Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 6.djvu/634

 620 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

According to the statement of one of the trustees of the United Hebrew Charities, one person out of every twenty-five has con- sumption. This is the great bane, she says, of the garment workers. It causes almost more trouble than the low wages. The injury to one's eyes from the close and constant appli- cation to work has already been mentioned in connection with the tailors. It is they and the home finishers who are most likely to work far into the night and cause their eyesight to fail.

Long hours at a foot-power machine bring serious pelvic disorders upon the women and girls, and ruin their health. One of the inspectors said one day, when leaving a shop where a girl of fifteen was running a machine at a terrific rate of speed : " If I had my way about it, no woman should ever work like that." Even if none of these more serious troubles come, the con- stant nervous strain gradually takes the life and spirit out of one. The danger to physical health is the chief reason why the employment of women and children becomes a serious problem.

So far as any danger of moral contamination is concerned, there seems no reason, now that home shops have been practi- cally abolished, why there should be any more danger in this than in any other kind of shop, except that this is smaller, and the relations of the contractor with his employes, and of the employes with one another, are more likely to be on a personal plane. It is generally believed by those who know the working classes that they are as moral as any other class in our society that they live up to the best they know as well as other people do.

The question of child labor, however, is one that has received a considerable amount of attention in Illinois, aside from the mere question of health and morals. One of the chief activities on the part of the inspectors is the enforcement of the law that no child under fourteen years of age may be at work, and that no child fourteen years old but not yet sixteen may work without an affidavit, and that no child may work more than ten hours per day. Employers are well acquainted now with