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.
Night Service by Men—Not by Boys
Mr. Owen R. Lovejoy of the National Child Labor Committee, in speaking of the study of the night messenger service undertaken by this organization, says: "The evidence collected justified the committee in cooperating with its affiliated organizations to secure legislation, and, counting on the moral interest of the public to promote the effort, we made the question one for practical and immediate decision. Results apparently justify the policy chosen. A bill was unanimously passed by the legislature of New York State [in 1910], excluding any person under twenty-one years of age from this occupation between ten o'clock at night and five o'clock in the morning."
Massachusetts in 1911 forbade the employment of messengers under twenty-one years of age between the hours of 10 P.M. and 5 A.M., except by newspaper offices. Utah fixed the same age limit for this work in cities of first and second classes between 9 P.M. and 5 A.M. New Jersey did likewise as to cities of the first class, fixing the age limit at eighteen years for smaller places, the prohibited hours being from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M.
Wisconsin also passed a law in 1911, prohibiting the employment of any one under twenty-one years of age as a messenger between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. in cities of the first, second and third classes. Ohio, in 1910, fixed the age limit for messenger service between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M. at eighteen years.
Michigan now prohibits the employment of messengers under eighteen years between 10 P.M. and 5 A.M., as do also New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee and California.
Other states having the advanced type of child labor law prohibit the employment of children under fourteen years in the messenger service during the day and under sixteen years at night. The states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming do not yet provide any age limit for this work.
The evil effects of the messenger service have also been noted in Great Britain. A schoolmaster of Edinburgh says, "Insolence, coarse intonation, swearing, lying, pilfering and lewdness are the chief products of message going by boys."[76]