> Children worked in factories because they were easier to exploit and the families who were getting exploited were desperate enough to send their children to work, because it was legal.

So what was the alternative, in your view? Force them to return to the countryside and engage in backbreaking agricultural labor, the very thing they sought to escape by turning to factory work in the cities? Or worse, to “infest the country as vagabonds, beggars, tramps, robbers and prostitutes”? You seem to have an inexcusably rosy picture of the economic realities of history. You would deprive these children of their only source of livelihood and hang them out to dry.

> How about actually thinking through the logic of the situation from the actors involved rather than basing your opinion on assumptions and nonsense.

Thinking through the logic of the situation from the actors involved is precisely what I'm doing and what you seem to be avoiding. My statement (not opinion) is based on an understanding of the harsh realities of history and economics which you seem to lack.