CHAPTER V
MESSENGERS, ERRAND AND DELIVERY CHILDREN

Accustomed to seeing messenger boys engaged during the day in the unobjectionable task of delivering telegrams to residences and business offices, one is likely to regard this service as an occupation quite suitable for children and to give it no further thought. However, the character of the work done by the messenger boy changes radically after nine or ten o'clock at night. At that hour most legitimate business has ceased, and the evil phases of city life begin to manifest themselves. From that time on until nearly dawn the messenger's work is largely in connection with the vicious features of city life. The ignorance of the general public as to the evil influences surrounding the night messenger service is strikingly illustrated by what one Indiana boy told an investigator; he declared that if his father knew what kind of work he was doing, a strap would be laid across his back and he would be compelled to abandon it. But the father did not know; he thought his boy was simply delivering telegrams.

The delivery of telegrams forms but a small part of the boy's work at night, because few messages are dispatched after business hours. Instead, calls are sent to the office for messengers to go on errands. The boys wait upon the characters of the underworld and perform a surprising variety of simple tasks; they carry notes to and from the inmates of houses of prostitution and their patrons, take lunches, chop suey and chile con carne to bawdyhouse women, procure liquor after the closing hour, purchase opium, cocaine and other drugs, go to drug stores for prostitutes to get medicines and articles used in their trade, and perform other tasks that oblige them to cultivate their acquaintance with the worst side of human nature. One instance was found in which the boy was required to clean up the room of a prostitute and to make her bed. The uniform or cap of the messenger boy is a badge of secrecy and enables him to get liquor at illegal hours or to procure opium and other drugs where plain citizens would be refused; hence these boys are thrown into associations of the lowest kind, night after night, and come to regard these evil conditions as normal phases of life. Usually the brightest boys on the night force become the favorites of the prostitutes; the women take a fancy to particular boys because of their personal attractiveness and show them many favors, so that the most promising boys in this work are the ones most liable to suffer complete moral degradation.

Messenger service not only gives boys the opportunity to learn what life is at night in "tenderloin" districts, but the character of the work actually forces them into contact with the vilest conditions and subjects them to the fearful influences always exerted by such associations. Some believe that this evil could be prevented by forbidding the office to allow messenger boys to go on such errands, but this is not practicable for two reasons: first, because an essential feature of the messenger service is secrecy—the office does not inquire into the nature of the errand to be performed, and even if it did so, a false statement could easily be made by the patron over the telephone; and second, it would be necessary to send a detective along with the boy on each trip to see that he observed the rules. Boys are eager to run errands for prostitutes for various reasons, one being the extra income assured, as these women give tips with liberal hand.

Like other street occupations, the messenger service is a blind alley; it leads nowhere. A very few boys are promoted to the position of check boy in the telegraph office, and fewer still have an opportunity to learn telegraphy. Some of the boys become cab drivers because they have familiarized themselves with the city streets; others become saloon keepers because they have become well acquainted with this method of making a livelihood; some are attracted by the life of "ease" which opens before them and enter into agreement with prostitutes, upon whose earnings they subsist; others have the courage to get away from these influences and secure work as office boys or in some other line entirely different from the messenger service.

A considerable number of the inmates of state reform schools were formerly messenger boys, indicating that this service is one of the roads to delinquency. As the immoral influences surrounding this work are especially active among youths, the age limit for such employment at night should be made high enough to prevent their being so exposed. New York State was first to declare that if this work is to be done at night it must be done by men, and has fixed the age limit at twenty-one years. The late Judge Stubbs, of the Indianapolis Juvenile Court, speaking before the Conference of Juvenile Court Officers held in that city in November, 1910, said that messenger boys, and newsboys who sell papers in the downtown streets, were the boys most frequently charged with delinquency before his court, and declared that twenty-one years was low enough as an age limit for night messenger service.

Other temptations assail the messenger boy in his work, and are frequently yielded to. The old practice of raising the amount of charges on the envelope of a telegram is notorious and is still an ever present problem to the companies. When a boy has been detected in this petty crime and is questioned about it, he too often adds to the one misdeed the other equally grievous one of lying, whereupon his dismissal usually follows.

Under the direction of the writer an investigation of the night messenger service was made in 1910 in Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana, the following cases being typical of the conditions found in all cities. In one of the larger towns of Indiana, a fourteen-year-old messenger boy was interviewed one night by an agent of the National Child Labor Committee who had called up the telegraph office by telephone requesting that a messenger be sent to him. Early in the course of conversation, of his own volition, the boy referred to houses of prostitution. Upon being asked what he knew about such places, he replied: "Too much—I am there half the night. You see they call for messengers to run errands for them. Sometimes I get them drinks, opium, medicines from drug stores or anything they want. No matter what they ask us to do—it's our business to go ahead and do it." The boy led the agent to a disreputable negro district and described his activities in this region. "No night passes without my making a dollar down here," said he. "The niggers are great smokers of opium, and I get it for them; they give me a little jar, and I have it filled up for them. It costs them $1.50, and I usually get the change from $2." The agent feigned doubt so as to elicit more information, whereupon the boy offered to get some opium if he were given a tip. The agent gave the boy one dollar and told him he might keep the change; in ten minutes he returned with a card of opium which was subsequently analyzed in a laboratory and found to be the kind ordinarily prepared for smoking purposes. This experience was repeated again and again by agents of the National Child Labor Committee in different cities and proved beyond the shadow of a doubt that these young boys are forced into familiarity with the most degrading conditions.

