In the latter half of the eighteenth century the development of manufactures, especially the cloth-making industry, impressed on the American mind, as it had impressed the English mind, that child labour was a national asset. When the first cotton factory was started at Beverly, Mass., it was stated that it would afford “employment to a great number of women and children many of whom will be otherwise useless, if not burdensome to society.”458
A special report was made by a committee to the Massachusetts Legislature in 1866 in which it was stated that representatives of the factories went about systematically canvassing for small children: “Small help is scarce; a great deal of machinery has been stopped for want of small help, so that the overseers have been going around to draw the small children from schools into the mills; the same as a draft in the army.”
Asked if there were “any limit on the part of the employers as to the age when they take children,” a witness replied: “They’ll take them at any age they can get them, if they are old enough to stand....”459
The same year that this report was made there was founded in New York a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, in imitation of a similar society that had been founded in England, in 1823. Out of that movement in America there grew, in 1874, a movement to look after the rights of children, the first enunciation in terms of modernity of the fact that society must not only punish crimes against children, but that it must prevent them. Following the formation of this society, the first special laws “known in the world were enacted specifically to protect and punish wrongs to children.”
The result of this development was that in 1880 Frederick A. Agnew visited America and after an examination of the work being done in New York and the methods employed, returned to Liverpool, his home, and there in conjunction with Samuel Smith, M. P., founded the Liverpool Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, in 1883—the first society in Europe to prevent wrongs against children. Shortly after this the Earl of Shaftesbury organized a similar movement in London. Then, under the auspices of the late M. Jules Simon, whose work in behalf of children has not yet been fully appreciated, the movement was taken up in France, M. Paul Nourisson and M. Ernest Nusse aiding greatly in bringing about a comprehensive law in relation to the prevention of cruelty to children.
With Lieut.-Gen. D. von Pelet-Narbonne as chairman, the “Verein zum Schutz der Kinder vor Ausnutzung und Misshandlung” was formed in Berlin. In 1899 Fräulein Lydia von Wolfring aided in the organization of the “Wiener Kinder Schutz und Rettungs Verein” with von Krall, Privy Chancellor of Austria, as chairman. Count Borromeo inaugurated the movement at Milan in Italy where the padrone system flourished to such an extent as to indicate that the old Roman theory of the patria potestas was still alive, at least with the peasants. Through the other countries of Europe the interest in the new movement ran and the work was taken up; then into India, China, and South America, until today there is no quarter of the globe where there is not a society, organized for the purpose of assisting the law in preventing crimes against the helpless child.
Nothing indicates better the seeming accidental and casual beginnings of large movements than the formation of this first society in America. Like Vincent of Paul’s recognition of the horrible crimes that were being perpetrated in Paris only when he came face to face with an ill-treated infant, so it was only when it was discovered that, with all the law, there was no legal way of protecting an American child, that the child-protection movement, with its many subsequent laws in behalf of children, sprang up.
A mission worker named Mrs. Etta A. Wheeler had found in what was then the slums of New York that a child, famous after as Mary Ellen, was being cruelly beaten and ill-treated by a man and woman who had taken it when it was less than two years of age from a charitable institution. Some idea of the condition among the slums of a large city of this time may be gained from the statement of a contemporary newspaper that “at least 10,000 young boys roamed the streets of New York by day and took shelter by night in any place that seemed to afford a safe retreat, while their older and more vicious confederates planned how they should succeed in pilfering and plundering the public. The crumbling and rotten wooden docks of the metropolis had been for years haunted by these young vagabonds, and as they were at that time inefficiently policed, they were excellent localities for the incubators of petty thievery.”
Unless these youngsters actually committed a crime, or unless someone collected evidence that they were leading an immoral life, they were free to do what they willed.
Mrs. Wheeler was unable to gather the evidence necessary to remove the child in which she had become interested, and as the stories of the cruelties continued, she went to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, at the head of which was Henry Bergh, whose work in this direction was as notable in this country as was Richard Martin’s in England.
