10
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH.
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 18,
1936.
The BIRTHS of the
This print of 1820 shows children employed
in a spinning mill. They were often strapped and beaten at their work,
T would be difficult to over- estimate the Importance of the Births and Deaths Re- ristration Act. The bene-
S that have flown from it, ropertilly to the workers, are geat.
Te, rulously enough, refer- racun to it by historians and other welters on that period ore few and hard to find.
It set up for the first one a Bate Department in London, pre- dded over by a Registrar-General virose duty it was to collect and Keep exact records of these wer sundar events in the lives of all gitizer
The Debatiment is now situated House, a smoke- grimed, reziy building in the Stran), not far from the island churels of St. Mary, where the parents of Charles Dickens were married, Dad 31. Clement Dane, where Mrs. Lirriper, "very par- Lai to evening service not too crowded." rented a pew with gen- fvel company and her own las- suck.
The Registrar - General shares Somerset House with the Probate of Wills Registry and the Income. Tax authorities: dismal com- antons enough. But the place has an interesting history.
There queens oner walked; Inigo Jones died; Oliver Cromwelt- lay-In-state: Crabbo wrote: and, Inter, Nelson came in his hessian Digtali.
To-day, your name, reader, is darlund there: mine also for that marter. And one day, Inevitably. both will appear there again-for Mig 123 tlute.
The keeping of these records eems to us now absolutely eksen- tial to the well ordering of the Community: necessary to the nooth working of much of the
To-day's Thought- EVERY night and every morn
some to misèry are born.
--WILLIAM BLAKE,
The P.&O. Banking Corporation, Ltd.
(Incorporated in England, 1920).
Authorised Chollak
Subscribed and Paid-up
Deserve Fund
DEAD OFFICE.
£3,000,000
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109,000
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14-18, Cockapur Street, Londen, S.W.1, DMANCHES |--Bombay, Onientta, Calient' Colombo, Ifongkong, Madras, “Calmbalore. Whanghai, Slagspore.
3. Ageschic-En af principal towns of the!
Coral Exchange and Barking bulbo Ernimicină. Lausn nat evardekits granted Da mmpotrad vecmarkte. Current and Fixed Deposit
KAYINGS ACCOUVIS IN LOCAL CUR- ! Karable I savettberen alued at 27% per an
BITORING EL TIME ACCOUNTS -
which may be Settecent slett es ndes obtained on wapilications-
TERVEILÆUND LEFTERS OF CREDIT nad TRAYDILLERY GRIGORS Samad 1-Kire Pemunguts. Letter of djevdd fur une only on More 7. # 2 and $4. Kesumatera sat at pute of Call.
Delilah Insome Tat Bocuseres. Cherokerships and Trutowapo subtriakon
W. J. WADDENZIVIM,
flouskone. 17th April, 1304.
NATION
One Hundred Years Ago to-day the Births and Deaths Registration Act was passed. One of its earliest benefits was to enable factory. inspectors to learn the true ages of children in employment.
social
by W. G. HALL
legisla
tion on the Statute
Book,
and vital as a safeguard against crime.
None these consider- atlons, how- ever, was re-
of
sponsible for the introduction of. the Act.
I was passed because another measure, which at long last gave Dissenters the right to, solemaise marrloges in their own way fa right previously enjoyed only by Qunkers and Jewind, left a page that
.uired fauing.
Not until after it was passed did the common people realize the protection it gave them against untimely death.
Early death then, was a common- place. Life was cheap, particu- arly among the children of the nor. The Act made every death a matter of public record and un- explained death the concern, possibly, of a coroner's jury.
Nor, until after it was put into operation, was it realised how useful I would be to reformers in Their struggle on behalf of the factory children.
•
Robert Owen, father of British Socialism and a ploncer. of Co- children operation. speaks emmonly employed at the age of five, sometimes at the age of three.
"It took," anys Spencer Walpole, "twenty-five years to legislate to restrict a child of nine to 60 hours week and that only in cotton mills."
