changes radically after nine or ten o'clock at night. At that hour most legitimate business has ceased, and the evil phases of city life begin to manifest themselves. From that time on until nearly dawn the messenger's work is largely in connection with the vicious features of city life. The ignorance of the general public as to the evil influences surrounding the night messenger service is strikingly illustrated by what one Indiana boy told an investigator; he declared that if his father knew what kind of work he was doing, a strap would be laid across his back and he would be compelled to abandon it. But the father did not know; he thought his boy was simply delivering telegrams.
The delivery of telegrams forms but a small part of the boy's work at night, because few messages are dispatched after business hours. Instead, calls are sent to the office for messengers to go on errands. The boys wait upon the characters of the underworld and perform a surprising variety of simple tasks; they carry notes to and from the inmates of houses of prostitution and their patrons, take lunches, chop suey and chile con carne to bawdyhouse women, procure liquor after the closing hour, purchase opium, cocaine and other drugs, go to drug stores for prostitutes to get medicines and articles used in their trade, and perform other tasks that oblige them to cultivate their acquaintance with the worst side of human nature. One instance was found in which the boy was required to clean up the room of a prostitute and to make her bed. The uniform or cap of the messenger boy is a badge of secrecy and enables him to get liquor at illegal hours or to procure opium and other drugs where plain citizens would be refused; hence these boys are thrown into associations of the lowest kind, night after night, and come to regard these evil conditions as normal phases of life. Usually the brightest boys on the night force become the favorites of the prostitutes; the women take a fancy to particular boys because of their personal attractiveness and show them many favors, so that the most promising boys in this work are the ones most liable to suffer complete moral degradation.
Messenger service not only gives boys the opportunity to learn what life is at night in "tenderloin" districts, but the character of the work actually forces them into contact with the vilest conditions and subjects them to the fearful influences always exerted by such associations. Some believe that this evil could be prevented by forbidding the office to allow messenger boys to go on such errands, but this is not practicable for two reasons: first, because an essential feature of the messenger service is secrecy—the office does not inquire into the nature of the errand to be performed, and even if it did so, a false statement could easily be made by the patron over the telephone; and second, it would be necessary to send a detective along with the boy on each trip to see that he observed the rules. Boys are eager to run errands for prostitutes for various reasons, one being the extra income assured, as these women give tips with liberal hand.
Like other street occupations, the messenger service is a blind alley; it leads nowhere. A very few boys are promoted to the position of check boy in the telegraph office, and fewer still have an opportunity to learn telegraphy. Some of the boys become cab drivers because they have familiarized themselves with the city streets; others become saloon keepers because they have become well acquainted with this method of making a livelihood; some are attracted by the life of "ease" which opens before them and enter into agreement with prostitutes, upon whose earnings they subsist; others have the courage to get away from these influences and secure work as office boys or in some other line entirely different from the messenger service.
A considerable number of the inmates of state reform schools were formerly messenger boys, indicating that this service is one of the roads to delinquency. As the immoral influences surrounding this work are especially active among youths, the age limit for such employment at night should be made high enough to prevent their being so exposed. New York State was first to declare that if this work is to be done at night it must be done by men, and has fixed the age limit at twenty-one years. The late Judge Stubbs, of the Indianapolis Juvenile Court, speaking before the Conference of Juvenile Court Officers held in that city in November, 1910, said that messenger boys, and newsboys who sell papers in the downtown streets, were the boys most frequently charged with delinquency before his court, and declared that twenty-one years was low enough as an age limit for night messenger service.
Other temptations assail the messenger boy in his work, and are frequently yielded to. The old practice of raising the amount of charges on the envelope of a telegram is notorious and is still an ever present problem to the companies. When a boy has been detected in this petty crime and is questioned about it, he too often adds to the one misdeed the other equally grievous one of lying, whereupon his dismissal usually follows.
Under the direction of the writer an investigation of the night messenger service was made in 1910 in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, the following cases being typical of the conditions found in all cities. In one of the larger towns of Indiana, a fourteen-year-old messenger boy was interviewed one night by an agent of the National Child Labor Committee who had called up the telegraph office by telephone requesting that a messenger be sent to him. Early in the course of conversation, of his own volition, the boy referred to houses of prostitution. Upon being asked what he knew about such places, he replied: "Too much—I am there half the night. You see they call for messengers to run errands for them. Sometimes I get them drinks, opium, medicines from drug stores or anything they want. No matter what they ask us to do—it's our business to go ahead and do it." The boy led the agent to a disreputable negro district and described his activities in this region. "No night passes without my making a dollar down here," said he. "The niggers are great smokers of opium, and I get it for them; they give me a little jar, and I have it filled up for them. It costs them $1.50, and I usually get the change from $2." The agent feigned doubt so as to elicit more information, whereupon the boy offered to get some opium if he were given a tip. The agent gave the boy one dollar and told him he might keep the change; in ten minutes he returned with a card of opium which was subsequently analyzed in a laboratory and found to be the kind ordinarily prepared for smoking purposes. This experience was repeated again and again by agents of the National Child Labor Committee in different cities and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that these young boys are forced into familiarity with the most degrading conditions.
