In the time of Henry VIII. an attempt was made to take care of the question of the growing number of vagrant children by making all vagrant children between the years of five and fourteen liable to be bound out to some master as apprentices, the boys until they were twenty-four and the girls until they were twenty.[445]
In 1601 a statute was passed which gave to justices of the peace the power of apprenticing not only the children of paupers and vagrants but the children of those parents who were overburdened with children and who were unable to support them.
“And be it further enacted that it shalbe lawfull for the saide churchwardens and overseers, or the greater parte of them, by the assent of any two justices of the peace aforesaid, to binde any suche children as aforesaide to be apprentices, where they shall see convenient, till suche man child shall come to the age of fower and twentie yeares, and such woman child to the age of one and twenty yeares, or the tyme of her mariage; the same to be as effectuall to all purposes as if suche childe were of full age, and by indenture of covenant bounde hym or her selfe.”[446]
In the seventeenth century, the practice of putting children prematurely to work prevailed to an extent which, when compared with the extent of the manufacturing system, “seems almost incredible,” says Macaulay.[447]
A little creature of six years old was thought fit for labour in the town of Norwich, the chief seat of the clothing trade. Writers at that time, and among them some who were considered as eminently benevolent,[448] mention, “with exultation, the fact that in that single city boys and girls of tender age created wealth exceeding what was necessary for their own subsistence by twelve thousand pounds a year.”
INFANT TOILERS IN A SILK MILL, SYRIA
(COPYRIGHT BY UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD, N. Y.)
A HEALTHY PAIR OF INDIAN CHILDREN, WESTERN CANADA
The industrial revolution of the eighteenth century was sudden and violent. All the great inventions of Watt, Arkwright, and Boulton were made within twenty years, steam was applied to the new looms, and the modern factory system had fairly begun.[449] With the demand for labourers and the fact that the division of labour brought about a call for low-priced workmen, some of the divisions really necessitating no greater intelligence than that of a child, the children were in great demand.