Another fourteen-year-old messenger boy in the same town told the agent that there were but few business calls at night, and that nearly all of their work was in connection with houses of prostitution. This boy spoke of the money he received in tips from inmates and patrons of these houses, of his receiving liquor and cigarettes from them, and remarked, "I do not have to do this work, but I like it; this job is too good to give up; I'm learning a lot of things." This little fellow described some extremely revolting scenes of which he had been witness in these houses, and upon being asked whether his manager was aware of the kind of places he was called to, he replied, "Sure he does, for he gets the message over the telephone, then he calls one of the boys and sends him to the house."

Another messenger in the same city, who was seventeen years old and had been in this service for four years, working daily until half past two in the morning, said, in talking about the use of drugs by prostitutes, "When they are so full of dope that they don't know what to do, they call up for a messenger, and sometimes I have had them send me out to a drug store for paris green; they want to kill themselves, they are crazy with opium; of course I take their money and never show up again." This boy also bought a small package of opium for the agent. He declared that he knew every house of prostitution in the city and was well acquainted with their proprietresses. To prove this, he wrote out a list of fourteen such places, putting down the streets and numbers at once from memory. These were subsequently referred to persons familiar with the city and verified.

It is very distressing to read the testimony of a fourteen-year-old messenger boy of another city who had been thrown by his work so much in contact with evil conditions that he had come to regard these as normal. Although only fourteen years of age, he had lost all faith in womankind. In walking through the segregated district with the agent, this boy called out in advance the number of each house of prostitution, thus showing his familiarity with the whole region. In his childish, schoolboy hand, he wrote on a slip of paper a list of the bawdyhouses, putting down very promptly from memory the names of the proprietresses, the names of the streets and numbers of the houses.

Another fourteen-year-old messenger boy in this city related many disgusting details of his experiences in the service at night—of prostitutes smoking, cursing and sprawling on the floor dead drunk. He stated that he had never smoked before he became a messenger, but that when he saw the women using tobacco in all the houses, he thought there could be no harm in it. "If ladies do it, why shouldn't I? So I began, and now I smoke a pack of cigarettes a day. I get twenty for a nickel and smoke all night. If I didn't, I suppose I'd fall asleep. I once lit a cigarette from an opium pipe in one of the houses—but no more opium for me." When asked whether his manager knew that he was sent to these houses, he replied: "Sure he does, he's the one that sends us; if we don't go, we get fired. He knows all the women, too, because he jokes with them over the telephone when they call up for a boy."

A fifteen-year-old night messenger, when asked what he did with the money he received as tips, replied: "Last week I lost a dollar in a crap game, and I go to moving-picture shows during the day and buy different things; I suppose if my people knew the kind of work I was doing, I would get a thick leather strap over my back. They have an idea that the messenger business is just taking telegrams to reputable people. There are very few business calls at night at our office; almost all of them come from houses of prostitution. This is going to be a very busy week with us because a convention starts to-morrow, and the delegates will want us to take them to the houses."

Another Hoosier messenger was only sixteen years of age, although he had been in the service of one company for four years and had previously been discharged from another company for having defrauded a patron. This lad was a typical boy of the street; his features were drawn, black lines were below his eyes, and his walk could be described best as a drag. "I know every single house of prostitution in this city," said he. "I have been in every one. I get drinks in most of them, and many a time I was drunk for a whole day in some woman's room." This boy, having been in the service several years, spoke of the ravages dissipation had wrought on the women of the underworld. He had known many of them when they were just starting in their life of shame, and remarked their rapid decline. Voluntarily he spoke of the venereal diseases from which he had suffered. He said that he had been discharged from his first job as a messenger for having defrauded patrons. To illustrate how the scheme worked, he said: "A woman wanted me to carry a package to some place and asked me what it would cost; I said one dollar, and she said she wouldn't pay it because it was too much. I told her to speak to the manager and gave her the telephone number where my pal was waiting for the call. She asked him whether he was the manager, and he said, 'Yes'; then she asked how much the charge was, and he answered one dollar. Then I went on the errand, and we split the difference. Somehow the manager got wise, and out we went." This boy's conversation was a continuous flow of vulgarity. When the agent mentioned gambling, the boy drew from his pocket two sets of dice and said they were "ready at any time to do business. When the first of the month comes around, I am generally short or ahead $5. I lost $8 once. When I have no ready cash, I play on account of my salary."

An eighteen-year-old messenger said: "I have been in this business here for five years, and a night never passes that I don't go to a house of prostitution; that's our main business at night. They could not afford to have a messenger service in this town at night if it were not for the red light district. We have to do all their work, because they trust us." This boy spoke of the venereal diseases other boys in the service had, and admitted that he had contracted them twice himself.