After consultation with the counsel of the Society, Elbridge T. Gerry, it was decided that “the child being an animal” the Society would act. Mr. Gerry after a careful examination of the evidence, sued out a writ de homine replegiando, the child was taken to court, complaints were made against the so-called guardians, and the woman who had cruelly beaten the child was afterwards sent to the penitentiary for one year.
And so, for the first time by legal machinery, punishment was meted out for cruelty to children.
When it became known that the Animal Society, as it was called, would interest itself in children who were being ill-treated, the complaints became numerous. It was decided that a separate society should be incorporated as a hand attached to the arm of the law.
Of the various movements that grew out of the protection movement, none was more interesting or attracted more controversy than the endeavours to protect children of the stage. We have seen in the account of the elder Seneca and in the treatment by the mountebanks of children in Paris in the seventeenth century, how easily the unprotected child lent itself to the calling of the vagabond entertainer. While no such barbarities were practised in modern times, it was difficult for many people to realize that the child of five, undergoing training as an acrobat for long hours, was not being brought up in accordance with the modern theory of the obligations of the State toward the helpless.
The importation of children that had been sold by their parents in Italy was also a matter that the Society took up, and in 1879, the white slave question, even now a live question, arose in an endeavour to stop the padroni from bringing into America the minors they had gathered abroad.
Probably the most important question that has come before the Society in recent years has been the proper treatment of those children who, for one reason or another, are brought into contact with the police. One of the first things that the New York Society did was to insist that the children who had to be taken to court should not be mixed with the really criminal. In 1892 an amendment to the Penal Code made the separation imperative, and out of this movement has grown the children’s court movement and the proper study of the so-called juvenile criminal.
Another important branch of the child-protection movement that had its beginning in New York City, was placing laws on the statute book, and then enforcing them, against the sale of injurious liquors to children. Laws tending to protect the morality of children followed these, and in fact almost from the first year of its birth, every year has seen the Protection Society enlarging its field of action until today it hardly seems possible that it was only a few hundred years ago that the very life of a child itself was considered of no importance.
The general law laid down by Spencer, in virtue of which everything passes “from the homogeneous to the heterogeneous, from the indefinite to the definite, from the simple to the complex,” is evident in the history of the progress of the child as a factor in society.
When in neolithic times there was no moral instinct in man, the child’s only hope of life was the parental or rather the maternal instinct, of beings not yet risen to the plain of reasoning animals. In a higher stage of civilization one finds, where the matriarchal régime exists, children have a value, the value of chattels and live stock, though the maternal uncle has more rights over them than their own father.460 The patria potestas of the Romans was not so strange or unusual as it seemed to Gibbon, for the power of life and death (jus vitæ ac necis) is found among the Apaches, the Botocodos, the Bedouins, and the Samoyedes and is a stage in the development and evolution of the family idea.
In the religious and philosophical stage the child takes on an importance of its own; it is humanely treated because it is now recognized as a human being, or it is protected because it is said to have, young and apparently unimportant as it seems to be, a soul of its own. From there on to the time when the child, as the father of the man, is a charge upon the State,—or on all men,—until it is able to take care of and protect itself, the murder of a child is theoretically as great a crime as the murder of an adult. In fact, the conditions of the past hold long after each recognized step of progress, the most primitive habits obtruding in the very midst of the most advanced knowledge and the most complete enlightenment.
It is for this that the story of the past is valuable. That we may know and understand and value rightly what is past, past for all time so far as intelligent and self-governing humanity is able to will—that is one of the surest steps to knowledge and truth.
APPENDIX A
NAPOLEONIC DECREE OF 1811.
Imperial Decree Concerning Foundlings, Abandoned
Children, and Poor Orphans
of January 19, 1811.
1ST TITLE.
Article I. The children whose education is entrusted to public charity are:
1st. Foundlings.
2d. Abandoned children.
3d. Poor orphans.
2D TITLE.
2. Foundlings are those born of unknown parents, who have been found exposed in any place, or those taken to the hospitals intended to receive them.