Another fourteen-year-old messenger boy in the same town told the agent that there were but few business calls at night, and that nearly all of their work was in connection with houses of prostitution. This boy spoke of the money he received in tips from inmates and patrons of these houses, of his receiving liquor and cigarettes from them, and remarked, "I do not have to do this work, but I like it; this job is too good to give up; I'm learning a lot of things." This little fellow described some extremely revolting scenes of which he had been witness in these houses, and upon being asked whether his manager was aware of the kind of places he was called to, he replied, "Sure he does, for he gets the message over the telephone, then he calls one of the boys and sends him to the house."
Another messenger in the same city, who was seventeen years old and had been in this service for four years, working daily until half past two in the morning, said, in talking about the use of drugs by prostitutes, "When they are so full of dope that they don't know what to do, they call up for a messenger, and sometimes I have had them send me out to a drug store for paris green; they want to kill themselves, they are crazy with opium; of course I take their money and never show up again." This boy also bought a small package of opium for the agent. He declared that he knew every house of prostitution in the city and was well acquainted with their proprietresses. To prove this, he wrote out a list of fourteen such places, putting down the streets and numbers at once from memory. These were subsequently referred to persons familiar with the city and verified.
It is very distressing to read the testimony of a fourteen-year-old messenger boy of another city who had been thrown by his work so much in contact with evil conditions that he had come to regard these as normal. Although only fourteen years of age, he had lost all faith in womankind. In walking through the segregated district with the agent, this boy called out in advance the number of each house of prostitution, thus showing his familiarity with the whole region. In his childish, schoolboy hand, he wrote on a slip of paper a list of the bawdyhouses, putting down very promptly from memory the names of the proprietresses, the names of the streets and numbers of the houses.
Another fourteen-year-old messenger boy in this city related many disgusting details of his experiences in the service at night—of prostitutes smoking, cursing and sprawling on the floor dead drunk. He stated that he had never smoked before he became a messenger, but that when he saw the women using tobacco in all the houses, he thought there could be no harm in it. "If ladies do it, why shouldn't I? So I began, and now I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. I get twenty for a nickel and smoke all night. If I didn't, I suppose I'd fall asleep. I once lit a cigarette from an opium pipe in one of the houses—but no more opium for me." When asked whether his manager knew that he was sent to these houses, he replied: "Sure he does, he's the one that sends us; if we don't go, we get fired. He knows all the women, too, because he jokes with them over the telephone when they call up for a boy."
A fifteen-year-old night messenger, when asked what he did with the money he received as tips, replied: "Last week I lost a dollar in a crap game, and I go to moving-picture shows during the day and buy different things; I suppose if my people knew the kind of work I was doing, I would get a thick leather strap over my back. They have an idea that the messenger business is just taking telegrams to reputable people. There are very few business calls at night at our office; almost all of them come from houses of prostitution. This is going to be a very busy week with us because a convention starts to-morrow, and the delegates will want us to take them to the houses."
Another Hoosier messenger was only sixteen years of age, although he had been in the service of one company for four years and had previously been discharged from another company for having defrauded a patron. This lad was a typical boy of the street; his features were drawn, black lines were below his eyes, and his walk could be described best as a drag. "I know every single house of prostitution in this city," said he. "I have been in every one. I get drinks in most of them, and many a time I was drunk for a whole day in some woman's room." This boy, having been in the service several years, spoke of the ravages dissipation had wrought on the women of the underworld. He had known many of them when they were just starting in their life of shame, and remarked their rapid decline. Voluntarily he spoke of the venereal diseases from which he had suffered. He said that he had been discharged from his first job as a messenger for having defrauded patrons. To illustrate how the scheme worked, he said: "A woman wanted me to carry a package to some place and asked me what it would cost; I said one dollar, and she said she wouldn't pay it because it was too much. I told her to speak to the manager and gave her the telephone number where my pal was waiting for the call. She asked him whether he was the manager, and he said, 'Yes'; then she asked how much the charge was, and he answered one dollar. Then I went on the errand, and we split the difference. Somehow the manager got wise, and out we went." This boy's conversation was a continuous flow of vulgarity. When the agent mentioned gambling, the boy drew from his pocket two sets of dice and said they were "ready at any time to do business. When the first of the month comes around, I am generally short or ahead $5. I lost $8 once. When I have no ready cash, I play on account of my salary."
