Historic Social Issues Archives - Page 3 of 7 - Susanna Ives

Last week I decided that I needed an organizer to help my poor addled mind. Rather than purchase one, I fired up Photoshop and created some custom pages based on my own needs. Of course, I couldn’t be satisfied with just words and lines, so I went hunting in Google Books for some pretty illustrations. I came across a volume of The Delineator, published in 1909. Amid all the lovely fashion images, I found this little article on the British Children Act of 1908.

I’m adding images of children up for adoption in 1909. The Delineator helped place children each month. Their stories are heartbreaking.

~ The Day of the Child

IT HAS come at last. While we have been pondering, in this country, the evils which affect child life, our mother, the ever aggressive England, has taken the great forward step. While here one devoted band of enthusiasts has been fighting for child-labor restrictions, and another for Child Hygiene and a third for Child Rescue, our great mother nation across the sea has been formulating and has now passed a drastic act, revolutionary in its provisions, which must bring joy and heartfelt relief to all those who have long since realized the import of proper legislation in regard to the child. To quote the newspaper reports of this great forward step:

“It provides for the stricter prevention of cruelty to children and the better safeguarding of infant life, institutes children’s courts, arranges for the segregation of juvenile offenders and undertakes a wider parental control of the morals of children.”

Pawnbrokers may not accept articles in pawn from children under fourteen years of age. Innkeepers may not allow them in their barrooms. Tobacconists may not sell cigarettes to boys apparently under sixteen, and constables must confiscate cigarettes or tobacco in their possession.

“A mother may not leave a child under seven in a room where there is an open fire. Every child put out to nurse for more than forty-eight hours must be registered, and foster-parents may not insure the lives of children in their care. Severe penalties are imposed for the ill-treatment or exposure of children. The suffocation of a child of less than three years as the result of “overlying by a person under the influence of drink is cause for prosecution. It is a punishable offense to permit a child to beg, or to live in evil surroundings. No liquor may be given to a child under five except in extraordinary circumstances. A vagrant may be punished for permitting a child to wander about with him.”

Isn’t that comforting?

And, what is more: “Persons under sixteen must be tried in special juvenile courts from which the public is excluded. After January first next a child may not be sentenced to death or to penal servitude or committed to prison in default of the payment of a fine or damages. Special ‘places of detention are instituted for young offenders, where they will be free from association with adult criminals, and reformatories and industrial schools are provided.”

Much along this line has already been done in the United States, but surely here for the first time is the children’s charter, and this is truly the day of the child. While we in this country have been fighting to arouse the American sense to the fact that there is a problem which concerns the child, England has solved it. She has blazed the way. We will come along some day with a “Children’s Secretary,” there will be a “bureau” to gather data concerning the child. We will have uniform State child-labor laws and child-hygiene laws and child-rescue laws, and when we do we will have great cause for rejoicing. But meanwhile England has preceded us, and in the matter of sound forward legislation on this all-important topic we are only beginning. England has given us the Magna Charta of the Child.

I found this little bit of atrocity searching Google Books using the keyword “pastimes.” I had hoped to find some genteel crafts that ladies did to while away their evenings, maybe some embroidery or paper craft. No such luck.

The following is excerpted from Popular Pastimes, Being A Selection Of Picturesque Representations Of The Customs & Amusements Of Great Britain published in 1816.

AMONG the customs unknown to the law in this country, though by the illiterate and vulgar supposed to be of legal validity and assurance, is that of SELLING a WIFE, like a brute animal, in a common market-place. At what period this practice had origin we have not discovered, but it has unquestionably been in existence for a long series of years; and many instances might be given of the extensive spread of this licentious custom in more modern times. From newspapers of different dates, now before us, the three following cases are selected, in order to shew that the metropolis does not alone participate in the disgrace which springs from the legislative tolerance of this irreligious and indecent custom ; but that other parts of England are equally involved in the shame of such a scandalous profligacy. It merits, indeed, the greater reprehension, from the foul stigma which it fixes on our national character; and though the magistracy may not, at present, be armed with sufficient powers to put a stop to a practice so highly censurable (though we doubt the assumption ; for whatever is contrary to good morals, is assuredly amenable to the law) ; the Parliament should immediately interfere, and prevent its longer continuance by the infliction of punishment.

Under the date of June the 12th, 1797, we read thus : ‘“ At the close of Smithfield-market on Monday, a man who keeps a public house in the neighbourhood of Lisson-green, brought his Wife, to whom he had been married about two months, for sale into the market; where having by means of a rope, made her fast to the railing opposite St. Bartholemew’s coffee-house, she was exposed to the view of hundreds of spectators for near a quarter of an hour, and at length sold, for half a guinea, to a dealer in flowers, at Paddington. He is to receive with the woman, from her original owner, twenty pounds in bad halfpence.” The second instance was on the 11th of March, 1808, when “ a private individual led his Wife to Sheffield market, by a cord tied round her waist, and publicly announced that he wanted to sell his cow. On this occasion, a butcher who officiated as auctioneer, and knocked down the lot for a guinea, declared that he had not brought a cow to a better market for many years.” The last of the three instances occurred on the 27th of March, 1808, when “ a man publicly sold his Wife to a fisherman, in the market at Brighton, for twenty shillings and a blunderbuss.”