3. In each hospital intended to receive foundlings there shall be a place where they may be left.
4. There will be at most in each district (arrondissement) an institution where the foundlings may be received. Registers shall state day by day, their arrival, their sex, their apparent age, and shall describe the natural marks and the swaddling clothes which may serve for their identification.
3D TITLE.
Of Abandoned Children and Poor Orphans.
5. Abandoned children are those born of known parents and at first raised by them, or by other persons for them, and are abandoned by them, the whereabouts of the parents being unknown or there being no means of discovering them.
6. Orphans are those who, not having either father or mother, have no means of subsistence.
4TH TITLE.
Of the Education of Foundlings, Abandoned Children, and Orphans.
7. Newly born foundlings will be placed with a wet nurse as soon as possible; up to that they will be nourished by the bottle or even by means of wet nurses resident in the establishment. If they are weaned or susceptible of being weaned, they will either be put to nurse or weaned.
8. These children will receive a layette. They will remain to the age of six years.
9. At six years, all the children will be, or as many as can, put to board with farmers. The price of the board will increase each year up to the age of twelve, at which period the infant males in a state to serve will be placed at the disposition of the Minister of the Marine.
10. The infants who cannot be put to board, the crippled and the infirm, will be raised in the hospitals. They will be occupied in the workshops at those employments that are not below their age.
5TH TITLE.
On the Expenses of Foundlings, Abandoned Children, and Orphans.
11. Hospitals designated to receive foundlings are directed to furnish the layettes and all the inside expenses pertaining to the nourishment and education of the children.
12. We herewith set aside the sum of 4,000,000 francs annually to contribute to the monthly payment of wet nurses and the boarding of the foundlings and abandoned children.
If it should turn out after the division of this sum that it is inadequate, the difference will be provided by the hospitals from their revenues or by drawing on the funds of the community.
13. The monthly payments of the nurses and their board shall not be made except on the certificate of the mayors of the communities where the children are. The mayors must attest each month that they have seen the children.
14. The administrative commissioners of the hospitals will visit at least twice in the year each infant, either a special commission, or by physicians or surgeons, vaccinators or others.
6TH TITLE.
Of the Guardianship and of Foundling Children and Abandoned Children.
15. Foundling and abandoned children are under the guardianship of the hospital, in conformance with existing regulations. A member of this commission is especially charged with this guardianship.
16. The aforesaid children, brought up at the cost of the State, are entirely at its disposition, and when the Minister of Marine so decides, the guardianship of the Commission ceases.
17. When the infants have reached the age of twelve years, those whom the State has made no disposition of will, as soon as it is possible to do so, be apprenticed out, the boys with the workmen, the girls with housewives, seamstresses, and other workwomen in the factories or manufacturing establishments.
18. The contracts of apprenticeship shall not stipulate in favour of either the master or the apprentice, but they will guarantee the master the free services of the apprentice up to an age which shall not exceed the twenty-fifth year, and the apprentice food, shelter and clothing.
19. At the call of the army, or a conscription, the obligations of the apprentice will cease.
20. Those of the infants who cannot be put out as apprentices, the crippled and the infirm, who cannot find places outside of the hospitals will remain there as a charge to each hospital.
Workshops will be established in order to provide them with employment.
7TH TITLE.
On the Recognition and Announcement (Reclamation) of Foundlings and Abandoned Children.
21. No charge is made in the rules relative to the recognition and advertising of foundling and abandoned children, but before exercising any right, the parents must, if they have the means, reimburse the authorities for all expenses made either by the State or by the hospitals, and in no case, can an infant of which the State has made disposition, be released until those obligations are met.
8TH TITLE.
General “Dispositions”.
22. The Minister of the Interior will propose to us before January 1, 1812, the rules of administration, which will be discussed in our Council of State. These rules will determine, for each department, the number of hospitals where foundlings will be received and all that relates to their administration concerning principally the disposition of the infants now in charge and the payment for nurses and boarding.
23. Individuals who are convicted of having exposed children and those who make it a practice of transporting them to hospitals will be punished in accordance with the law.
