Review of Rollings Sandra Heavy Burden on Small Shoulders.
Hard farm labor and domestic work characterized the early Canadian Settlement schemes. Farm mechanization was a dream then and thus children contributed to provision of labor for the family. The new settlers life became unbearable due to being ill equipped from their respective homeland places as they come in search of the Promised Land that pledged wealth and serene life. The beguiled and farmers arrived in the Canadian country side only to realize that the government had set them and yet the promised 160 acres of free land had to be attained by proving to the authority that the family labor could be able to settle within three years as well as break ten acres of land in crop production. Consequently, much pressure was put on the family labor and children had to be involved in order to sustain their future inheritance.
The labor intensity tactics and lack of possible way out forced these farmers to be misused by the bankers, merchants and farm input operators who saw an opportunity to exploit. Therefore machinery prices were adjusted at the will of the merchants while the farmers had to contend with obligatory government tariffs. According to Sandra Rollings, the author of Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders, the Canadian government decisively increased the tariffs to 25 for agriculture machinery, 35 for hardware and construction materials, 20 for lumber and shingles and 25 for glass (8). Reflectively, the high cost of machinery as projected by selfish business owners coupled up with the government taxes did increase the hardships of these farmers of the prairies by approximately 40 if we assume that the merchants added a mere 10 cost burden on the settlers.
Worse still the grains companies paid a fixed figure for the produce that attracted high cost of transportation together with instances of faulty underweight machines that promoted extensive cheating and intentional downgrading of the crops quality (8). Probably the treason why the situation got out of hand leading to the call for political representation was that the family set up in the prairies was overstrained and skimmed of all their effort to promote and integrate liberal labor tactics. Precisely, the government of Canada seemingly employed these settlers in order to satisfy its colonial powers in the control of commerce. In so doing the settlers were virtually reduced to slaves together with their children who according to the life constraints at hand had no option of education or decent leisure but to be fully engaged in the production that could sustain their live hood.
Children come in handily for such exterior jobs as taking care of animals and accompanying the deliver of farm inputs and crops thus were freeing the parents and other sources of family labor from petty chores. Intensive work like harvesting incurred the highest rate of labor thus exposing all children intensive work besides their immaturity to undertake such family cares. Though, Sandra jokes with the idea that children could eventually become a source of wealth by acquiring more free land and thus expanding the family territory still the escalated economic status of the day that did not favor land owners and the same hardships that these children faced could always follow these childrens children and a continuous cycle of induced poverty could ensue.
At the same time the author treats women and children as the invisible economic power that never had the opportunity to be paid for their services to which I prefer to defer. Invisibility and payment for labor as such do not connect as enough premises to declare that indeed women and children were in some way mistreated by not receiving remuneration as other farm workers. In stead consideration should be reflected in family life, in that the proceedings from these farm investments were meant for the well being of the family as a whole and therefore if an argument should address the women and children alone still even the men who owned these farms never paid themselves as workers. The male members played the part of being the custodians of the family wealth that the whole family used together for the benefit of the family. The scenario that the author is trying to painting is that the family members should have been left back at home while the male head went along with the workers to till the land and produce a bounty harvest to be shared with non active members of the family. Such a family organization could bring about hatred whereas family work is supposed to be shared as the children also learn tactics about life.
The four categories that the writers suggests to be used in order to determine if these children were working out of their own will or may be by some application of force still do not make sense since all in all work is still work despite the amount and the cause behind that work. Further, the author admits to arbitrary groupings since even the work overlaps to be distinctly defined by the prestigious four groups. For instance the author includes livestock production in the productive labor together with general helping out with farm work while feeding and watering of animals is considered as a subsistence labor and at the same time raising animals and for sale is rated as an entrepreneurial labor activity. Seemingly the order is quite misplaced since rearing of animals fall under all the three categories except some quite confusing categorization that rarely sets apart the said labor division (15).
Consequently, the statistics in table four (16) testifying the break down of the percentage suggesting the division of labor between boys and girls does not therefore qualify as to represent the four suggested types of labor but rather the distribution of gender in two main labor activities namely house work and farm work. The statistics bear witness to my conclusion since 66 of the boys actively engage in labor intensive production whereas a mere 32 of girls come on board. At the same time about 73 of girls are involved in domestic work as opposed to 13 of the boys. Overlapping of work was common especially and a man being called upon to reciprocate in house chores is quite unrealistic since when the women and children were busy with the house work, men were busy designing the procedures of the seasons work since the rest waited for instruction. Therefore the suggestion that men never helped in house work is out of context and even the inclusion of such suggests poor evaluation methods lifestyle in the prairies.