Another eighteen-year-old messenger boy, who has been in the service four years and is afflicted with an exceptionally bad venereal infection, said among other things, "There are lots of messengers who are kept by women. The boys work only for appearances. I knew two messengers who worked with me who were kept by two prostitutes for a year, then they gave up the job at the same time and took the prostitutes to Chicago, where the women worked for them. One of these boys is only about nineteen years old now. You don't learn anything in the messenger business except to knock down (overcharge a patron) and to go around with prostitutes and gamblers. It kills a fellow. I know, because I went down the line, and I'm coming out the wrong end." When asked why he didn't quit the job, he replied: "You don't suppose I want to work for $3 or $4 a week? I'm used to making pretty good money and having a good time." He said that he made from $40 to $75 a month according to the tips he received, and spent it as fast as he got it. Most of it went in gambling.

A fourteen-year-old messenger boy in another city who works from 6 P.M. to 7 A.M., in speaking of the use of whisky in houses of prostitution, said: "We get it for them; the saloons know the messengers, and we stand in with them; the more a house sends for whisky the better they stand in with the saloon keeper. If the proprietress gets locked up, she will always be bailed out by the saloon keeper, but if she don't buy enough stuff from him, he will refuse to do it. When a proprietress is put in jail, the cops ring up for a messenger from the station house, and they send me to the cell where the woman is, and she always gives me a note to take to the saloon keeper and he goes down and gets her out." This boy said his manager knew the kind of places he visited, but was not in the office all night. During the late hours of the night the telegraph operator and the clerk were left in charge, and the boy remarked that they had told him to try to get a woman into the office if he found one on the street, and related instances in which this had been done. He was paid a salary of $22 a month.

Another fourteen-year-old messenger in this town is paid $17 a month salary and makes $10 or $12 a month in tips.

A thirteen-year-old messenger in another city, after having related some of his experiences in the segregated district, said: "I tell you, it's mighty dirty work for a boy to be in, but I suppose a fellow has to learn these things somehow, and I may as well learn them in the messenger service as in any other way. I smoke perique so I can sleep in the daytime."

A fourteen-year-old messenger in the same city, employed from noon to midnight, had been in the service only one week when interviewed by the agent; among other things he said: "All the last week I have been doing nothing but go to the red light district. I didn't know what this messenger business was until I got into it, and I am going to quit just as soon as I see a little more of that kind of thing."

In a certain Indiana city there was found a "kid line" messenger service, so called because the proprietor was a mere boy who was formerly in the service of another messenger company. He had two day boys, but at night answered the calls himself. He was fourteen years old and told the agent that he had lived in the "red light" district more than at his home on account of the number of calls he had to answer there, but of course this was exaggeration intended to convey the fact that most of his business was with that region. When he entered into business for himself, he went to all the prostitutes in the "red light" district and told them that he was commencing on his own account and that he wanted them to be his customers. "I get a good deal of their business. I get it because I know how to treat them. I can get them beer on Sunday and can sneak it into their houses. I know all the women and can introduce you to any of them, and can get you any amount of beer or whisky that you want. When I was working for the—— messenger company there was another boy on the force who tried to take all the good calls; he divided his tips with the manager, so he was sent to all the houses where good tips were given. There was one prostitute who liked me pretty well and gave me ten or fifteen cents for myself every time I went to her house. I started to answer a call there one night, and the other boy ran after me. We got to the place at the same time and had a fight in the hall; the men and women in the place gathered around us and offered to give us two dollars each if we would scrap for them, so we started right in, and before I was through with him he had two black eyes and his face was bleeding, then he pulled out a knife, but they took it away from him, and the next day I was fired. There is a young girl in one of the houses who is a chambermaid and wants me to live with her, and maybe I will but I'm afraid my mother will get wise."

The fifteen-year-old messenger of another office showed the agent the list of about one hundred calls sent in the previous night, nearly every one of which came from the "red light" district.

After weighing such evidence we can readily comprehend the justice of the opinion rendered by Dr. Charles P. Neill in the following words: "The newsboys' service is demoralizing, but the messenger service is debauching.... And, saddest of all, this service appeals strongly to the children. The prurient curiosity of the developing boy would itself incline him to like these calls to houses of prostitution, but they quickly learn also that women who live in these sections are more generous with their earnings in the way of tips than are the people in the more respectable sections of the city.... It can be said that all the boys who go into the messenger service do not go to the bad, but it can be said with equal truth that it ruins children by the dozens, and that if any boy comes out of this service without having suffered moral shipwreck he can thank the mercy of God for it, and not the protecting arm of the community that stands idly by and makes no attempt to save him from temptation."[73]

In 1908 Congress passed a child labor law for the District of Columbia which provided, among other restrictions, that no messenger boy under sixteen years should be employed between 7 P.M. and 6 A.M.,—sixteen years, the beginning of the period of adolescence, when boys have the greatest need of protection from the vices running riot in cities!