24. Our Minister of Marine will present to us a plan dealing with: 1st. An organization relative to those clauses in which his powers are defined in this decree. 2d. For the regulation of the employment without delay of those who, on the 1st of January, will become twelve years of age.
25. Our Minister of the Interior is directed to see to the execution of the present decree and will have it inserted in the bulletin of laws.
APPENDIX B
CERTIFICATE OF INCORPORATION
OF
THE NEW YORK SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION
OF CRUELTY TO CHILDREN.
The undersigned persons all being of full age and a majority of whom are citizens of the United States of America and citizens of and residents within the State of New York, and who desire to associate themselves together for the purpose of preventing cruelty to children, have this day associated themselves together pursuant to Chapter One Hundred and Thirty of the Laws of eighteen hundred and seventy-five and hereby adopt the following:
ARTICLES OF ASSOCIATION.
Article First: This society shall be known in law by the name and title of “The New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children.”
Article Second: The particular business and objects of this Society are, the prevention of cruelty to children and the enforcement by all lawful means of the laws relating to or in any wise affecting children.
Article Third: The number of directors to manage this Society shall be fifteen.
Article Fourth: The names of such directors for the first year of the existence of this society are:
| Benjamin H. Field | Charles Haight |
| Henry Bergh | Adrian Iselin, Jr. |
| John Howard Wright | B. B. Sherman |
| Thomas C. Acton | Richard R. Haines |
| Ferdinand De Luca | James Stokes |
| Sinclair Tousey | William H. Webb |
| William M. Vermilye | Frederic DePeyster |
| Harmon Hendricks | |
In Witness Whereof we have hereunto severally subscribed our names this Twenty-fourth day of April in the year Eighteen hundred and seventy-five.
| John D. Wright | Thos. C. Acton |
| Henry Bergh | Chas. Haight |
| Elbridge T. Gerry | Adrian Iselin, Jr. |
| Benj. H. Field | Benj. B. Sherman |
| Wm. L. Jenkins | Richd. R. Haines |
| John Howard Wright | James Stokes |
| Ferd. De Luca | W. H. Webb |
| Sinclair Tousey | Frederic DePeyster |
| W. M. Vermilye | Harmon Hendricks |
In the presence of
Ambrose Monell.
| State of New York | }ss |
| City and County of New York |
On this Twenty-fourth day of April, 1875, personally appeared before me John D. Wright, Henry Bergh, Elbridge T. Gerry, Benjamin H. Field, William L. Jenkins, John Howard Wright, Ferdinand De Luca, Sinclair Tousey, William M. Vermilye, Thomas C. Acton, Charles Haight, Adrian Iselin, Jr., Benjamin B. Sherman, Richard R. Haines, James Stokes, William H. Webb, Frederic DePeyster, and Harmon Hendricks, known to me to be the persons above named, and each severally acknowledged the foregoing to be his signature to the before mentioned Certificate and Articles of Incorporation.
(Seal)
Ambrose Monell,
Notary Public,
County of New York.
(Endorsed)
I hereby approve of the within organization and its purposes and consent to and authorize the filing of this Certificate and Articles of Incorporation.
Dated, New York, April 26, 1875.
Geo. C. Barrett,
Justice Supreme Court.
(Endorsed)
Certificate of Incorporation
of
The New York Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children.
Under Chapter 130, Laws of 1875.
Filed, April 27, 1875.
George Franklin,
Dep. Secy. of State.
APPENDIX C
American Consulate,
Aleppo, Syria, December 15, 1913.
Subject: TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.
(Consul, Jesse B. Jackson, Aleppo, Syria.)
The Honourable,
The Secretary of State,
Washington.