*
And be alght have added that even then the regulations were largely a dead letter owing to the dificulty of establishing a child's real age.
Under the 1833 Factory Act four 'Inspectors had been appointed. It was their duty to see that no child under nine was employed iti a factory and that none between the ages of nine and 13 worked. more than eight hours in the 24.
But some parents did not know.. and others pretended not know, Just how old their children were.
The evidence they offered, often in dirty scraps of paper, was of doubtful value and frequently forged.
One inspector, who took his job seriously, had eventually to insist on a doctor's certificate that the child had tho "ordinary strength and appearance of a child of nine." Even this makeshift was un-
THE
satisfactory. Doctors, dependent as they often were on the poodwill of factory owners, occasionsly bad curious idens as to what consti- tuted the ordinary strength and appearance of a child of nine."
And parents sometimes sent an older child to the doctor and the certificate fterwards. to the fac- tory with a younger one.
So, though it took a decade after its passing to be of use to them in their unequal struggle against their hunger-ridden parents and the callous and often. brutal millowners, the Births and Deaths Registration Act must be reckoned in a very real sense among the reforms that have helped to cinati cipate British children from ... tory ccridom.
It passed through Parliament without much opposition. In this It was luckier than the Act 10 establish machinery for taking a census of the population.
That measure had to be dropped when it was first proposed in 1753 for fear the wrath of God want descend "113 some great pubie misfortune от temper."
epidemical! d...-
Not at the beginning of the 19th century did Parliament decide to risk it.
The Census Returns and the Registrar-General's Statistien! R- view are a mine of fascinating in- formation. The apparently dry, tables and figures there set forth speak of changes and tendencies of. the utmost human interes.
Seventy to eighty years ago the population in the leading countrie of the World was advanclig rapidly-So-rapidly, in fact. that it was confidently expected to double itself in about sixty years..
There was then a very real fear... that the earth would at no distant date become overcrowded.
This was a great weapon in the. hands of reactionaries. They saw, or professed to see, in the rigoura of the industrial system the hand of Providence and God's Good Purpose in a high among the poor.
death rate
To mitigate capitalism would, they thought, be almply asking for trouble. Even thoughtful working men were afraid.
They needn't have been. Since their time the standard of life has risen immeasurably for the masses.
The workers have wrung
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advances from the possessing classes ail along the fine. Thanks mainly to these, the infantile death-rate Great Britain has practically halved itself in the last thirty years and the expectation of
in
Richard Oustler," King of the Factory Chil- aren," died 75 years ago next Saturday. His efforts were largely responsible for the passing of the first Factory Act. in 1833. Ifistorians have ignored him, but his cham- plonship was the beginning of the abolition of child labor.
life for everyone has extended. Yet population has not shown the vast increase early Malthusians feared. By 1951, in fact. It will have begun to drop.
The population of these islands. is now about 431 millions. By the end of the present.century It will have gone down, they tell us, to 17 millions.. And when my suc- cessor comes to write up the bl- century of the Act of 1836, in another hundred years time, it will be no more than 5 millions, unless polson gas gets us all in the mean- time; and half of the people then living will be over 60.
Large familles have gone aut of fashion, The majority of families now consists of three persons-father, mother and one child. Scotland heads the list of areas in which the larger familles are found, with Northumberland and Durham, South Wales and the Midlands some distance behind.
There are two millions more. women than men in Great Britain. But more boys are born than girls. Women must be tougher They
T
Young North
live Ionger. certainly people are drifting south. umberland and Durham, and parts of Scotland and Wales will soon be peopled largely by the
elderly.
The British are a nation of town dwellers. Nearly half of them live in towns of over 50,000 inhabi- tants.
Lancashire and Cheshire arc more densely populated than the whole of Australia. London av the South East contains mor. percons than the whole of Norway. Sweden and Denmark put together
The population of London is moving outwards. In 1923 the tube was extended Into the Burrey flelds at Morden. Now that station is handling the largest volume of traffic on the whole Underground system,
Thus are enormous land values created. But, stupidly, the com- munity leaves private interests to enjoy them,
ROUNDABOUT
By The Showman.