The Chicago Vice Commission devotes several pages of its report to a recital of the experiences of messenger boys in connection with their work in the segregated districts. One of the telegraph companies maintains a branch office close to one of these districts, where eight boys from fifteen to eighteen years of age are employed as messengers. These boys are called upon to work at all hours of the day and night, their tasks being the same as those of the messengers in other cities. A number of specific instances of the wretched environment into which these boys are thrown, are given. One of them who works from midnight until 10 A.M. was sent by a prostitute to a drug store for a package of cocaine hydrochloride, for which he paid $5.78, receiving $1 from the prostitute as a tip for the service. Another messenger was sent out on a similar errand by another prostitute two weeks later and purchased for her a hypodermic needle for a syringe; he was charged $2 for this needle, the cost to the druggist being 19 cents. A few days later a boy was called by another prostitute who confided to him that she had discontinued the use of messenger boys for purchasing "dope" because she found that they talked too much and could not be trusted, adding that she now had a newsboy, who sold papers at a near-by corner, buy the cocaine for her. A woman who lives in an apartment house and is the owner and proprietor of houses of prostitution in the restricted district, is in the habit of sending in an order for cocaine to a druggist, who calls a messenger boy to deliver it to her residence. This messenger opened one of the packages and, suspecting that it was cocaine, sniffed a little of it himself. He confessed that he had done this quite often since, and it appeared that he had derived a good deal of pleasure from it. The same messenger is sent about three times monthly by a certain man to a Chinaman, from whom he buys a package of opium for $4. On returning from one of these trips he watched the man open the package, take a quantity of the stuff, roll it and heat it, but at this point the messenger was told to leave the room. Another messenger boy has been employed at this particular branch office for more than three years, although he is now only seventeen years old; his earnings average about $10 per week, including tips. He is of small stature, not mentally bright and at present is afflicted with syphilis of three months' duration. Another messenger is a boy of foreign parentage, only fifteen years of age, who said he had recently been called quite often to a certain house of prostitution where an inmate gave him a box with a note to a druggist; the contents cost $1.75, but upon returning to the woman he would declare that he had paid $2.50, thus obtaining 75 cents on false pretenses, and in addition a tip of half a dollar. On one of his trips for this prostitute he had opened the note and found that it was a requisition for cocaine; on returning he placed some of the contents upon his tongue, but did not like the sensation and never repeated it. He is in the habit of picking up discarded cigarettes and smoking them. In spite of his age, he knows the name of nearly every prostitute in this district and can recognize these women at sight; he stated that whenever he entered a house of prostitution they would nearly always kiss him, and at different times he had had sores on his lips.

Another boy who was attending high school was employed as a messenger in the downtown district during Christmas week of 1910. He was sent to deliver a message in a house of prostitution, and the girl who received it offered to cohabit with him free of charge as a Christmas present, stating that it was customary to do this for messenger boys on Christmas Day.[74]

A number of other messengers told of similar experiences, stating that they were often called to houses of prostitution to perform small personal services for the inmates. As to regulation of the service, a police order was issued in Chicago in April, 1910, to the effect that no messenger or delivery boy under eighteen years was to be allowed in the segregated districts at any time.

In arguing against the further restriction of the night messenger service, the telegraph companies and other interested organizations insist that the majority of these boys are working to support their widowed mothers or incapacitated fathers; a recent government report says, in referring to the table of families in which there are messengers and errand and office boys ten to fourteen years of age, classified by percentage of older breadwinners, for Boston, Chicago, New York and Washington, "These statistics point to the conclusion that the greater part of the families now furnishing children from ten to thirteen years of age and fourteen years for the occupation of messengers and errand and office boys are by no means either entirely or largely dependent upon the earnings of such children for the family support."[75] The restriction advocated does not contemplate the prohibition of this work to boys of fourteen years and upwards in the daytime; its object is to shield the youths from the vile associations necessarily connected with this work at night.

Night Service by Men—Not by Boys

Mr. Owen R. Lovejoy of the National Child Labor Committee, in speaking of the study of the night messenger service undertaken by this organization, says: "The evidence collected justified the committee in cooperating with its affiliated organizations to secure legislation, and, counting on the moral interest of the public to promote the effort, we made the question one for practical and immediate decision. Results apparently justify the policy chosen. A bill was unanimously passed by the legislature of New York State [in 1910], excluding any person under twenty-one years of age from this occupation between ten o'clock at night and five o'clock in the morning."

Massachusetts in 1911 forbade the employment of messengers under twenty-one years of age between the hours of 10 P.M. and 5 A.M., except by newspaper offices. Utah fixed the same age limit for this work in cities of first and second classes between 9 P.M. and 5 A.M. New Jersey did likewise as to cities of the first class, fixing the age limit at eighteen years for smaller places, the prohibited hours being from 10 P.M. to 5 A.M.

Wisconsin also passed a law in 1911, prohibiting the employment of any one under twenty-one years of age as a messenger between 8 P.M. and 6 A.M. in cities of the first, second and third classes. Ohio, in 1910, fixed the age limit for messenger service between 9 P.M. and 6 A.M. at eighteen years.

Michigan now prohibits the employment of messengers under eighteen years between 10 P.M. and 5 A.M., as do also New Hampshire, Oregon, Tennessee and California.

