We+are+destroying+our++children

Of course the children in poor families have always worked to survive. But the days are longer and harder then anytime before. The lucky ones gets a job as an apprentice in a trade, the other ones get jobs on farms or in factories. In the spinning factories the children is set to crawl underneath the machines or work in coalmines. We know of children who are just five years old, who work down in the mines for 12 hours a day. In the textile mills, children are forced to clean the machines while they are still running. Many get killed. A very dangerous job is chimney sweeping; the boys get covered in soot, hurt and sometimes they get stuck and die. This was forbidden in 1832, but the law has not been followed. Children who work in factories, mills, mines ore work as chimney sweeps die every day. Yesterday there were three children in a spinning factory and two chimney sweep boys that died. And they are just the ones that we know of. And there are now too many orphans in the streets. They are starving, sick and no one cares for them. Not many survive for long. They do not wish to be in the horrible workhouses. The age of mortality is just about 22 years for people in the working class. In some places the life expectancy is only 13. This is very alarming. Last year almost half of the funerals were conducted for children. We know that over 50 % of all children die before they can see their first birthday. The poor children are not the only ones that die. The rich children are so inactive that they can get sick by just being out of the house. And their education is so short and often so bad that they can hardly be able to take good care of our country. We do not even know if the educated ones will survive. So many children of our children get sick now. There is the whooping cough, tuberculosis and cholera. Even the water is not safe to drink. Something must be done. We must start treating the children better, ore there will be none left.