Join the fight to bring back child labour!

Ambrose Shitesworth, guest writer

I was enjoying a quiet evening in my cavernous manor-house yester-night, imbibing a bottle of absinthe and searching the Old Testament for any passages that could be interpreted as a command from the lord on high to horse-whip shabbily dressed individuals, when my tranquility was disturbed by the shrill, skull-splitting sound of children. The sweet, angelic sounds of the great castrato Alessandro Moreschi on the Edison cylinder were nearly drowned out by the high-pitched voice of a neighbour's child who had been allowed out of doors without leash or muzzle. The brief, yet horrific, experience, which repeats itself at random times, prompted me to ask myself why our thimble-headed lawmakers ever thought it in our best interest to rob us of our right to use child labour.

The legality of 12-hour work-days for children must be re-instated. Think of how grand it would be to be able to walk the streets of the town without one's eye being offended by the sight of wretched youngsters skipping and prancing, their idle hands instead occupied by sewing-machines, pick-axes, coal-furnaces, and welding-torches. Think of the drop in prices of consumer goods, as children would naturally be paid less due to their physical inferiority and easily be replaced should they slip and fall into blast-furnaces, clumsy oafs as they are.

Take a moment to consider the obscene amount of resources we waste on sending every child in the Republic to schools. Most of these urchins are the result of general ignorance of the new "rhythm" method of preventing the conception of offspring, born to parents too feeble-minded to track down a reliable abortionist and who care not a whit for the academic achievement of their spawn. Currently, they must, under penalty of law, be sent to schools paid for by landowners such as myself, where public funds are pissed down the shit-hole in a pointless attempt to drill knowledge into their empty heads while they contribute nothing to the betterment of their house-holds, draining their parents' already thin resources. Why must this occur in shanties across the Republic, when their strong young backs could be put to much better use mining coal and their nimble little fingers could be stitching affordable garments, all the while earning a haypenny or so an hour to provide their parents the means to purchase side-meat and flour?

Of course, any legislation that restores the business-man's right to the full use of this vast pool of inexpensive, expendable labour must be free of costly provisions for superfluous "safety" standards, as it is unfair to compel a business-man to assume the cost of ensuring the safety of persons who are naturally clumsy and already prone to accidents.