"WEARING THEIR LIVES AWAY FOR TEN CENTS

A DAY.

Pitiful Condition of Children in the Cotton Mills of

Georgia.

CHRONICLE STAFF CORRESPONDENT FINDS STARTLING CONDITIONS.

Tots Grow Up Stunted in Growth and in Ignorance. "From a Staff Correspondent.

"Atlanta, Ga., Feb. 8.-Hundreds of children, scores of whom are not more than 10 years old, and many only 8 and 9, are wearing their little lives away in the cotton mills of Georgia, or growing up to stunted development, in ignorance as dense as that which pervades uncivilized districts of Central Africa. In describing the conditions governing child labor in the cotton mills, I was particularly cautioned not to exaggerate.

"My investigation has proved that exaggeration is practically impossible, for it is difficult to imagine how conditions could be worse. Yet I am told that conditions have improved in recent years. If that be true, what a task it must have been for any clergyman to impress the little ones with the punishment of a life hereafter, unless they were threatened with an eternity in the mill.

"Children ranging in age from less than 10 years upward are working 121⁄2 hours a day for as low as 10 cents

a day. They are often brought up in the mill, lying in improvised cribs behind their toiling mothers. Frequently they narrowly escape being born there.

"Many of the little ones become accustomed to the deafening noise of the machinery before they become familiar with their mothers' faces, and long before they can lisp the name of 'mamma.'

"Amid such surroundings they grow up to take their places in the mill as soon as they are able to do the work.

"Often whole families work together in the mill, the children in one department and the parents in another, but between them they can not eke out more than a scanty living, so low are the wages paid the hands.

"The work of the little children is largely confined to the spinning room, where unremitting attention is required instead of muscle or riper intelligence. In the spinning room are the frames, where the coarser material is spun into fine thread, ready for weaving. The coarse thread unwinds from one spool, passes through a corrugated roller that thins it out and winds up again on another spool. The frames are double, facing both ways, and there are from 75 to 125 spools on each side.

"The frames are separated by a passageway about four feet wide, and the children are kept busy walking up and down this alley watching the spools to see that everything runs smoothly. When the threads break they gather up the ends, unite them by rubbing them between their fingers, and start the spools going again. The children

have to be on their feet almost constantly, and always on the watch for broken threads. The doors and windows are always kept tightly closed, and as a result the air is bad and filled with flying particles of cotton. The majority of the children employed at the spindles are girls, and the effect of the long hours of work and being constantly on their feet is especially noticeable on their health. The health of the children is affected in more ways than one, and their growth and development are stunted.

"The general rate of pay is 10 cents a day for one side of a frame. The child is paid nothing for the two or three weeks that it takes to learn to do the work. When the little one is able to watch one side of a frame she is put on the pay roll, and is entitled to draw coupons good at the company store against her pay. After two or three months she may be able to attend to two sides, and then she gets 20 cents a day. By the time she is 16 or 17 years old she may perhaps be able to take care of four or five sides, if she makes good progress.

"The spools on the frames are changed from empty to full and full to empty by 'dorfing boys.' They are given certain sections to look after, and have enough to keep them busy. Like the girls who watch the threads, their eyes have to be constantly on the spools. They are paid from 25 to 50 cents a day, but generally the lower price.

"The looms in the other part of the mill are operated