The Alien Invasion

by W. H. Wilkins

The traffic is carried on in this wise:—The children are brought over from Italy by men who obtain them from their parents upon payment of a very small sum; for a few ducats annually (a ducat equals 3s. 6d.), and upon undertaking to clothe and feed them. The parents who thus dispose of their children are for the most part poor peasants living in Calabria, and the south of Italy. Sometimes the parents will bring the children to England themselves, and sometimes they are confided to relations; but often it is a traffic, and they sell their children into what is a veritable slavery without troubling about their future, and glad to be relieved of the responsibility and expense of their maintenance and education. The padroni—that is the masters—having thus gained possession of the children, they bring them to England. Some travel by railway, but many of them actually journey on foot, walking from town to town, village to village, all the way up to Dieppe or Calais, and from thence crossing over to our shores.

The children are imported here simply for the purpose of following one or the other of the vagrant professions in the streets of London and throughout the country. They are sent out early in the morning with an accordion, concertina, or other instrument, and told to sing or play before houses, and then to wait for money. As a rule they do not openly beg for alms, as this would bring them within the reach of law; but they just stand and wait, and benevolent persons, attracted by their picturesque appearance, are moved to compassion, and give them money, ignorant or forgetful of the fact that this money benefits them personally not at all, but the padrone whose property they are.

The padroni are often very severe, and treat the children just like slaves. If they do not bring home a sufficient sum they are cruelly beaten and ill-treated, kept without food or nourishment, and sent hungry to bed. Very often these poor children do not get home from their weary rounds until past midnight, and they are often found utterly worn out, and fast asleep under an archway or upon a doorstep. They are wretchedly lodged, huddled together, four or five sleeping in a bed when they have one to sleep in at all; and being private houses, their lodgings are not in any way open to inspection or improvement.

The traffic is most lucrative, and the gains the padroni make out of these children are very large—so much so indeed, that after a few years they are able to retire to Italy and to live as country gentlemen afterwards. Sometimes a child will bring home as much as 10s. or more a day; and as often one padrone has as many as fifty children under his care, spread about in companies in London and in the country under the supervision of his confederates, it will be seen that the total amount of a number of small sums accumulating daily must be very large. Of course sometimes the children bring home very little, and sometimes nothing at all; but the penalty in this case is to be beaten and kept without food, so fear stimulates their efforts, and they do not often return quite empty-handed.

The effects of this evil system upon its victims is necessarily very bad. They do not go to school, they become very idle, and begin early to drink, smoke, and take all kinds of vices. They grow up immoral, illiterate, vicious, and low; a degraded class, exercising a most undesirable influence among the surrounding population. The girls especially all go to the bad, because they are sent into low drinking-shops, public-houses, and similar places. When they grow up, they all become beggars and vagrants by profession, and always remain so, for they have learned no other trade, and many can neither read nor write. Some remain in England, but many go over to Italy, and bring over children themselves. Sometimes, when they are seventeen or eighteen years old, they run away from the padrone and set up on their own account.

Many efforts have been made to put a stop to this disgraceful traffic; but hitherto everything seems to have fallen short of the mark. The Italian Benevolent Society has been untiring in its efforts to stop the trade. So long ago as 1876 the Society went on a deputation to the London School Board, with the result that it was decided to compel these children to go to school in the same way as if they had been English children. But the padrone was equal to the occasion. He removed his troupe from Saffron Hill, to the outlying districts of Deptford, Greenwich, and Hammersmith. There the School Board takes no action, and there the children dwell in large numbers, free to ply their trade, and secure from compulsory education. The Children's Protection Act was also another step in the right direction, and it has certainly ameliorated the state of affairs; but for various reasons, chiefly because the limit of age is rather too low, it does not seem to go to the root of the evil.

Several suggestions to remedy this state of affairs have been made, all worthy of consideration. One is that there should be a tightening of the compulsory action of the School Boards all over the country. It is illogical that these children should be compelled to go to school in London, and in the country allowed to roam where they please. Doubtless this would have a very good effect, and the gains of the padroni would be sensibly diminished. Another suggestion is, to increase the limit of age laid down in the Children's Protection Act to eighteen years of age in the case of persons of both sexes, thus bringing the Act into accord with a drastic law which was passed in Italy in 1873,[14] and which has been found very effectual there. This course, however, is obviously open to objection, since it might press hardly upon individual cases. The most effectual remedy would be to adopt the plan followed in America, namely, to stop these children at the port of arrival, and the padroni, and send them all back at once to their own country. In all European countries they are expelled, or refused admission. Such a course, however, would require a special law, and that necessarily will be some time in coming. The question is:—what is to be done in the meantime? That the evil still continues to flourish there can be no manner of doubt. The padroni do not confine their attentions only to children, but frequently bring over whole families as well. A case came to light in Birmingham this year,[15] of a padrone named Delicato, who had brought over an Italian family—a father, a mother, and two daughters. At the end of two years the record of that unfortunate family was as follows:—The father was paid £2 for two years' work and discharged; the mother had previously been sent back to Italy, because from ill-health she had become practically useless to her master. One of the daughters Delicato had seduced, and she is still living with him; the other daughter ran away and married, and her husband brought an action to recover her earnings. When the case came before the Court, the whole transaction was exposed. Inquiries were also instituted as to the antecedents of Delicato, and it was found that he had been carrying on this nefarious trade for years, and had three separate establishments in different parts of the country. It was found that this man had seduced no less than three young girls who had been committed to his care, and then abandoned them. This is no uncommon occurrence, for the padroni are men utterly without principle, and thoroughly bad in every way.

The parents are almost as bad as the padroni, as the following instance will show:—An Italian named Mancini was recently[16] charged before the Bow Street Police Court for causing a child to solicit alms. It was a case of heartless cruelty. The little girl, his daughter, was engaged in dragging a heavy barrel-organ about the streets. At intervals she stopped and turned the handle, her father meanwhile standing a little way off to see what coppers she obtained. It was raining at the time the man was taken in charge, and the child's boots were saturated with water, and her clothes literally drenched. She was only nine years of age. Another instance of the rapacity of the padroni is illustrated by the following case, of even more recent date.[17] A young ice-cream vendor named Romano brought an action against his master, Auguste Pampa, at the Brompton County Court, for the recovery of four months' wages. It appeared that Romano had arrived in this country in a state of absolute destitution. Pampa, a compatriot, agreed to give him work, and an agreement was drawn up between them. It set forth that Pampa engaged Romano for one year to sell ice-cream in the streets of London; that he should be paid £1 2s. a month, and that Pampa should board and lodge him, and provide him with clothes. The plaintiff said that the defendant used to send him out in rags in all sorts of weather, and that he literally had no clothes to cover him. The judge gave a verdict for the plaintiff. The case throws a strong light upon the fate of Italian immigrants in London, and upon the class of Italians who come here.

The best way to put down this infamous traffic, in default of restrictive legislation, is undoubtedly to lose no opportunities of bringing the painful facts before the public. If once the charitable public could be made to understand that the money they give to those little ones benefits them personally not at all, but goes to swell the gains of the rapacious padrone, who laughs and grows rich upon the sufferings of his victims, the supplies would be cut off at their source, and the dream of the padrone to return to sunny Italy and live there as a country gentleman, vanish for ever.