Other states having the advanced type of child labor law prohibit the employment of children under fourteen years in the messenger service during the day and under sixteen years at night. The states of Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Mississippi, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia and Wyoming do not yet provide any age limit for this work.

The evil effects of the messenger service have also been noted in Great Britain. A schoolmaster of Edinburgh says, "Insolence, coarse intonation, swearing, lying, pilfering and lewdness are the chief products of message going by boys."[76]

A London health officer has testified as follows: "There is a very large employment of boy labour now, boys employed as messengers and errand boys, which teaches them nothing useful for their future life; and when they have outgrown the age at which they can be employed in this way, the risk of drifting into the ranks of the unskilled labourer is a very large one."[77]

"The government post office telegraph messengers are not employed unless they have passed the seventh standard at school and each candidate has to provide a satisfactory certificate of health from his own medical attendant. A boy of fourteen must also be over four feet eight inches in height. The minimum starting wage in London is seven shillings a week, rising by a shilling a week annually to eleven shillings. On reaching the age of sixteen the boy has to pass a further examination in order to qualify for retention. The various private telegraph companies offer much the same terms, though in some cases they are able to get boys slightly cheaper, as the qualifying standard is not such a high one. It is only during the rare periods when the supply of boy labour is more plentiful than usual that the private telegraph companies will refuse a boy on account of his size. The varied nature of the work they are called upon to perform is an undoubted attraction in the eyes of many.... That it is bad for them morally is less open to doubt. Even when they are more actively employed the most that they can hope to learn is a very small amount of discipline. A more serious point is the future of the boys when they cease to be messengers."[78]

"It is well to point out that the commonest of these occupations, that of errand boy or messenger boy, is seldom a desirable one, quite apart from the fact that it generally leads nowhere. It lacks almost necessarily what the boy most needs—the compulsory training of the habit of disciplined effort."[79]

As Mrs. Florence Kelley says, "The test of the work, however, should be not whether boys can do it, but what it does to boys."[80]

CHAPTER VI
EFFECTS OF STREET WORK UPON CHILDREN

All the evil effects of street work upon children observed by students of the problem have been here divided into three groups, under the headings of physical, moral, and material deterioration. It must be understood that this is a summary of such effects and that while the influences of the street are unquestionably bad, any one child exposed to them is not likely to suffer to the full extent suggested below. However, deterioration in one form or another is invariably noted in children who have been engaged in street work for any length of time, and this is sufficient proof of the undesirability of such employment for our boys and girls.

These are the insidious influences permeating street work and rampant in all our cities. They are minimized and even denied by certain ignorant or interested parties who base their assertions upon the fact that prominent men of to-day were once newsboys or bootblacks, and therefore jump to the conclusion that their success is due to the training received in this way when young. The truth is more likely to be that such individuals have succeeded, not because of this early training, but in spite of it. Boys of exceptionally strong character will force themselves out of such an environment unscathed, but the great majority of children have not sufficient mental and moral stamina to withstand these influences. The minority will take care of itself under any circumstances,—it is with the weaker majority that we must deal. The problem is an urgent one, but generally ignored, for, as Myron E. Adams says, the public sees the street worker at his best and neglects him at his worst.

The charge that in street work a child has small chance of acquiring a suitable trade is one of the worst counts in the indictment. Street work leads to nothing else; the various occupations are so many industrial pitfalls, and the children who get into them must sooner or later struggle out and begin over again at some other line of work, if they would succeed.

"These children (street traders) furnish a very large proportion of recruits to the criminal population. Those who do not graduate into crime form a liking for the petty excitements of the street and a distaste for regular employment. They lack skill and perseverance, shun the monotony of a permanent job, and as they grow older either follow itinerant and questionable trades or become ill-paid and inefficient casual laborers. Therefore these young people are a source of waste to society rather than of profit."[81]

The large percentage of former newsboys among the inmates of boys' reformatories recently induced an active social worker to send an inquiry to the superintendents of such institutions and to juvenile court judges in different parts of the country relative to the effect of newspaper selling on schoolboys. The statements received in reply are set forth in a leaflet which was published in 1910.[82]

These officials are practically unanimous in condemning street trading by boys, declaring that newsboys are generally stupid and almost always morally defiled; that the pittance they earn is bought at great sacrifice; that the spending of their earnings without supervision is the worst thing that can befall them; that the life leads to gambling, dishonesty and spendthrift habits; that it is a dead-end occupation leading to nothing; that it abounds in evil temptations; that the boys are comparatively idle and see and hear the worst that is to be seen and heard on the street; that the work subjects boys to bad influences before they are strong enough to resist them; that delinquency results from their enforced association with all classes of boys; and concluding that every possible protection should be thrown about the young boy. Some of these officers gave due consideration to the advantages of street trading, and one made the naïve statement that newspaper selling was not a bad business for a boy who could withstand its temptations.

