Part 31 (1/2)
FACTORIES are made accountable by many writers for much juvenile immorality and prost.i.tution. Factories in England are, as most of our readers are aware, inst.i.tutions materially differing in some respects from those of our own country. In no feature is there so wide a dissimilarity as in the character of the work-people. The factory children of England are the offspring of the poorest of the community, whose only heritage is pauperism, with wages at no time too good, and often at starvation point.
The miserable earnings of the factory operatives are still farther reduced by constant strikes and contests with their employers, in which it is a foregone conclusion that the workmen must yield. Macaulay tells us that, two centuries ago, the employment of children in factories, and the dependence of the parent's bread upon the children's earnings, was a notorious fact, much condemned by philanthropists. The introduction of machinery and the value of child-labor gradually aggravated all the horrors of the factory system, the enormity of which called down the indignation of the non-manufacturing community, and compelled the protective interference of Parliament. The Ten Hours' Bill, the Factory Childrens' Education regulations, appointment by government of factory commissioners and inspectors, have all contributed to ameliorate the hard lot of the factory child. The employment of very young children in factories is still to be regretted, or rather its necessity, for probably it is better they should be employed in a not very laborious occupation than left to roam the streets.
The direct influence of factory work on juvenile prost.i.tution is insisted on by many writers; by others, some reservations have been introduced, such as, The young a.s.sociate only during hours of recreation. In business hours they are generally employed in different parts of the building. They have a certain amount of education. Their parents are generally, or very often, employed in the same establishment. a.s.sume that these children were not in the factory, where would they be, and what could they do? Are evil influences rife only in the factory? The overcrowding at home; the frequent drunkenness and debauchery of their parents and a.s.sociates; the endless indigence; the frequent visits to the work-houses, are all circ.u.mstances which have been considered and argued in the case. But of the fact of juvenile prost.i.tution and depravity in factory populations none can doubt; of its being exclusively or chiefly attributable to factory life, others are not certain.
That children who labor in factories, and thereby contribute to the family earnings and their own support, could do better in the present condition of English society, is doubtful. Mill-owners are required to devote a portion of their time to education. Sunday-schools are established; personal attention is paid by leading mill-owners to the improvement of the poor; many build good cottages (for which, by the way, they receive a good interest in the way of rent); many inspect the schools; some build school-houses and pay the teachers. The good example of benevolent mill-owners in a measure compels others, whose moral perceptions are less keen, to follow them.
We would not be supposed to argue that English cotton factories are types of the Millennium, any more than are similar inst.i.tutions on this side of the Atlantic. In fact, we have a very decided opinion on the matter, but common honesty requires that the opinion of all who have investigated the subject should be fairly recorded. In submitting the various arguments adduced in favor of factory labor and its bearing on immorality, we present merely subjects for consideration.
DISEASE IN CHILDREN.--A fact of importance to public health is the disease acquired by children. In the first address issued by the London Society for the Protection of young Females, it is stated that in three of the London hospitals during the preceding eight years there had been no less than two thousand seven hundred cases of venereal disease in children between eleven and sixteen years of age.
Dr. Ryan, on the same subject, speaking from his professional experience as medical officer of several charities, mentions the shock he felt on seeing numerous cases of venereal disease in children.
Mr. Miller, of Glasgow, testifies to the same fact.
The very imperfect data which exist on this important branch of our subject will not enable one to form any sound opinion on the spread of disease from these juvenile sources. It is, however, reasonable to conclude, from the few facts, and from the very facilities afforded at their age for intercommunication between children, that the spread of disease from direct contamination, and the deterioration of health and const.i.tution from unknown excesses, must be very great.
OBSCENE PUBLICATIONS.--Of these there are vast numbers, and the extent of juvenile contamination from this source must be very great. The Society for the Suppression of Vice, in London, reports having seized, at different periods, thousands of obscene books, copper-plates, and prints, all of which they caused to be destroyed. Within a period of three years they procured the destruction of
Blasphemous and impure books 279 Obscene publications 1,162 Obscene songs (on sheets) 1,495 Obscene prints 10,493
and even this was but an item in the calculation.
The police of London take but little interest in this matter. The above-mentioned society is the princ.i.p.al agent in the repression of this infamous species of depravity. There are certain places in London in which the trade still lives and flourishes, notwithstanding the attacks made upon it. Holywell Street, in the Strand, and the vicinity of Leicester Square, are places of disgraceful notoriety in this respect. The secret is, that wherever there is a public demand, no repressive laws will ever prevent trade. The attempt at repression but makes it more profitable.
To the corruption of the youthful mind and the preparatives for prost.i.tution these publications must contribute. It is matter of question what number of prost.i.tutes have become such directly from this cause. The results of visitorial inspection do not show among London prost.i.tutes, any more than elsewhere, a taste for books and prints of an obscene tendency.
Their taste in literature is that which would prevail among persons of low intellectual calibre. Startling tales, romances with a plentiful spice of horrors, thrilling love-stories, highly wrought and exaggerated narratives, are their taste. In the practice of prost.i.tution, the use of indecent or prurient prints is chiefly for the adornment of visitors'
rooms in brothels.
EDUCATION.--In the relations between education and crime are found no distinctive marks whereby prost.i.tution may be separated from any other development of vice or immorality. It is to be presumed that the same general laws which apply to the unregulated manifestation of the pa.s.sions apply to those with which prost.i.tution is chiefly implicated.
In the present generation it is generally a.s.sumed that crime is the offspring of ignorance, therefore Education! is the cry. Education has become a party watchword in England. The necessity of education, the quality and the quant.i.ty, with all the minor propositions that branch off from the main question, are, and have been for years, the subject of the hottest polemics. But recent results, evolved from statistical inquiries, would seem to call up the previous question as to the value of education at all. The present work is not the place in which to discuss the fact, or to point out a remedy, or indicate the deficiencies of a system which can suffer such a question to arise. We give the facts. From the Parliamentary reports of 1846-1848, it appears that the number of educated criminals in England was at that time more than twice, and in Scotland more than three and a half that of the uneducated:
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Years.
England.
Scotland.
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------------------------
-----------------------
Educated.
Uneducated.
Educated.
Uneducated.
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1846
16,963
7698
3155
903
1847
19,307
9050
3562
1048
1848
20,176
9671
3985
911
+---------------------------------------------------------+
In calculating a percentage on certain criminal returns during the undermentioned years, the results were:
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1839.
1840.
1841.
1842.
1843.
1844.
1845.
1846.
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-----
-----
-----
-----
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Uneducated
3353
3332
3321
3235
3100
2977
3061
3066
Imperfectly educated
5348
5557
5667
5832
5760
5928
5834
5951
Well educated
1007
829
740
677
802
812
838
771
Superior education
032
037
045
022