Lifestyle in prairies was awesome with presence of a family that meant that work was shared for the financial success of the family and savings that could otherwise be used to pay hand workers could be turned into useful expenditure as buying family members clothes and other basic needs of life. I acknowledge Sandra Rollings brief overview that children were a fundamental economic stepping step for the Canadian economy during the initials years of settlement and to some extend they are responsible for the commerce success of the colonial Canada. Unlike the paid workers children are much more responsible to oversee immediate rectification of any economic hazard as a natural act of saving the family from financial drain contrary to hired workers who could assume such a situation since only a payment could hire a workers time. Thus a family that had many members could eventually attain sound financial structures at a faster rate than a man who worked alone. This is the reason behind many of the prairies families being composed of over five members to eight and even more. Working children easily acquired the customs and value of farming thus adopting similar lifestyles was simple for them unlike a supposed suggestion that children should have stayed home till a given appropriate age. Experience enabled the qualified children to marry at an early age as fifteen years in readiness to acquire a free farm too and start a family. Soon many farming kinship were created and the numbers were enough to fight for their rights.
Decency versus moral debauchery has been suggested by Sandra Rollings research as the basic advantage that the prairies children had over their town equals who apparently appeared to be weak in body structure and lose in morals as well as unhealthy due to the common town chemical foodstuffs. Farm work imparted a social responsibility in the farm boys and girls as opposed to the suggestion that the prairies wok was a form of unacceptable torture on face value (25). Sandra Rollings presents an argument concerning children and their tribulations during winter in poor shelter that literally left them frozen during cold nights. Lack of housing and children power to supply material for building is a commendable act as long as the weight was manageable and distance covered by feet sizable so as to make the nights comfortable. In the life of a these children the parents are in the same situation as the children and therefore the interpretation of work is quite a family issue.
On the other hand if a town dweller relative visited and witnessed the labor intensive life in the prairies, due to difference in lifestyles the interpretation of work will definitely vary even to the inclusion of torture. Therefore the issue surrounding children labor is definitively diverse and in accordance with the general background of the subject in question. Nevertheless, the building of Sods, rats and other procedural activities are briefly out of context with child labor though the main intention of the author was to elaborate further for the reader to gain understanding of the daily lifestyle (33-35). Unfortunately, Sandra Rollings scope of detail is outstandingly amazing and deep till he gets out of the main theme of children labor and the social forces pushing them and instead emphasizes the routine settlement lifestyle in the prairies. The photography of felling and hauling logs on a sleigh in the winter (36) bears out for my argument since though there is a presence of a child the general landscape activity defines an economic activity and lifestyle but the same does not portray the Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders title that Sandra Rollings choose.
The topic productive labor discusses more about the glaring life realities that followed the settlers and their children as they got their portions of land. Some got rocky areas that were unfavorable for farming. Sandra discuses about the prairies lifestyle as the people struggle with the paradoxes of the unfolding life that was supposed to be a paradise haven of success. Brilliantly, the author exposes the conservative and one sided nature of though among the settlers. The best example could be the Mr. F.N. Krischke whose land portion was too rocky for farming but yet insisted on the idea without prior knowledge to other economic activity that could have made his life easier (46). Thus the power of creativity among the settlers was questionable. A possible explanation for their narrow-minded entrepreneurship was because their society almost equated land to farming. Possibly he could have built better houses to house visitors and locals who had no time to build during the winter by using his terrain advantage.
The visual illustration that accompany the land breaking procession, Clearing brush and breaking the land (47) with a boy sited on a plough is an example that explicitly depicts the settlers hardship to gain financial freedom. The boy is slowly being inducted to the way of life in the hardship hit prairies by the family. Boys seemingly loved to help out their parents in the farm work as a way of attaining some form of appraisal worthiness and probably the most admired boy in the locality must have possessed strength and hard work reputation for a girl to be confident about her future with him as potential husband and father to her children. Moreover, even girls had to show off in their ability to make a painstaking husband. Parents participated ridiculously in the brainwashing of children to accepting of hard labor as the only solution to financial freedom in order to maintain rural literature and lifestyles that insisted on the value of farming as the everlasting family investment and future ancestral occupation.
Sandra Rollings introduces the entrepreneurial labor with reverent attribute of skilled labor that many settlers engaged in the hope to raise the 500 requirement before accessing the propose 160acres farming activity. The author delves into the lifestyle of the settlers and their troubles to achieve a fair financial status but in vain due to the strictly controlled market whose prices were controlled by cartel-like exploitative business agencies. Otherwise the rest of the chapter about entrepreneurial work weakly identifies the supposed place of children in the labor sector. Exploitation of the farmers is discussed at length and particularly the inability of farmers to break even due to malicious business traditions that made fool of the early investment vehicles like a pig farmer selling a pig at 2 a price far less than the maintenance fee. A wages earner would wind up wasting more by investing and therefore the exploitative commerce system forced the settlers to adopt the usage of children labor to produce just enough food to last the winter season in order to escape agony of never settling down for lack of financial stability.
