Little Laborers of New York City -- C.L. Brace

walking do not keep them from these schools. In the various night schools of the Children's Aid Society will be found hundreds of little ones from six to thirteen who have been working very hard the whole day, and who are now just as eager to learn their little tasks. Their occupations are innumerable. Thus we learn from a recent report from one of the society's visitors that at the school at 98 Crosby Street "there were some hundred children. Their occupations were as follows: They put up insect powder, drive wagons, tend oyster saloons; are tinsmiths, engravers, office-boys; in type-foundries, at screws, in blacksmith shops; make cigars, polish, work at packing tobacco; in barber shops, at paper stands; are cash-boys, light porters, make artificial flowers, work at hair; are errand-boys, make ink, are in Singer's sewing-machine factory, and printing-offices; some post bills, some are paint scrapers, some peddlers; they pack snuff, attend poultry stands at market, in shoe stores and hat stores, tend stands, and help painters and carpenters.

"At the Fifth Ward School (No. 141 Hudson Street) were fifty boys and girls. One of them, speaking of her occupation, said: 'I work at feathers, cutting the feathers from cocks' tails. It is a very busy time now. They took in forty new hands to-day. I get three dollars and fifty cents a week. Next, I'll get more. I go to work at eight o'clock, and leave off at six. The feathers are cut from the stem, then steamed, and curled, and packed. They are sent then to Paris, but more South and West.' One boy said he worked at twisting twine; another drove a 'hoisting-horse;' another blacked boots, etc.

"At the Eleventh Ward School, foot of East Eleventh Street, there was an interesting class of boys and girls under thirteen years of age. One boy said he was employed during the day in making chains of beads, and says that a number of the boys and girls present are in the same business. Another said he worked at coloring maps. Another blows an organ for a music-teacher.

"At the Lord School, No. 207 Greenwich Street, the occupations of the girls were working in hair, stripping tobacco, crochet, folding paper collars, house-work, tending baby, putting up parcels."

Among the institutions of this society for the education of working children should not be forgotten the Girls' Lodging-House, at No. 27 St. Mark's Place. Here a gratuitous "Sewing-machine School" was opened a few years since, the manufacturers supplying machines gratuitously, and any destitute girl, whether a lodger in the house or not, can be trained here to be an "operator." It is found often that a poor half-starved girl will enter this school, and if bright in learning the business, will in three weeks go out and earn from a dollar to two dollars a day in operating on a machine. The fact is a remarkable one in an econom-