Gwak! It has struck a chord... What about skipping it? Not possible? Why is that? Okay, Okay, I'll do it... But reluctantly, remember this...

Authors and Child Labour, Children's living conditions

The hellish life of children described by Dickens

They could... oh, well, work something like 12 or 16 hours a day, for something like 6 pennies a day. Nothing, so to say. Some of them  lived in an absolute poverty, neglected by their parents, without parents, alone in the streets.

It will be significant enough, I think, to just go on with the texts, as it's described in it how it was.

This article will be a combo of two presentation, "Child labour" and " Children's living conditions".

Victor Hugo ( a french author ) dealt with it in Les Misérables ( english version ). But, well, since it's a translation, it will be hard to do a proper analysis of  it... I'll do what I can.

---

Les Misérables

 

Eight or nine years later after the events narrated in the second part of this story, people noticed [...]

I'll add the exact extract if ever I manage to find it.

[...] The cell next to it was occupied by a very poor young man who was called M. Marius.

Let us explain who this M. Marius was.

Here, things such as poverty is described, has the child is "muffled up" in adult clothes, surely the only thing he could find for free by himself as a protection against the cold and the rain.

It seems that no one cared about him: "The pavements were less hard to him than his mother's heart". His parents were alives, but they just got rid of him. He probably was too expensive to feed.

A repetition of "no", before words such as "shelter", "bread", "fire", and "love", is the most simple summary of his poverty.

Charles Dickens too treated this aspect of children's lives, as in Oliver Twist, where he described the daily life of Oliver when he is starving in a workhouse.

---

Oliver Twist

The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at mealtimes. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and no more--except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two ounces and a quarter of bread besides.

The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed him. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to Oliver Twist.

The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbours nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

'Please, sir, I want some more.'

The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupified astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys with fear.

'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.

'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'

The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

---

 

This extract of Dickens' work shows with an important share of irony and a large lexical field of hunger ( "voracious", "hungry eye" ) what were the living  conditions for poor people and specially children.

Oh, and just to say, Marc Twain too wrote about it in Huckleberry Finn.

Well, things changed but child labour is still a reality, even if now it's less important than before in the developed countries... Still, in the poorer countries, things aren't going that well: