Child Labor in City Streets

by Edward Nicholas Clopper

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.

Liverpool

As to local efforts to regulate the street-trading evil, the first steps were taken in Liverpool. In this city the condition of child street traders was particularly bad; half of them were girls, and the stock in trade was usually newspapers and matches—the children were dirty, ragged and running the streets at all hours of the night, the apparent trade in newspapers and other articles being frequently used to cover up much worse things; in fact, many of the girls were practically prostitutes. Quite a number of these children were nothing more or less than beggars, and deliberately appeared in ragged clothing for the purpose of exciting sympathy. A local association undertook to supply them with clothing, but many refused this aid "because it would interfere with their trade." Commenting on similar practices among the street traders of Dublin, Sir Lambert H. Ormsby, M.D., said in 1904: "They sell other things besides ... matches principally. Of course the selling of matches is merely a means of evading being taken up by the police for begging. The matches are only humbug; they do not want to sell them ... they do it for begging purposes."[163] In 1897 the Liverpool Watch Committee appointed a subcommittee to consider the question of children trading in streets, and this subcommittee reported that: "The practice is attended, first, with injury to the health of the children; second, with interference with the education of such as are of school age; third, with danger to the moral welfare of the children inasmuch as the practice frequently leads to street gambling, begging, sleeping out and other undesirable practices, and in some cases to crime." They were of opinion—in which the inspector of reformatories concurred—that much of the money earned by the children went to indulge the vicious and intemperate propensities of parents and guardians.

By the Liverpool Corporation Act, 1898, Parliament gave the city power to regulate street trading by children, and accordingly the following provisions were made by the city council: (1) no licenses to any child under eleven; (2) boys eleven to thirteen and girls eleven to fifteen inclusive, to be licensed if not mentally or physically deficient, with consent of parent or guardian; (3) licenses good one year; (4) badges also to be issued; (5) no charge for license or badge; (6) licenses may be revoked by Watch Committee for cause; (7) no licensed child to trade after 9 P.M., nor unless decently clothed, nor without badge, nor in streets during school hours unless exempted from school attendance, and no licensed child may alter or dispose of badge, or enter public houses to trade, or importune passengers. These regulations took effect May 31, 1899, and marked the formal beginning of the movement against street trading by children.