"WHITE SLAVERY" IN SICILY.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XXVI, Issue 4079, 28 February 1894, Page 6

"WHITE SLAVERY" IN SICILY.

The excessive taxation which has led to the popular riots in Sicily is not the only ill that afflicts that classic land. In a letter addressed to 'The Times' of December 1 the Countess of Meath translates an article from an Italian paper on child labor at the Sicilian sulphur mines. From this it appears :—: — 1. That children are to all intents and purposes sold by their parents as beasts of burden to the miners for the sum of lOOfr to 150fr, 2. That, although it is illegal to employ children of such tender age, little lads of eight or nine years are sometimes set to work, and are kept at this labor up to the age of fifteen or even eighteen years. 3. That the children receive fifty centimes a day and often less, paid in flour of an inferior kind and at a high price, and they cannot be released until they buy themselves out of captivity by restoring the sum originally given for them. 4. That the carusi, as these little unfortunates are called, are subjected to hard and unnatural work for children of their years. Employed in the mines during the day, they have to sleep down in the mines, without proper accommodation, six out of seven days in the week. 5. That if they attempt to escape from such slavery they are liable to cruel treatment One lad was said to have been beaten to death, another to have died in consequence of a kick in the stomach. No action seems to have been taken to punish these crimes. Is it, therefore, to be wondered at if, after being subjected day after day, year after year, to toil and hard treatment, these wretched carusi are described as being stunted in growth and bow-legged, with bent shoulders and hollow eyes, with lines furrowed on their brows of premature care ? Neither can it be a matter of surprise to learn that, as the children toiled up the dark, steep, slippery steps leading out of the depths of the mine with loads on their heads, their moans were piteous to listen to. One fair-haired lad was seen, exhausted with toil, squatting on a step, with the big tears running from his blue eyes down his hollow, pallid cheeks. What a picture of child misery is this ! Where is Italy's Lord Shaftesbury to put a stop to such* terrible scenes, representing an amount of misery hard to realise in its intensity ? However, even supposing a Lord Shaftesbury be lacking, the Italians possess, as we do, a good and gracious queen. Surely if the cry of these poor children could reach her ears her mother's heart would be touched. We English cannot afford to approach a, subject like this in a self-righteous spirit, for our Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children has brought terrible facts to light occurring amongst our own people. Humanity, however, recognises no difference in nationalities, and, whether drunken parents torment their offspring in the slums of our great cities, or whether hard-hearted miners"in the wilds of Sicily are ill-using children and crushing all hope and happinesß out of their lives, we ought surely to be ready to come to their rescue. I appeal therefore to you, sir, to be good enough to assist in this matter, in the name of that helpless child who was silently weeping under a physical and mental burden too heavy to rest upon young shoulders, and in that of his companions in woe. If the facts stated in the Italian paper be untrue let them be at once disproved.