Sir:
I have the honour to report as follows concerning the treatment of children by the various races and sects in Aleppo Consular District, viz.:
In many ways the treatment of children by the various races and sects inhabiting Northern Syria differs vastly from that practised in other countries. Strangely similar in one particular to the custom of the American Indian, immediately after birth the child is wrapped in cloths until it resembles the form of a mummy of ancient Egyptian times, in which state it is kept and carried about by nurses and small children until it is considered old enough to learn to walk, when it is given the freedom of its limbs. Very young babies must suffer considerably by this treatment, evidenced by their constant restlessness and crying, no doubt preventing the baby from attaining to its natural strength and activity until after it has been free for some months. During cold weather a ball of a certain kind of clay about the capacity of a quart is heated and kept wrapped at the feet of the infant to prevent it catching cold. Among certain of the lower classes the illness of a girl baby does not cause the anxiety that it does in the case of a boy, consequently causing a much higher rate of mortality among the female than the male children.
Among the Arabs, as soon as the children of the tribesmen are six or seven years old they are put to herding sheep and goats, which vocation they generally follow during their lives, never going to school or having any kind of instruction. The sons of the sheiks (chiefs) of the tribes are either sent to school in the cities, or a private tutor, usually a “hodja” (Mohammedan teacher or priest), is engaged, while the girls are given no education whatever.
The position of a girl varies greatly as between the different races and sects of the country. For instance, among the Arab and Kurdish tribes, and the Fellaheen (non-Christian farmers), a girl is a source of revenue to the father who, when she is of marriageable age, trades or sells her to her prospective husband, obtaining live stock or money to the equivalent of eight to twenty “chees,” or $176 to $440 (a “chees” equals $22.00), the selling price depending upon the beauty of the girl and the prominence of her family from the standpoint of wealth and influence. Among these races the really fat girl commands the highest admiration. The heavier she is the more she is desired and the better price she brings.
Formerly the Christian and Hebrew families gave their girls little schooling, but instead taught them to do embroidery and crochet work. Among even relatively poor families there exists a certain pride that causes housework to be regarded as degrading, and only those will become servants who are forced to do so by straitened circumstances. In late years there is a tendency to give the girls some education, which the Christians and Jews receive at the mission establishments of the Americans, French, English, Italians, Germans, Swiss, etc., while a very limited number of Mohammedan girls attend local public schools conducted exclusively for them.
Contrary to the custom prevailing among the Arabs, Kurds, and Fellaheen, the Christians and Jews greatly prefer to have boy babies, and it is considered a great misfortune if most or all of the children of a family are girls. The boys are sent to the respective community and foreign mission schools, and some of the more enlightened and progressive families afterwards send their boys to the colleges at Beyrouth, Syria, to complete their education.
It is the main object of every such family to marry off the girls as soon as possible, for it is considered a great shame to the girl if she is left unmarried until after twenty or twenty-two years of age. Marriage is the most important event, and the only one in which she is in any way prominent in all her life. Her great object in life is to become a wife and be the mother of a boy, the latter event always raising her in the estimation of her acquaintances and friends, and giving her considerable importance for the time being, whereas it is the contrary if the baby is a girl. In many families the young wife is not permitted to speak aloud in the presence of strangers or of the father-in-law until a boy is born to her.
Parents generally engage their children at very early ages, in which little attention is paid to the wishes or dislikes of the prospective bride and groom. In fact, unborn children are sometimes provisionally engaged to each other by their parents, either for sentimental or financial reasons. Perhaps three-fourths of the girls of the country are married before they reach the age of sixteen, and many are married between twelve and fourteen.
The consideration paid on the occasion of the marriage of non-Mohammedan, or Christian and Jewish girls, goes the other way from that paid at the marriage of an Arab girl, it being the desire of the groom to have as large a dowry as possible for his wife, and which goes to help make up the family exchequer. It consequently results that if a family that is not well to do has many girls it is very difficult to marry them well.
A certain brutality of parents towards their children exists among the lower classes, a condition that is probably due more to inferior intelligence caused by lack of education than to anything else. As but a very small minority of the population of this part of the country, say twenty per cent., and a much smaller proportion of the tribes of the interior read and write, this attitude is readily understood.
