“This is a sort of commerce of which those who engage in it do not, in all probability, understand the immorality. Everything is arranged in a regular manner, and generally before a notary: it is white slavery. A speculator runs through the villages, collects the children, whom parents are quite willing to let him have, and takes them on lease, generally for three years. All that these children earn, no matter where, during that lapse of time, belongs to him, and, in exchange, he gives the family a lump sum or so much annually. Formal agreements are signed, which become invalid in case of non-execution of the clauses.
“I have inspected several of these contracts. There could not possibly be more naïveté or good faith than they exhibit. A father lets out his son as he lets out a field. The child is a capital, of which the produce belongs legitimately to the father. That is the principle, and it is very simple, as everyone can see. Highly immoral as it is amongst us, and contrary as it is to all our customs, there is nothing in it to shock the inhabitants of the Basilicate, for whom it becomes frequently a profitable resource. The speculators believe themselves so well within the law that often abroad, and particularly at Paris, they have recourse to their consuls in order to enforce the terms of the contract against their victims when these prove refractory.
“This industry has its agents and its travellers. Some go to Italy in search of the children and, bringing them to Paris, place them in the hands of the patron, who is expecting them and pays for them at so much a head. Others supply information as to the villages where children who are good musicians or who have agreeable physiognomies are to be found; while, again, others—nor are these the least dangerous—when they learn that a ‘patron’ has been expelled by some administrative measure, collect together the poor little creatures belonging to his band and work them on their own account.
“The trade is not a bad one. One patron was recently living in London with a fortune of 200,000 francs, gained by this frightful traffic. Formerly the patrons defended their pretended rights to the bitter end, but to-day, rendered more circumspect by adverse verdicts, they take flight as soon as they feel uneasy, and abandon the children to their fate. Some five-and-twenty years ago the constantly increasing number of little Italians caused the Government[{329}] to adopt severe measures, and the patroni were all and separately informed that unless they abandoned their cruel trade they would, in virtue of a law passed in 1849, be conducted to the frontier. The effect of this notification was somewhat droll. Instead of making a complaint, either to their own Minister, to the Minister of the Interior, or the Prefect of Police, they drew up an address to the French nation, and, in a document full of sound and rhetoric and commonplace, took farewell of ‘that hospitable land, Italy’s own sister.’”
The patroni in charge of the children are far from irreproachable. Some of them possess musical talent; and these not only seek but know how to turn the abilities of their little slaves to the best account. Others are retired brigands, or loafers on a large scale, who wish to see the world and to make money during the process.
The courts have sometimes had to deal with great cruelties on the part of the patroni. On one occasion a man named Pellitieri was convicted for having kept a child for four days and nights fastened beneath his own bed with a harp-string, which could be tightened by means of a key. The culprit was sentenced, in default, to four months’ imprisonment. The life to which the poor little Italian children are condemned is of the most sordid, hateful, and demoralising kind. They suffer in health, and it has been calculated that out of a hundred children brought from Italy into France, twenty return home, thirty remain abroad, and fifty die of privation and hunger.
The streets in which they are chiefly to be found are the Rue Simon le Franc, the Rue de la Clef, the Rue des Boulangers, and the Place St. Victor. Here they live crowded together in such a manner that there are often five, six, and even seven beds in the same room, with three, four, five, and it may be six children in each bed. There is a bolster at each end of the bed, and the curious visitor is surprised on entering the room to see heads spring up in every direction.
A L’ASILE POUR FEMMES, RUE FESSART, LE RÉFECTOIRE.
