The return revealed a surprising variety of occupations followed by these children--about 200 different kinds in all.
HOURS PER WEEK NUMBER OF CHILDREN Under 10 39,355 10-20 60,268 21-30 27,008 31-40 9,778 41-50 2,390 51-60 576 61-70 142 71-80 59 Over 81 16 Not stated 4,434 ------- Total 144,026
The number of hours per week devoted by these children to the various employments will be found in the above table; it should be remembered that these hours were given to work in addition to the time spent at school.[30]
It was recognized that the figures given by this parliamentary return did not represent the real situation, but nevertheless its revelations were sufficiently startling to show the need of further investigation. Accordingly in 1901 there was appointed an interdepartmental committee which after careful study reported that the figures in the parliamentary return were well within the actual numbers, but that the facts it contained were substantially correct.[31] This committee estimated the total number of children who were both in attendance at school and in paid employments in England and Wales at 300,000;[32] it declared that cases of excessive employment were "sufficiently numerous to leave no doubt that a substantial number of children are being worked to an injurious extent."[33]
Referring to the amount of time devoted by the children to gainful employment outside of school, the committee reported, "On a review of the evidence we consider it is proved that in England and Wales a substantial number of children, amounting probably to 50,000, are being worked more than twenty hours a week in addition to twenty-seven and one-half hours at school, that a considerable proportion of this number are being worked to thirty or forty and some even to fifty hours a week, and that the effect of this work is in many cases detrimental to their health, their morals and their education, besides being often so unremitting as to deprive them of all reasonable opportunity for recreation. For an evil so serious, existing on so large a scale, we think that some remedy ought to be found."[34] The committee estimated the total number of children selling newspapers and in street hawking at 25,000.[35]