HE Dear Fellow, who keeps me so well informed about Society, recently drew atten- tion to a considerate London hostess,
It la her custom, when asking un- poverished young men down to the country for a week-end, to send them not only a first-class return ticket but a pound note for tipping her own servants.
It was a very good rackel for the impoverished young men, but I think we ought to let the Dear Fellow know that it has been stopped.
Butler Stops Racket
LA
AST work-end this bòsters' butler approached Mr. Derek Marma- lade, commonly known as the Rudest Rat of Mayfair, and sald-"It's not good enough, ait."
What isn't good enough?"
“A shiling for me, siapanec tor Albert, threepence for the chauffeur and threepence for the housemaid out
of the pound you were sent,"
Oh, isn't it?"
"No, air. Especially as you usually pinch a dozen of the master's cigară. nity cigareties, and a bottle of pin every time you come."
"Well?
"Hand over the eighteen skillings and you can keep the goods! "
"So you think you've got me where you want me, huh?
"Yeah!"
"Oh, yeah?"
And yeah it was. Aren't you thrilled. Dear Fellow, that this blow has been struck for traditional Brith hospi tally? I suggest we both go out and have our les pressed to celebrate it.
Doris Speaks Her Mind COME fellows seem to think they've only got to jook at a girl, and sho'lj go down on her knees and thank them. There was 1 sitting on the front- between aliowers-with; a nice book. and one of those sinartiga lind to SIL down next to me.
*Haven't we niet before, somewhere, sotnetime?" he says,
"I don't think so," I said, polite, but- -you know.
"Oh, comel" he says, very toguish. "Be kind, aweet Indy! You wouldn't make me look a fool, would you?"
"I couldn't," I said. "It's the work of nature."
How's that for a nice, quiet one?
Slump In Sensations
THE Jugoslavian Centenarian Nows Service acems to have collapsed, together with the Burmese Cow De. spatch Association.
rely on them once a month at leust. Now they have failed me. All I can find, by way of compensation, is an assertion that women in Paris are dyeing their hair to match their dogs.
I can add that they alt up at cock-- tall parties and beg for salted al monds to be balanced, on the noses;
also, that they wear the duckiest little tweed muzzles in the street.
Faint-hearted foreign correspond.
ents, please copy.
BALLAD INSPIRED by the announcement
that Mr. Walter Runchann Pres)- dent of the Board of Trade is spending his holiday studying agricultural con - ations in Denmark.
There was wanelunu Called Runciman Who sailed a twent
tu file (te yacht,
He has walled this time
To Denmark's rijnie,
In weareh of tips
How to grow parents.
Then with bulging bag - or Demark's age Neultural wheezes He'll seek home breezes,
And I hope he'll make Sure, for Bulota sakri How paralyn are kültered Avith würde softly uttered.
Too Much Trouble BECAUSE there were not enough
passengers, the train service be tween Vladivostock and Poranitchnaya. at tho castern terminus of the North Manchuria railway, has been susponded."The service is now oper. ating only between Vladivostock and Grodeveko."
And the reason for the shortage was that passengers found it much easier to say Grodeveko."
Wags' Corner.
A FARMER met one of his mice. coming home, drenched to the sklo. It was a fine day, so the farmer asked him what he had been doing. Well," anld the man. "I've just begi having a game of cricket with the old bull, down by the pond, see? He won the foss and sent me in first."
says Mr. Peppercorn:
WHEN I read about a land- scape gardener who died a month or two ago, at the age, of 07, leaving £90,000, it made me open my eyes and I haven't closed them properly yet.
He started as a garden boy at 9 A week and left his Apo·800-acre estate to this-nation.
I don't know the whole story, buž either there's more in gardening than I thought, or it was some thing in the man,
Now I come to think of it, wasn't there a smart grocer in Bolton who turned his shop into an umpteen million soap combina, while there must have been other grocers in Bolton who just remained grocers?
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