Although the law of New York State provides a modicum of regulation for street trading, nevertheless it has not been effective because of extremely indifferent enforcement. Like almost all other street-trading laws in the United States, it places the age limit at the ridiculous age of ten years. A movement was started recently in Buffalo to remedy the situation, and the following statement was published:—

"During the past year we have sought to discover, not by theorizing, but by uncovering the facts, what is the effect of street work on the boy. School records of 230 Buffalo newsboys were secured. Eighteen per cent were reported as truants; 23 per cent stood poor or very poor in attendance and deportment. Twenty-eight per cent stood poor or very poor in scholarship, while only 15 per cent of the other children in the same schools failed in their work. An investigation at the truant school showed that 46.6 per cent of the boys there had been engaged in the street trades. On the basis of these facts and studies made in connection with the schools, juvenile courts and reformatories elsewhere, we hope to secure legislation raising the age below which boys may not engage in the street trades to twelve years, and making it illegal for boys under fourteen to sell after 8 P.M. We are also striving to secure better enforcement of this law in Buffalo and other cities."[83]

This folder also states that circular letters were sent to all Buffalo school principals asking about the effect on scholarship of the early morning delivery of newspapers by their pupils, and also to physicians inquiring about the effect of such work on physical development. The hours for such newspaper delivery were from 4.30 A.M. to 7 A.M. Eight principals and six physicians denounced such work to every one who favored it. Referring to the occupational history of reformatory inmates, a recent report for New York City says: "The parental school (school for truants) statistics show that 80 out of its 230 inmates were newsboys, while 60 per cent of the entire number have been street traders. The Catholic Protectorate, full of Italians (noted as street traders), gives us a record of 469 or 80 per cent out of their 590 boys interviewed, who have followed the street profession, and 295 or 50 per cent had been newsboys selling over three months. The New York Juvenile Asylum gives us 31 per cent of its inmates as newsboys and 60 per cent as street traders. The House of Refuge repeats the same story: 63 per cent of those committed to that institution had been street traders, of whom 32 per cent were newsboys. If 63 per cent of the House of Refuge inmates have been street traders, and if the majority of such have begun their so-called criminal careers, which end invariably in the state penitentiary, why do we permit children to trade on our streets?"[84]

Another American writer says: "Whatever the cause, the effect on the newsboy is always the same. He lives on the streets at night in an atmosphere of crime and criminals, and he takes in vice and evil with the air he breathes. If he grows into manhood and escapes the tuberculosis which seizes so many of these boys of the street, the things that he has learned as a professional newsboy lead in one direction,—toward crime and things criminal. The professional newsboy is the embryo criminal."[85]

The dangers to the morals of children are particularly emphasized by those who have given this subject any attention. Mr. John Spargo says: "Nor is it only in factories that these grosser forms of immorality flourish. They are even more prevalent among the children of the street trades,—newsboys, bootblacks, messengers and the like. The proportion of newsboys who suffer from venereal diseases is alarmingly great. The superintendent of the John Worthy School of Chicago, Mr. Sloan, asserts that 'one third of all the newsboys who come to the John Worthy School have venereal diseases and that 10 per cent of the remaining newsboys at present in the Bridewell are, according to the physician's diagnosis, suffering from similar diseases.' The newsboys who come to the school are, according to Mr. Sloan, on an average of one third below the ordinary standard of physical development, a condition which will be readily understood by those who know the ways of the newsboys of our great cities—their irregular habits, scant feeding, sexual excesses, secret vices, sleeping in hallways, basements, stables and quiet corners. With such a low physical standard the ravages of venereal diseases are tremendously increased."[86]

The economic aspect of this work is magnified by most people beyond its true proportion; the earnings of street-working children are not needed by their families in most cases, and even in those instances where their poverty demands such relief it is wrong to purchase it at the price paid in evil training and bad effects of every kind. Commenting on this point the chief truant officer for Indianapolis says: "A large number of truants are recruited from that large unrestricted class whose members are to be found competing with one another on our street corners from early until late. The pennies which many of them earn are a material aid in replenishing the depleted resources of some of our homes. Yet, it is a question whether such child laborers will not in the future bequeath to society an abundant reward of human wreckage which may be traced to such traffic and its many temptations."[87]

As to the bad judgment of parents in seeking the premature earnings of their children, a Chicago physician says: "The average newsboy, if he works 365 days a year, does not earn over a hundred dollars; if he becomes delinquent it costs the state at least two hundred dollars a year to care for him. When we remember that twelve out of every one hundred boys between ten and sixteen become delinquent, and that over 60 per cent of these boys come from street trades, it does not take long for a business man to figure out that it is rather poor economy to let a ten-year-old boy go into at least this field of labor.... From an economic standpoint the family that sends out a ten-year-old boy to sell papers loses a great deal more in actual money from the boy's lack of future earning capacity than the boy can possibly earn by his youthful efforts. In other words, this sort of labor from an economic standpoint is an absurdity."[88]

In its splendid report on street trading, the British departmental committee of 1910 stated: "We learnt that much of this money, so readily made, is spent with equal dispatch. The children spend it on sweets and cigarettes, and in attending music halls, and in very many cases only a portion, if any, of the daily earnings is taken home.... In many towns the traders are drawn from the poorest of homes, but numerous witnesses have emphatically stated that their experience leads them to think that cases where real benefits accrue to the home are rare."[89]