The prevalence of crippled begging children in the cities leads to the supposition that they are not all deformed by accident or disease, but that in many instances they have been purposely so rendered in order to more profitably ply their trade by creating sympathy in the minds of the persons addressed in their appeals for succour. During the summer months a considerable number of such pitiable creatures between four and eight years old may be seen in the streets of Aleppo, some with deformed legs, some with spinal afflictions, and others blind or otherwise maimed, many unable to walk and hutching from place to place, collecting coppers from those whom their condition touches. As the hour grows late in the night these unfortunates gradually disappear one by one, and if a person is interested in their destination they may be seen to be gathered up in some obscure corner by an apparent relative or guardian, lifted to the shoulder and carried away into the maze of various Oriental residential quarters, where their scanty collection is spent in support of a family, or for the poisonous rakee, a strong alcoholic drink much relished by the lower element. It was suspected that a sort of society existed whereby such children were produced and let out to certain parties to be exploited for their personal benefit, but no serious investigation has ever been made, and the nefarious traffic continues.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
(Signed) Jesse B. Jackson,
American Consul.
American Consulate,
Aleppo, Syria, December 15, 1913.
Subject: REPORT: TREATMENT OF CHILDREN.
(Consul, Jesse B. Jackson, Aleppo, Syria.)
The Honourable,
The Secretary of State,
Washington.
Sir:
I have the honour to transmit herewith a report in triplicate,461 of today’s date, subject, “Treatment of Children,” which is in reply to an inquiry addressed to this Consulate by Mr. George Henry Payne, New York City, to whom the triplicate copy is hereby requested to be forwarded.
Copies thereof are being sent to the Embassy and Consulate-General, respectively, Constantinople.
I have the honour to be, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
Jesse B. Jackson,
American Consul.
Enclosure:
Copy of the triplicate report, as above indicated.
American Consular Service,
Sierra Leone, Africa, April 7, 1914.
George Henry Payne, Esq.,
New York.
Sir:
Yours dated November 1, 1913, has been in my hands some time. The information you request is rather broad, and would require much investigation to be of any real service to you. Certainly I have some information, in a general way, but to write it would take much more space than a letter could contain. But in short, the attitude of the natives of Sierra Leon at present toward children is all of that of a primitive people emerging into European civilization. Children are regarded very much as a financial asset, especially by the mothers, and are kept much under the influence and control of the mothers so long as they live. Those emerging out of tribal customs into European customs have pretty much the same relations as exist between parents and children in Europe or America. However, there is little love between the child and father, generally speaking, but much between mother and child. Boys usually remain in the care of the mothers until they reach the age of puberty, at which time they leave the association of their mothers and sisters and have that of their older brothers and fathers, almost exclusively. Upon leaving their mothers’ care and training they are usually, among those who cling to tribal customs, turned over to the “medicine man,” or doctor, who claims to know much. They are taken into the “Poro Society” where they are circumcised, and taught the duties of a man, the use of certain native medicines, etc. The girls remain in the care of the mothers, but at the age of puberty, or a little while before, are placed into the care of one or more old women who conduct a female school, the “bundoo” society, where the girls have an operation performed upon them similar to circumcision, and are taught the duties of a mother and wife, how to care for themselves, and the use of certain native medicines. The rule is that the girls are not eligible for marriage until they have been through the “bundoo,” and boys or young men not until they have been circumcised; but in addition boys must earn their wives by the payment of dowries—presents to the girls’ mothers and fathers. Children are usually required to perform such work or labor as they are physically able to perform, strict obedience to their parents and great respect for their seniors, even for older brothers and sisters, though they be not grown. Children are expected to care for and to provide for their parents in their old age. Etc.
I regret that I am unable to give you fuller information.
Very sincerely,
W. J. Yerby,
American Consul at Sierra Leone.
Embassy of the United States of America,
Tokyo, March 26, 1914.
George Henry Payne, Esquire,
New York City.
Dear Sir:
In reply to your inquiry regarding the attitude of the people of Japan toward children and the practice of infanticide, I have the following, which is the result of interviews with representative Japanese and of my own observations.
