Perspective

Paladin put together a video slideshow of child labor from a century ago, back before that was made illegal. The reason it was made illegal, actually. Different world, and it shows how much progress we've made in 100 years.

That got me thinking [Uh oh! Blame Paladin ... - ed.] about how attitudes have changed since those days. The Titanic sank in April 1912, just about the same time Paladin's pictures were taken. This was back in the days of "Women and Children first," when a Gentleman could be shunned by polite society for a shameful failure to uphold that code. The Titanic's owner, Bruce Ismay, suffered this fate; surviving the disaster, be was excluded from polite society for the remainder of his days.

Except "Women and Children first" meant "Upper Class Women and Children first." The Titanic had three classes (First, Second, and Third). A higher percentage of First Class men (Gentlemen, really) survived than Third Class children. As Walter Lord wrote in "The Night Lives On" (the sequel to his classic "A Night To Remember"):

The White Star Line always claimed that the only rule was "Women and children first"; there was absolutely no distinction, the line insisted, between First, Second, and Third Class passengers.

Both the American and British investigations agreed, and Mr. W.D. Harbinson, who officially represented Third Class at the British Inquiry, emphatically concurred:

"I wish to say distinctly that no evidence has been given that would substantiate a charge that any attempt was made to keep back the third class passengers. There is not an atom or a tittle of evidence upon which any such allegation could be based ..."

Yet there remained those uncomfortable statistics: 53% of First and Second Class passengers saved, but only 25% of Third Class ... 94% of First and Second Class women and children saved, but only 42% of those in Third Class. In First Class just one child was lost - little Lorraine Allison, whose family decided to stick together - while in Third Class, 52 out of 79 children were lost - about the same percentage as First Class men.

Nobody really thought twice about this at the time - even the Third Class passengers seemed to think that this was normal. Life was cheap in a way that it simply isn't today.