The most immediate and accessible source of knowledge, everywhere, is the educational authority. No one knows so well as the public school teachers, how the children drop out of school from the third and fourth grades to go to work.

A community without a school census is a relic of barbarism. Unfortunately, we still have many such relics, and there is no more interesting and enlightening task awaiting the inquiring consumer than an effort to get from the local educational authority an accurate knowledge of the whereabouts of the children. How many are there in the city? Of these, how many are enrolled in the schools? What are the children doing who are not enrolled? What are the irregulars doing when they are absent from school? If we honestly wish to know how far we are indirectly employing little ones who should be in the primary grades, one way to learn the truth is to insist upon full answers to these questions, each in her own community. When these answers are wholly satisfactory, we may claim to be doing pretty well in our home town. But where are the answers to these questions wholly satisfactory to-day?

In some of the states, there is a good deal of trustworthy information, in readable form, which we can get without expense (beyond the cost of a postal card) from the Department of Labor or the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In this respect, New York excels all the other states, for the Department of Labor issues monthly summaries, quarterly bulletins, and annual reports distributed promptly while the information which they contain is still fresh and valuable. From these sources we can learn, for this one great industrial state, how many children are found at work legally and illegally, exactly what provisions of the labor law apply to them, and how these provisions are enforced, how many violations of the law are found and what penalties are inflicted upon the law-breakers.

In other states, notably in Massachusetts, the Department of Labor Statistics publishes a careful study of child labor from different points of view.

Many state departments are, however, so dilatory that their facts are obsolete before they are published. This is always true when the reports are biennial as is the case in a shamefully large number of states. But belated, obsolete information is misleading and therefore, when presented as current, is worse than acknowledged igno

rance.

Sometimes the official reports are so badly compiled that they seem designed to conceal the truth. This is conspicuously true in Pennsylvania, from whose reports it is impossible to learn with any certainty in what industries children are employed, what violations of the child labor law occur, by whom it is violated, or how violations are punished, if at all.

Sadder still, is the plight of the conscientious, inquiring consumer in those states which, like South Carolina and Georgia, envelop the whole subject in Stygian darkness, having no factory inspection, no truant officers, no school census, no bureau of labor statistics, no state census half way between the years of the federal census, no state department of education, no public source, whatever, of the information which we so urgently need.

The policy of these states accentuates the need for a Children's Bureau in the Department of the Interior, at Washington, from which might be sent out all that information which we have now no adequate means of acquiring.

The investigation of the work of women and children now being carried on by the Federal Department of Labor fails to meet the need for current information since its results, like those of all federal investigations hitherto on this vitally important subject, will be already largely obsolete before they reach the reader.

None of this inadequacy and failure is inevitable. When enough citizens demand current, trustworthy, readable information, the authorities will furnish it. The most urgent responsibility of the consumer is thus clearly to deal with her own ignorance by every possible means-to observe the visible working children, and to insist upon obtaining from the city, state and federal officials fresh and valid information about the unseen ones.

A modest attempt to help in this process is the publication by the Consumers' League, of the Handbook of Child Labor Legislation, which shows in compact form where the need of legislation is greatest, and what has been accomplished for the protection of the children and incidentally for the consciences of their indirect employers, the consuming public.

Having knowledge, the next link in the chain is the use of the facts. Let us give the preference in our dealing to the merchant who employs large help; let us make it commercially valuable to a manufacturer when he follows the example of the enlightened mer

chant. Let us publish far and wide the recommended list of merchants offered by the Consumers' Leagues in the various cities. Let us make it as disreputable to be seen coming out of a store in the late afternoon, or on Saturday afternoon, as it is to be seen coming out of a saloon.

Finally, the desecration of Christmas, the association of cruel overwork with the Christmas holidays, is wholly the fault of the shopping public. There need never again be a cruel Christmas. That rests entirely with the Christian shoppers. It is their responsibility.

CHILDREN ON THE STREETS OF CINCINNATI

By E. N. CLOPPER,

Secretary for Ohio Valley States, National Child Labor Committee.

The number of children upon the streets of Cincinnati and the conditions surrounding them do not present a problem differing in any notable respect from the situation in any other large city. The population of the city consists largely of Jews and German-Americans, both of these peoples being home-loving, law-abiding and thrifty, who almost invariably provide good homes and educational facilities for their offspring, and in this fact lies the hope for the improvement of the conditions now existing among the less fortunate elements of this city's population.

The school census for last year showed there were 110,591 children between the ages of six and twenty-one in the city; of this number thirty-five per cent were not attending any kind of school, but sixty per cent were above the age limit for compulsory attendance. Of the total number of children between the ages of six and fourteen, the compulsory period, twenty-eight per cent were not enrolled in the public schools, but as the parochial and private schools of the city instruct' more than half as many children as do the public schools, it is reasonable to conclude that the number of children in Cincinnati within the age limits for compulsory school attendance who do not attend any school, is small. There are no statistics available to show the exact number.

Newsboys

As in other cities, the great majority of children engaged in following the street trades in Cincinnati are newsboys. There are about 1,900 regular newsboys in the city, of whom approximately one-fifth are negroes. The Newsboys' Protective Association was organized for these boys in January, 1907, and club rooms were provided in the downtown district. The association is supported by subscription and by the proceeds from entertainments. Certain wealthy business men of the city have guaranteed its maintenance in case of financial embarrassment. A reading room, a gymnasium

and baths have been installed and the services of a superintendent who gives all of his time to the club, have been secured. Here boys congregate in the evening and at other hours when not engaged in selling papers, the object being to get them off the street during their leisure hours. The attendance, however, is small. The present membership of the association is nearly 500, but the average daily attendance during February, March and April of this year was only 56, three-fifths of these being white and the rest colored. The attendance is greater during the school vacation period. The superintendent co-operates with the truant officers and the probation officers connected with the juvenile court, to the end that as many of the boys as possible shall attend school.

The morning newspapers are distributed almost entirely by youths and men, the boys, as a rule, handling only the afternoon papers. Except during the baseball season there is ordinarily no demand for these papers after seven o'clock in the evening, the last edition being issued at half-past two in the afternoon. Consequently the boys have their winter evenings free. But during the summer they are in the streets with the sporting editions usually until nine o'clock. The majority return home as soon as their papers have been sold, but many remain in the downtown district until late at night, some begging money from passersby, others offering chewing gum, shoe strings or lead pencils for sale, but in reality also begging, others lingering about the five-cent theatres and flitting around from place to place, generally absorbed in the evil features of the city's life. The number of girls who sell newspapers in the city. is very small indeed, and officers spare no efforts to discourage and prevent the practice. In fact, the girls so employed are so few that they do not form a factor in the problem.

Children as young as five years of age sell papers in the residence districts. The branch offices of the afternoon newspapers sell to the newsboys at the rate of two copies for one cent, the children earning half a cent by the sale of every copy. Little fiveyear-old tots begin their careers by purchasing two copies and earn a cent by their sale each afternoon. Some of the older boys dispose of as many as three hundred copies daily, thus earning $1.50 in two or three hours, but thirty-five or forty cents represents the average amount earned in one day. Newsboys may return all unsold copies and be reimbursed at the purchase price, but this is done only in