As a rule, Japanese are very kind to children and very fond of them; usually they are allowed their own way a good deal when small and spoiled so that very severe discipline is administered later in an effort to correct this. Among the lower classes children are very often looked upon as a sort of insurance or investment against old age; also the system of ancestor worship makes it a highly desirable thing to have children, particularly sons. For these reasons children are looked upon with great favour and large families are the rule.
Infanticide is now a crime and is so strictly and severely punished that it cannot be said to be common, although it does exist to some extent. However, up to about fifty years ago this was not the case; it was not a crime and was very common. The father of a family had supreme power over the family, even including the power of life and death, and was free to do with his children almost as he chose. In regions where the people were poor, infanticide was the regularly recognized means of preventing large families. The following incident illustrates this very well: In a certain section in northern Japan was a district where so little could be produced that the people were very poor and no family had more than one or two children, infanticide being regularly practised. The feudal lord of the district, being a wise man, decided to remedy this condition, which he proceeded to do by a system of irrigation which made the district quite fertile; immediately the size of the families rose to eight and ten and infanticide disappeared.
With regret for my long delay in answering, which has been due to an effort to find some books on this subject, and trusting that this may be of some slight use to you,
I am,
Yours very truly,
J. K. Caldwell,
Assistant Japanese Secretary.
American Consulate-General,
Santo Domingo, D. R., December 16, 1913.
Mr. George Henry Payne,
New York, N. Y.
Sir:
In reply to yours of November 1, 1913, I have not been able to find any material of interest in regard to the attitude of the natives before the landing of Columbus. The ruthless attitude of the Spaniards toward the natives is well known, and apparently neither women nor children were spared. The treatment of the natives resulted in their rapid decrease in number, and as early as 1510 the traffic in African slaves was begun and long continued.
Statistics as to the present condition of the child are few. During a typical quarterly period there were registered 8288 births (4269 males and 4019 females) but this probably represents only a portion of the actual births; of this number 3290 were legitimate and 4998 illegitimate. This does not, however, represent the extreme state of immorality that it might indicate, as mating lasting through years and clung to with fidelity and accompanied by a tender care for the offspring is frequently not preceded by a marriage ceremony, which is regarded as more or less of a useless expense. The population of the Republic is not known but is estimated as approximating 600,000.
As among the Spanish races in general, great affection is shown to children. Fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters lavish caresses upon them continually and in public.
There being few factories in the Dominican Republic, child labour, as we know it, does not exist. Children early begin to earn their living, but the work is mostly in the open air or open shops and labour conditions are far from strenuous. The clothing worn by children is scant, and youngsters of the lower classes up to the age of five or six years usually run nude, decorated only by a necklace or a pair of earrings.
School facilities, though provided by the State, are inadequate. The reported annual attendance at all schools in the country is only 20,000.
Health conditions in the island are good. The total deaths registered in one quarter (again short of the real figures) is 1770, of which 318 deaths were of children less than a year old, and 336 of children between one and five years. The number of persons reported guilty of crimes or disorders in one quarter totaled 1910, of which 301 were between fourteen and twenty-one years of age.
I am, Sir,
Very respectfully yours,
Charles H. Allrecht,
Vice and Deputy Consul-General.
American Consular Service,
Port Elizabeth, Union of South Africa, Mar. 7, 1914.
Mr. George Henry Payne,
New York, N. Y., U. S. A.
Sir:
Your letter requesting information for your book on the history of the attitude of states and tribes toward children received. Such information as has been obtained would indicate that the South African natives in this section are universally kind to children.
The only “natives” in this district, using the words in a strict sense, are the “Bantus” otherwise the Kaffirs. These people are specially fond of children and use them well.
If a child is left an orphan, any relative, no matter how distant, is willing to adopt the child. Indeed the services of the magistrate are frequently required in deciding disputes between claimants.
Love of, and kindness to, children are undoubted characteristics of the Kaffir.
South Africa has a considerable population of mixed races, but, so far as known, the colored people are kind to their children.
Trusting this may meet requirements.
I am, Sir,
Very respectfully yours,
E. A. Wakefield,
American Consul.