that time, and that
415 were discharged because they could not read or write simple sentences
in the English language. The "number of working children who could not
read and write English" was in 1890 alone 252, according to the report, or
more than one-half of the whole number discharged in the four years, which
does not look as if the law had had much effect in that way, at least in
New York city. I determined to see for myself what were the facts.

I visited a number of factories, in a few instances accompanied by the
deputy factory inspector, more frequently alone. Where it was difficult to
gain admission I watched at the door when the employees were going to or
coming from work, finding that on the whole the better plan, as affording
a fairer view of the children and a better opportunity to judge of their
age than when they sat at their work-benches. I found many shops in which
there were scarcely any children, some from which they had been driven, so
I was informed by the inspectors. But where manufacturers were willing to
employ their labor--and this I believe to be quite generally the case
where children's labor can be made to pay--I found the age certificate
serving as an excellent protection for the employer, never for the child.
I found the law considered as a good joke by some conscienceless men, who
hardly took the trouble to see that the certificates were filled out
properly; loudly commended by others whom it enabled, at the expense of a
little perjury in which they had no hand, to fill up their shops with
cheap labor, with perfect security to themselves. The bookkeeper in an
establishment of the conscienceless kind told me with glee how a boy who
had been bounced there three times in one year, upon his return each time
had presented a sworn certificate giving a different age. He was fifteen,
sixteen, and seventeen years old upon the records of the shop, until the
inspectors caught him one day and proved him only thirteen. I found boys
at work, posing as seventeen, who had been so recorded in the same shop
three full years, and were thirteen at most. As seventeen-year freaks they
could have made more money in a dime museum than at the work-bench, only
the museum would have required something more convincing than the
certificate that satisfied the shop. Some of these boys were working at
power-presses and doing other work beyond their years. An examination of
their teeth often disproved their stories as to t