The lack of proper training during childhood almost invariably brings about a tragedy in the lives of working people. The premature employment of children at any kind of labor which interferes with their education and their training in work for which they are fitted is most disastrous in its effects and far outweighs in future misery the little income thus secured in childhood. A careful student of the working class declares: "Many bright and capable men and women in this neighborhood [Greenwich Village, New York City] would undoubtedly have been able to occupy high positions in the industrial world if they had not been forced into unskilled work when young."[90]

With reference to the effects of street trading an English writer says: "It is difficult to imagine a life which could be worse for a young boy. Apart from the moral dangers, it is a means of earning a livelihood which perhaps more than any other is subject to the most violent fluctuations. But the uncertainty of the income is a trifling evil by comparison with the certainty of the bad moral effects of street trading on boys and youths. The life of the street trader is a continual gamble, unredeemed by any steady work; it is undisciplined and casual, and exposed to all the temptations of the street at its worst. The great majority of the boys who sell papers drift away into crime or idleness or some form of living by their wits."[91] The same writer also declares: "Few things could have a worse effect than this street trading on those engaged in it. It initiates them into the mysteries of the beggar's whine and breeds in them the craving for an irregular, undisciplined method of life."[92] And the editor of these English studies adds: "It is part of the street-bred child's precocity that he acquires a too early acquaintance with matters which as a child he ought not to know at all. His language and conversation often reveal a familiarity with vice which would be terrible were it not so superficial."[93]

Speaking of immorality in the narrow sense of the word, the same writer says: "We do not believe that immorality of this kind is universal among the boys and girls of the labouring classes, nor do we believe that the town youth is any worse than his brother and sister of the country. Coarseness and impurity are not the distinguishing mark of any one class or any one place. We question whether comparison of sins and self-indulgence would work out at all to the disadvantage of the town labouring class as a whole. It must be remembered that one commonplace factor, the glaring publicity of the street, is all on the side of the town youth's virtue. The street has its safeguards as well as its dangers."[94]

With reference to the blind alley character of street work, another English writer avers: "As in London, the labours of the school children [in Manchester] are in no wise apprenticeship or preparation for their future lives. The grocer's little errand boy will be discharged when he grows bigger and needs higher wages; the chemist's runner is not in training to become a chemist. The three farthings an hour on the one hand, and the physical, moral and intellectual degeneration on the other, are all that the little ones here, as elsewhere, get out of toil from which many a grown man would shrink."[95]

Another English student of labor conditions declares: "Teachers—together with magistrates, police authorities, ministers of religion and social workers—are practically unanimous in condemning street trading as an employment of children of school age. In this occupation children deteriorate rapidly from the physical, mental and moral point of view."[96]

Still another writer says: "One great evil which results from this life of street trading in childhood is the fact that it is fatal to industrial efficiency in after life."[97]

The testimony of Sir Lauder Brunton, M.D., given in 1904, on the occasion of the inquiry into physical deterioration in Great Britain, is to the point, in spite of the fact that the committee directing the inquiry stated that "The impressions gathered from the great majority of the witnesses examined do not support the belief that there is any general progressive deterioration."[98] Sir Lauder Brunton's testimony was as follows: "The causes of deficient physique are very numerous ... it is very likely that in order to eke out the scanty earnings of the father and mother the child is sent, out of school hours, to earn a penny or two, and so it comes to school wearied out in body by having had to work early in the morning, exhausted by not having had food, and then is sent to learn. Well, it cannot learn."[99] Later the same witness testified, "One of the very worst causes [of physical deterioration] is that children in actual attendance at school, work before and after schooltime."[100]

In a special inquiry into the physical effects of work upon 600 boys of school age made in 1905 by Dr. Charles J. Thomas, assistant health officer to the London County Council's education department, it was found that many of the children suffered from nervous strain, heart disease and deformities as a result of prolonged labor. Of the 600 boys, 134 were shop boys, 63 were milk boys, 87 were newsboys and the others were scattered among various employments. It was found that work during the dinner hour and also the long work-day on Saturday were particularly harmful. As to fatigue among the newsboys, of those working 20 hours or less, 60 per cent were affected; of those working between 20 and 30 hours, 70 per cent; while of those working more than 30 hours per week, 91 per cent showed fatigue. As to anæmia, among the newsboys, of those working 20 hours or less it appeared among only 19 per cent; but of those working 20 to 30 hours, 30 per cent showed it; while of those working over 30 hours per week, 73 per cent were afflicted in this way. As to nerve strain, of those working 20 hours or less 16 per cent were suffering from it; of those working 20 to 30 hours, 35 per cent; while of those working over 30 hours, 37 per cent showed nerve strain. As to deformities, none were noted among boys working less than 20 hours a week, but 10 per cent of those working 20 to 30 hours or more were found to be afflicted. All elementary schoolboys showed deformities to the extent of 8 per cent, but of those engaged in different kinds of work from 20 to 30 hours a week, 21 per cent showed deformities. Flatfoot was found to be the chief deformity produced by newspaper selling, this being caused by the boys' having to be on their feet too much.[101]

