Social Conditions in Italy.

White Ribbon, Volume 2, Issue 20, 1 February 1897, Page 5

Social Conditions in Italy.

According to an Italian lady who writes in a recent issue of one of her national magazines, a Mrs Browning is needed to make audible the “ cry of the children,” in the land of the “ Sunny South.” J uvenile crime, depravity, and destitution, says Signora Marsille, are rampant, not only in the crowded towns and cities, but also in the rural districts. Each year from 5000 to 6000 criminals are dealt with in the law courts, and of these few indeed reform. The conditions of child labour are appalling. In the sulphur mines of Sicily are “ boys of eight and ten, unrestrained by any factory act, who, without even a shirt on their backs, run along the narrow passages of the mines, and up the steep gradients to the pits’ mouths bearing heavy bags of sulphur on their shoulder,and m tke their dinner off bits of black bread whu ii they dip in the stinking oil of the hand lamps that light them through the darkness ”