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Cr9ek, 3 and reports tell us other farms are the sacs. Children from four years
fields during the summer and then are shipped down to the ooast of Carolina
Island, S.C. (See photos and labels 840, 841, and 943), Fluff ton, S.C.,
Miss, during winter of 1907-8. The children were then, - 1, 3, 6, 8 and 9 years of age. The baby had to ba oared for in the shed where they worked because tha company permitted xk no one to stay at home to care for it. The 3 year old helped 3ome. The rest worked regularly (see photo, 824. These children were 2 years younger then.) They were routed out of their beds by the boas at 3 A.M. and worked until about 4 xk P.M. They say that the children had to work in order to give the family a living wage. The agents, that hired them represented conditions much better than they turned out to be. Wages as were lower and were irregular. The most the father auto made was |6.00 a week. Their transportation paid and they had free rent (in shacks where they were huddled like sheep.) They had to be very careful to "stand in" with the Company or lose their transportation back and be subject to many inconveniences; perhaps be out of work and evicted with no alternatives of work. They bought supplies and food of the Company Store where exorbitant prioss were charged for poor food. The Overseer and the Sheriff jailed them on slightest provocation, when it meant 125.00 a piec9 for "costs'* to get out. They were cheated in the weighing and measuring of oysters and fired on various pretexts.
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When they reached the South, they were in debt and it took some time to get paid off. Then, the \7ork was so irregular and they had the grippe - then the company took high pay for the company doctor out of their wages.) They returned to Baltimore in spring with no money ahead. The children had absolutely xaas no sskai schooling.
sjohn Meishell, a Bohemian, 830 Hartford Ave. Baltimore, went, with wife and 5 children to work at oystar shucking (for Peerless Oyster Co.) at Bay St. Louis,