One of the most decisive blows delivered against street work by children in Great Britain was the statement of Thomas Burke of the Liverpool City Council, a son of working people, who had lived in a crowded city street for twenty years, had attended a public elementary school until fourteen years of age, where the number of child street traders was very large, and had become convinced that "work after school hours was decidedly injurious to health and character." Referring to the material condition of his street-trading acquaintances, he said: "Almost all the boys sent out to work after school hours from the school referred to have failed in the battle of life. Not one is a member of any of the regular trades, while all who were sent to trade in the streets have gone down to the depths of social misery if not degradation ... a great proportion of those who did not work after school hours, or frequent the streets as newspaper sellers, occupy respectable positions in the city."[102]

Miss Ina Tyler of the St. Louis School of Social Economy in a study of St. Louis newsboys made in 1910, found that of 50 newsboys under 11 years of age, 43 gambled, 42 went to cheap shows and 23 used tobacco; while of 100 newsboys 11 to 16 years of age, 86 gambled, 92 went to cheap shows and 76 used tobacco.[103]

Among the conclusions of the British interdepartmental committee of 1901 is the following: "Street hawking is not injurious to the health if the hours are not long, and the work is not done late at night; but its moral effects are far worse than the physical, and this employment in the center of many large towns makes the streets hotbeds for the corruption of children who learn to drink, to gamble and to use vile language, while girls are exposed to even worse things."[104]

The British departmental committee of 1910 declared: "In the case of both boys and girls the effect of this occupation on future prospects cannot be anything but thoroughly bad, except, possibly, in casual and exceptional cases. We learn that many boys who sell while at school manage to obtain other work upon becoming fourteen, but for those who remain in the street the tendency is to develop into loafers and 'corner boys.' The period between fourteen and sixteen is a critical time in a boy's life. Street trading provides him with no training; he gets no discipline, he is not occupied the whole of his time; for a few years he makes more money and makes it more easily than in an office or a workshop, and he is exposed to a variety of actively evil influences."[105]

An important division of the study of street-working children concerns their standing in the schools. In New York City a few figures are available through a study recently made there. The distribution of 200 newsboys under fourteen years of age among the school grades is shown in the following table:[106]—

Applying the rule that in order to be normal a child must enter the first grade at the age of either six or seven years and progress with enough regularity to enable him to attend the eighth grade at the age of either thirteen or fourteen, it is found that of the 177 newsboys ten to thirteen years of age inclusive, 118 are backward, 57 are normal and 2 are beyond their grades. This is shown in the following table:—

This table shows that of the 177 newsboys ten to thirteen years of age, 67 per cent are backward and 32 per cent are normal, while only 1 per cent are ahead of their grades. Boys of these ages are subject to the restrictions prescribed by the state law as to hours, and it is probable that the percentage of retardation would have been even greater if work at night had not been to some extent prevented.

A report of New York City conditions made in 1907, before the newsboy law was enforced, says: "The shrewd, bright-eyed, sharp-witted lad is stupid and sleepy in the schoolroom; 295 newsboys compared with non-working boys in the same class were found to fall below the average in proficiency. They were also usually older than their classmates, that is, backward in their grades."[107]

Referring to Manchester newsboys above the age of fourteen years, an English report[108] says: "They are not stupid, or even markedly backward, judged by school standards.... As they grow older they sink to a lower level, both morally and economically—in fact, little better than loafers, without aspiration, and content with the squalor of the common lodging-houses in which they live, if only they have enough money for their drink and their gambling." Concerning the younger newsboys the same report continues: "Those who are the children of extremely poor, and often worthless parents, are often upon the streets selling their papers during school hours, and their attendance at the schools, in spite of prosecution of their parents, is so irregular that they make very little progress. These boys take to the streets permanently for their livelihood; a few of them continue, after the age of fourteen, to earn their living by selling newspapers, but most of them sink into less satisfactory kinds of occupation." In connection with these statements it should be remembered that they portray conditions existing prior to the adoption in 1902 of local rules on street trading. With reference to the alleged cleverness of street Arabs, a British observer draws this distinction: "Street-trading children are more cunning than other children, but not more intelligent."[109]

In St. Louis there was no regulation until the Missouri law of 1911 was passed; and in 1910 Miss Ina Tyler, in a study of 106 newsboys of that city, found the following conditions:—

These figures were copied by the writer from charts displayed at the child labor exhibit of the National Conference of Charities and Correction in St. Louis in 1910, but efforts to ascertain the method of determining these percentages were unavailing. Therefore they cannot be compared with the figures in the preceding tables, because it is by no means certain that the standard ages for normal school standing were adopted in the compilation of this table.

In Toledo, Ohio, there is no regulation governing street work by children, although a local association makes an effort to look after the welfare of newsboys. In October, 1911, the writer visited the four public common school buildings nearest the business district of this city and found 287 children in attendance who were regularly engaged in some form of street work out of school hours. The great majority of them were newsboys. The distribution of these children according to age and grade is given below:—

Adopting the same method for determining retardation as in the case of the New York figures, we find that of these 287 street-working school children of Toledo, 55 per cent are backward, 43 per cent are normal and 2 per cent are ahead of their grades. Or, selecting the children ten to thirteen years of age, as was done with the New York figures, we have the following results:—