"Yes," said the superintendent heartily, "a great deal is being done. The Bureau of the Census has been of immense service, and other bureaus of the Department of Commerce and Labor are working on it, largely through information gathered for them by the census. Then there have been thorough Congressional investigations, and the States are being checked up hard to insure that factory inspection shall be real, not nominal. Don't let the 'crusader' persuade you that everybody is asleep and that nothing is being done; the government is doing a good deal, although the country as a whole is unaware of it."
"Yet it is increasing?"
"In spite of all that is done to prevent it, it is increasing," the other said quietly, "that is the sad part. If it could be thought of as a passing thing, it would be bad enough, but to know that every month hundreds of children die from enforced labor and that greater numbers fill their places, is a sad reflection on the industrial life of to-day."
"Well, as the South progresses, that will probably take care of itself, won't it?" queried the boy.
The superintendent looked at him curiously.
"I think you told me last evening that you were a New York boy," he said.
"Yes, Mr. Wharton," answered Hamilton.
"I suppose you consider New York a fairly progressive city?"
"Greatest on earth!" affirmed the boy in true Gotham style.
"Yet that same progressive city," the older man declared, "is the headquarters of several forms of industry in which large percentages of the workers are children under fourteen years of age."