Therefore children formed a basic human resource asset that many families sought to have big families in order to make work easier and more favorable. Out of the cultural affiliation and desire to provide for their family children who were employed always sent virtually all their few coins back to their families. Hunting was a common free source of food yet preposterously the governments one cent bounty on every killed rodent was turned into a lucrative business activity. Nevertheless, Sandra usually gets carried away by pass by one topic that the intended theme of the entrepreneur labor gets diluted and forgotten mid way. The gopher history has taken an inappropriately four pages that could have been delved into informing us more about child labor.
The author Sandra should have reduced the pages of the book from unnecessary descriptions that successively make the book lose touch of the vivid picture of its main topic. I believe that once the key point has been pointed out much of the breaking down into subsistence labor is unnecessary because the information covered so far is much enough for a mind to reconstruct pieces of home life together. Gendered roles are easily divided into muscle intensive labor for boys and their fathers while common household chores attract the meticulous nature of the girls and their mother. Cooking was a feminine role and women took it upon themselves to train girls on home cleanliness and laundry (115). Therefore the feminine call for a man help in cooking is purely unfounded and discriminative as though trying to force equality even in sectors that the society is already organized on by default. Unsurprisingly boys are rarely trained to cook and wash utensils and therefore the kitchen environment might be quite green for their performance.
Washing and laundry required the master of the feminine power an d some muscle was welcomed so that fetching and drawing if water was a common occurrence. At the same time the collection of fire wood and other fuel sources were organized b y the gendered system that to a large extend made lives comfortable for the whole family as a family responsibility. Some instances have recorded the involvement of boys in heavy family washing process due to the amount of physical work required in due time.
Childhood dominant culture that parents induced their children to affected their overall reaction to being involved in other house chores later in life. For instance if a family participated in blanket washing experiences that invited the father to help out during the wringing process the children could adopt that culture to their later lives while if the father viewed the same experience as a womans job the same traits influenced the children. Young boys did help in the general house cleaning work.
Basically the home keeping training in conjunction with sewing of clothes was common with the girls but for boys mending of fences was universal. The skills the children of the prairies leaned were strictly for their own survival and could soon be overcome in presence of more and easily accessible credit that could allow the financial broke society to be transformed. Child care is a universal common task for both genders as a source of more wealth and labor once these children grew. First aid lesson were passed on during such conceivable moments of care for the young as a way to creating lasting habits that could be mimicked later in life.
In conclusion Sandra Rollings quantity of research is outstandingly disclosing about the lifestyles that defined the settlers of the Canadian prairies and their children. The challenges family life faced in the environment is best dealt with than the proclaimed children labor difficulties. As such most of the children presented in the research seem to be readily disposed to engaging in family economic activities that defined their whole life both then and their latter lives that were to be duplicated as their parents lives. Therefore children took it upon themselves to understand the basic life guiding principles that we effective as to lead successful life in the prairies. The author is successful in providing an insight into the types of labor intensive activities that children engaged though sometimes too much of information on unnecessary aspects of life did taint the expectations of the theme thus rendering the book a bit boring to reading. Overall the authors intention was successful in the exposure of the constraints and hardships that the Canadian prairies settlers went through together with their children as a source of labor.
Hard farm labor and domestic work characterized the early Canadian Settlement schemes. Farm mechanization was a dream then and thus children contributed to provision of labor for the family. The new settlers life became unbearable due to being ill equipped from their respective homeland places as they come in search of the Promised Land that pledged wealth and serene life. The beguiled and farmers arrived in the Canadian country side only to realize that the government had set them and yet the promised 160 acres of free land had to be attained by proving to the authority that the family labor could be able to settle within three years as well as break ten acres of land in crop production. Consequently, much pressure was put on the family labor and children had to be involved in order to sustain their future inheritance.
The labor intensity tactics and lack of possible way out forced these farmers to be misused by the bankers, merchants and farm input operators who saw an opportunity to exploit. Therefore machinery prices were adjusted at the will of the merchants while the farmers had to contend with obligatory government tariffs. According to Sandra Rollings, the author of Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders, the Canadian government decisively increased the tariffs to 25 for agriculture machinery, 35 for hardware and construction materials, 20 for lumber and shingles and 25 for glass (8). Reflectively, the high cost of machinery as projected by selfish business owners coupled up with the government taxes did increase the hardships of these farmers of the prairies by approximately 40 if we assume that the merchants added a mere 10 cost burden on the settlers.
