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INFANT SEAMSTRESSES. 33
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Into One Of Those Narrow, Gloomy Streets...
as the original of desolation . Its feet were naked , audit seemed to have but one filthy ragged garment , "with which it was vainly
attempting to cover its naked knees with one hand , while with the other it was held to the face . The child was crying "bitterly , and the big tears dropped heavily on the frost-bleached pavement . We
ascertained that it was suffering from an excruciating ear-ache ; our attention caused two or three persons to gather around , when one who claimed to be a neighbour informed us that both its
" father and . mother were drinking , " tliat they hardly ever " took a bit of notice of it , but let it run just where it liked . " But when the
speaker bade the child follow her , she evinced little pity ; she did not take it up , but dragged it along by her side . Oh ! if the
history of soine children were but written in precise and faithful detail , there are _vexy few who could read it . But why do we draw these pictures?—the task is most
ungrateful , although the sketch is a very faint one . "We have said nothing albout stripes and bruises . "We might have opened the doors of
other rooms , but the reader would have revolted . We might have written of baby onion-sellers and wood-sellers fainting' beneath
their burdens , of Saturday night tragedies , and of the horrors in connection with crochet work , but these things are patent to every observer . Of courseas a writer in the " Lancet" has observed , " The
, most terrible item in the death rates is furnished by the account of deaths among children , but this mortality is influenced by other conditions beside those of simple hygiene : it arises _fronn cruelty ,
from desertion , from want of food and necessaries , and from the absence of medical aid , etc . " It is true that the heart of philanthropy never beat so hih as nownever was charity so busyso
inventive . Philanthropy g is becoming , a science , but how can it , be , applied in the cases under consideration ? Is it possible to uplift
childhood without uplifting down-trodden woman ? We think not . The child rises or sinks with the mother . As well try to sweep the shadow from the neighbourhopd of the substanceas permanently to
, poor benefit and either vicious separatel parents y . in If London to-day , we and were educate to take and every provide child fo of r
them , to-morrow there would be a young army of candidates for the vacant positions , and on the morrow of the morrow it would be vastly increased , and still the cry would be , " They come , they
come . " Such charity would but occasion a slight hiatus in the otherwise unbroken procession of the victims . One great cause of the misery that we have been , contemplating
is—— The _motJier from home ; and this again has reference to the want of suitable and equitably paid employment for women . In
this respect woman is most deeply wronged . There must be redress here . Is tlie preponderance of females over males an unfortunate
accident , or is it of divine appointment ? And if the surplus were treble in quantitywould not the last woman born have an equal
, right , and should she not have an equal chance , to win bread with _VOJj . IV . D
?
Infant Seamstresses. 33
INFANT SEAMSTRESSES . 33
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Citation
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English Woman’s Journal (1858-1864), Sept. 1, 1859, page 33, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/ewj/issues/ewj_01091859/page/33/
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