An eighteen-year-old messenger said: "I have been in this business here for five years, and a night never passes that I don't go to a house of prostitution; that's our main business at night. They could not afford to have a messenger service in this town at night if it were not for the red light district. We have to do all their work, because they trust us." This boy spoke of the venereal diseases other boys in the service had, and admitted that he had contracted them twice himself.
Another eighteen-year-old messenger boy, who has been in the service four years and is afflicted with an exceptionally bad venereal infection, said among other things, "There are lots of messengers who are kept by women. The boys work only for appearances. I knew two messengers who worked with me who were kept by two prostitutes for a year, then they gave up the job at the same time and took the prostitutes to Chicago, where the women worked for them. One of these boys is only about nineteen years old now. You don't learn anything in the messenger business except to knock down (overcharge a patron) and to go around with prostitutes and gamblers. It kills a fellow. I know, because I went down the line, and I'm coming out the wrong end." When asked why he didn't quit the job, he replied: "You don't suppose I want to work for $3 or $4 a week? I'm used to making pretty good money and having a good time." He said that he made from $40 to $75 a month according to the tips he received, and spent it as fast as he got it. Most of it went in gambling.
A fourteen-year-old messenger boy in another city who works from 6 P.M. to 7 A.M., in speaking of the use of whisky in houses of prostitution, said: "We get it for them; the saloons know the messengers, and we stand in with them; the more a house sends for whisky the better they stand in with the saloon keeper. If the proprietress gets locked up, she will always be bailed out by the saloon keeper, but if she don't buy enough stuff from him, he will refuse to do it. When a proprietress is put in jail, the cops ring up for a messenger from the station house, and they send me to the cell where the woman is, and she always gives me a note to take to the saloon keeper and he goes down and gets her out." This boy said his manager knew the kind of places he visited, but was not in the office all night. During the late hours of the night the telegraph operator and the clerk were left in charge, and the boy remarked that they had told him to try to get a woman into the office if he found one on the street, and related instances in which this had been done. He was paid a salary of $22 a month.
Another fourteen-year-old messenger in this town is paid $17 a month salary and makes $10 or $12 a month in tips.
A thirteen-year-old messenger in another city, after having related some of his experiences in the segregated district, said: "I tell you, it's mighty dirty work for a boy to be in, but I suppose a fellow has to learn these things somehow, and I may as well learn them in the messenger service as in any other way. I smoke perique so I can sleep in the daytime."
A fourteen-year-old messenger in the same city, employed from noon to midnight, had been in the service only one week when interviewed by the agent; among other things he said: "All the last week I have been doing nothing but go to the red light district. I didn't know what this messenger business was until I got into it, and I am going to quit just as soon as I see a little more of that kind of thing."
In a certain Indiana city there was found a "kid line" messenger service, so called because the proprietor was a mere boy who was formerly in the service of another messenger company. He had two day boys, but at night answered the calls himself. He was fourteen years old and told the agent that he had lived in the "red light" district more than at his home on account of the number of calls he had to answer there, but of course this was exaggeration intended to convey the fact that most of his business was with that region. When he entered into business for himself, he went to all the prostitutes in the "red light" district and told them that he was commencing on his own account and that he wanted them to be his customers. "I get a good deal of their business. I get it because I know how to treat them. I can get them beer on Sunday and can sneak it into their houses. I know all the women and can introduce you to any of them, and can get you any amount of beer or whisky that you want. When I was working for the—— messenger company there was another boy on the force who tried to take all the good calls; he divided his tips with the manager, so he was sent to all the houses where good tips were given. There was one prostitute who liked me pretty well and gave me ten or fifteen cents for myself every time I went to her house. I started to answer a call there one night, and the other boy ran after me. We got to the place at the same time and had a fight in the hall; the men and women in the place gathered around us and offered to give us two dollars each if we would scrap for them, so we started right in, and before I was through with him he had two black eyes and his face was bleeding, then he pulled out a knife, but they took it away from him, and the next day I was fired. There is a young girl in one of the houses who is a chambermaid and wants me to live with her, and maybe I will but I'm afraid my mother will get wise."
The fifteen-year-old messenger of another office showed the agent the list of about one hundred calls sent in the previous night, nearly every one of which came from the "red light" district.
