In the cotton-goods industry there are 39,866 children, a gain of 70.1 per cent. It is interesting to learn that there are 1003 children employed in ship-building, and that this number is a gain of 476.4 per cent over 1890. There are 4521 in boot and shoe making, an increase of 85 per cent. There are 2259 in flax, hemp, and jute weaving, nearly twice as many as ten years ago. There are 316 in turpentine and rosin making, a gain of 236.2 per cent. The number has decreased for some reason in the making of clay products, as has also the number of men workers, women having now a growing preference in the potteries. There are also fewer children in petroleum refining, but in button-making an increase of 321.6 per cent, in leather-glove making of 185.7 per cent, and in slaughtering and meat-packing of 138.1 per cent is shown. Watch-making shows a gain of 30 per cent, bicycle-making of 780 per cent. Children have been found comparatively unadaptable in the liquor industry. Only 643 are employed in brewing and 18 in distilling. For all that, these figures represent an increase--in the former case of 24.6 per cent, in the latter of 200 per cent.
Children, according to the census, are persons below the age of sixteen. Testimony outside of the census reports shows the extreme youth of many of these operatives. Investigations among the glass works of southern New Jersey reveal a number of cases of child workers of eight, nine, and ten years of age. Mr. J. W. Sullivan, a careful and accurate observer, who visited this district in July of the present year, confirms these statements. Miss Jane Addams, of Hull House, found a child of five working at night in a South Carolina mill. Mrs. Irene Ashby-Macfadyen, who has carefully studied conditions in the Southern mills, gives many instances of extremely young children working incredibly long hours. Professor George Clinton Edwards, in the New York _Evening Post_ for August 13th, gives other instances relating to the mills of Dallas, Tex. In a later communication to the same journal he quotes the statement of a mill superintendent to the effect that of sixty boys and seventy-six girls employed, “there are two in their tenth year, nine in their eleventh year, thirteen in their twelfth year, and seventeen in their fourteenth year.” “This list, from the pay-roll,” writes Professor Edwards, “does not include the little children, who, with the mills’ knowledge, worked at the mills’ work, who earned the mills’ pay in the 10 or 20 per cent increase received by the relatives they assisted at piece work, and who were, therefore, in fact, the mills’ employees.” Labor Commissioner Lacey, of North Carolina, reports 7605 children under fourteen in 261 mills. A correspondent of the Cincinnati _Post_ estimated 400 of the 1000 children employed in five mills in Columbia, S.C., to be under twelve years of age. Testimony by mill officials before a Southern legislature acknowledged in one instance 30 per cent of child workers under twelve years in a spinning room, and in another 25 per cent.