and on Saturday and Sunday, when the mother does the finishing. Their
combined earnings are from $3 to $6 a week, the children earning
two-thirds. The rent is $8 a month.

The doctor's observations throw a bright side-light upon the economic home
conditions that lie at the root of this problem of child labor in the
factories. With that I have not done. Taking the Factory Inspector's
report for 1890, the last at that time available, I found that in that
year his deputies got around to 2,147 of the 11,000 workshops (the number
given in the report) in the Second district, which is that portion of New
York south of Twenty-third Street. In other words, they visited less than
one-fifth of them all. They found 1,102 boys and 1,954 girls under sixteen
at work; 3,485 boys under eighteen, and 12,701 girls under twenty-one, as
nearly as I could make the footings. The figures alone are instructive, as
showing the preponderance of girls in the shops. The report, speaking of
the State as a whole, congratulates the community upon the alleged fact
"that the policy of employing very young children in manufactories has
been practically abolished." It states that "since the enactment of the
law the sentiment among employers has become nearly unanimous in favor of
its stringent enforcement," and that it "has had the further important
effect of preventing newly arrived non-English speaking foreigners from
forcing their children into factories before they learned the language of
the country," these being "now compelled to send their children to school,
for a time at least, until they can qualify under the law." Further, "the
system of requiring sworn certificates, giving the name, date, and place
of birth of all children under sixteen years of age ... has resulted in
causing parents to be very cautious about making untrue statements of the
ages of their children." The deputies "are aware of the various
subterfuges which have been tried in order to evade the law and put
children at labor before the legal time," and the Factory Inspector is
"happy to say that they are not often imposed upon by such tactics."

Without wading through nearly seventy pages of small print it was not
possible to glean from the report how many of the "under sixteen" workers
were really under fourteen, or so adjudged. A summary of what has been
accomplished since 1886 showed that 1,614 children under fourteen were
discharged by the Inspector in the Second District in