After weighing such evidence we can readily comprehend the justice of the opinion rendered by Dr. Charles P. Neill in the following words: "The newsboys' service is demoralizing, but the messenger service is debauching.... And, saddest of all, this service appeals strongly to the children. The prurient curiosity of the developing boy would itself incline him to like these calls to houses of prostitution, but they quickly learn also that women who live in these sections are more generous with their earnings in the way of tips than are the people in the more respectable sections of the city.... It can be said that all the boys who go into the messenger service do not go to the bad, but it can be said with equal truth that it ruins children by the dozens, and that if any boy comes out of this service without having suffered moral shipwreck he can thank the mercy of God for it, and not the protecting arm of the community that stands idly by and makes no attempt to save him from temptation."[73]
In 1908 Congress passed a child labor law for the District of Columbia which provided, among other restrictions, that no messenger boy under sixteen years should be employed between 7 P.M. and 6 A.M.,—sixteen years, the beginning of the period of adolescence, when boys have the greatest need of protection from the vices running riot in cities!
The Chicago Vice Commission devotes several pages of its report to a recital of the experiences of messenger boys in connection with their work in the segregated districts. One of the telegraph companies maintains a branch office close to one of these districts, where eight boys from fifteen to eighteen years of age are employed as messengers. These boys are called upon to work at all hours of the day and night, their tasks being the same as those of the messengers in other cities. A number of specific instances of the wretched environment into which these boys are thrown, are given. One of them who works from midnight until 10 A.M. was sent by a prostitute to a drug store for a package of cocaine hydrochloride, for which he paid $5.78, receiving $1 from the prostitute as a tip for the service. Another messenger was sent out on a similar errand by another prostitute two weeks later and purchased for her a hypodermic needle for a syringe; he was charged $2 for this needle, the cost to the druggist being 19 cents. A few days later a boy was called by another prostitute who confided to him that she had discontinued the use of messenger boys for purchasing "dope" because she found that they talked too much and could not be trusted, adding that she now had a newsboy, who sold papers at a near-by corner, buy the cocaine for her. A woman who lives in an apartment house and is the owner and proprietor of houses of prostitution in the restricted district, is in the habit of sending in an order for cocaine to a druggist, who calls a messenger boy to deliver it to her residence. This messenger opened one of the packages and, suspecting that it was cocaine, sniffed a little of it himself. He confessed that he had done this quite often since, and it appeared that he had derived a good deal of pleasure from it. The same messenger is sent about three times monthly by a certain man to a Chinaman, from whom he buys a package of opium for $4. On returning from one of these trips he watched the man open the package, take a quantity of the stuff, roll it and heat it, but at this point the messenger was told to leave the room. Another messenger boy has been employed at this particular branch office for more than three years, although he is now only seventeen years old; his earnings average about $10 per week, including tips. He is of small stature, not mentally bright and at present is afflicted with syphilis of three months' duration. Another messenger is a boy of foreign parentage, only fifteen years of age, who said he had recently been called quite often to a certain house of prostitution where an inmate gave him a box with a note to a druggist; the contents cost $1.75, but upon returning to the woman he would declare that he had paid $2.50, thus obtaining 75 cents on false pretenses, and in addition a tip of half a dollar. On one of his trips for this prostitute he had opened the note and found that it was a requisition for cocaine; on returning he placed some of the contents upon his tongue, but did not like the sensation and never repeated it. He is in the habit of picking up discarded cigarettes and smoking them. In spite of his age, he knows the name of nearly every prostitute in this district and can recognize these women at sight; he stated that whenever he entered a house of prostitution they would nearly always kiss him, and at different times he had had sores on his lips.
Another boy who was attending high school was employed as a messenger in the downtown district during Christmas week of 1910. He was sent to deliver a message in a house of prostitution, and the girl who received it offered to cohabit with him free of charge as a Christmas present, stating that it was customary to do this for messenger boys on Christmas Day.[74]
A number of other messengers told of similar experiences, stating that they were often called to houses of prostitution to perform small personal services for the inmates. As to regulation of the service, a police order was issued in Chicago in April, 1910, to the effect that no messenger or delivery boy under eighteen years was to be allowed in the segregated districts at any time.
In arguing against the further restriction of the night messenger service, the telegraph companies and other interested organizations insist that the majority of these boys are working to support their widowed mothers or incapacitated fathers; a recent government report says, in referring to the table of families in which there are messengers and errand and office boys ten to fourteen years of age, classified by percentage of older breadwinners, for Boston, Chicago, New York and Washington, "These statistics point to the conclusion that the greater part of the families now furnishing children from ten to thirteen years of age and fourteen years for the occupation of messengers and errand and office boys are by no means either entirely or largely dependent upon the earnings of such children for the family support."[75] The restriction advocated does not contemplate the prohibition of this work to boys of fourteen years and upwards in the daytime; its object is to shield the youths from the vile associations necessarily connected with this work at night.