Worse still the grains companies paid a fixed figure for the produce that attracted high cost of transportation together with instances of faulty underweight machines that promoted extensive cheating and intentional downgrading of the crops quality (8). Probably the treason why the situation got out of hand leading to the call for political representation was that the family set up in the prairies was overstrained and skimmed of all their effort to promote and integrate liberal labor tactics. Precisely, the government of Canada seemingly employed these settlers in order to satisfy its colonial powers in the control of commerce. In so doing the settlers were virtually reduced to slaves together with their children who according to the life constraints at hand had no option of education or decent leisure but to be fully engaged in the production that could sustain their live hood.
Children come in handily for such exterior jobs as taking care of animals and accompanying the deliver of farm inputs and crops thus were freeing the parents and other sources of family labor from petty chores. Intensive work like harvesting incurred the highest rate of labor thus exposing all children intensive work besides their immaturity to undertake such family cares. Though, Sandra jokes with the idea that children could eventually become a source of wealth by acquiring more free land and thus expanding the family territory still the escalated economic status of the day that did not favor land owners and the same hardships that these children faced could always follow these childrens children and a continuous cycle of induced poverty could ensue.
At the same time the author treats women and children as the invisible economic power that never had the opportunity to be paid for their services to which I prefer to defer. Invisibility and payment for labor as such do not connect as enough premises to declare that indeed women and children were in some way mistreated by not receiving remuneration as other farm workers. In stead consideration should be reflected in family life, in that the proceedings from these farm investments were meant for the well being of the family as a whole and therefore if an argument should address the women and children alone still even the men who owned these farms never paid themselves as workers. The male members played the part of being the custodians of the family wealth that the whole family used together for the benefit of the family. The scenario that the author is trying to painting is that the family members should have been left back at home while the male head went along with the workers to till the land and produce a bounty harvest to be shared with non active members of the family. Such a family organization could bring about hatred whereas family work is supposed to be shared as the children also learn tactics about life.
The four categories that the writers suggests to be used in order to determine if these children were working out of their own will or may be by some application of force still do not make sense since all in all work is still work despite the amount and the cause behind that work. Further, the author admits to arbitrary groupings since even the work overlaps to be distinctly defined by the prestigious four groups. For instance the author includes livestock production in the productive labor together with general helping out with farm work while feeding and watering of animals is considered as a subsistence labor and at the same time raising animals and for sale is rated as an entrepreneurial labor activity. Seemingly the order is quite misplaced since rearing of animals fall under all the three categories except some quite confusing categorization that rarely sets apart the said labor division (15).
Consequently, the statistics in table four (16) testifying the break down of the percentage suggesting the division of labor between boys and girls does not therefore qualify as to represent the four suggested types of labor but rather the distribution of gender in two main labor activities namely house work and farm work. The statistics bear witness to my conclusion since 66 of the boys actively engage in labor intensive production whereas a mere 32 of girls come on board. At the same time about 73 of girls are involved in domestic work as opposed to 13 of the boys. Overlapping of work was common especially and a man being called upon to reciprocate in house chores is quite unrealistic since when the women and children were busy with the house work, men were busy designing the procedures of the seasons work since the rest waited for instruction. Therefore the suggestion that men never helped in house work is out of context and even the inclusion of such suggests poor evaluation methods lifestyle in the prairies.
Lifestyle in prairies was awesome with presence of a family that meant that work was shared for the financial success of the family and savings that could otherwise be used to pay hand workers could be turned into useful expenditure as buying family members clothes and other basic needs of life. I acknowledge Sandra Rollings brief overview that children were a fundamental economic stepping step for the Canadian economy during the initials years of settlement and to some extend they are responsible for the commerce success of the colonial Canada. Unlike the paid workers children are much more responsible to oversee immediate rectification of any economic hazard as a natural act of saving the family from financial drain contrary to hired workers who could assume such a situation since only a payment could hire a workers time. Thus a family that had many members could eventually attain sound financial structures at a faster rate than a man who worked alone. This is the reason behind many of the prairies families being composed of over five members to eight and even more. Working children easily acquired the customs and value of farming thus adopting similar lifestyles was simple for them unlike a supposed suggestion that children should have stayed home till a given appropriate age. Experience enabled the qualified children to marry at an early age as fifteen years in readiness to acquire a free farm too and start a family. Soon many farming kinship were created and the numbers were enough to fight for their rights.
Decency versus moral debauchery has been suggested by Sandra Rollings research as the basic advantage that the prairies children had over their town equals who apparently appeared to be weak in body structure and lose in morals as well as unhealthy due to the common town chemical foodstuffs. Farm work imparted a social responsibility in the farm boys and girls as opposed to the suggestion that the prairies wok was a form of unacceptable torture on face value (25). Sandra Rollings presents an argument concerning children and their tribulations during winter in poor shelter that literally left them frozen during cold nights. Lack of housing and children power to supply material for building is a commendable act as long as the weight was manageable and distance covered by feet sizable so as to make the nights comfortable. In the life of a these children the parents are in the same situation as the children and therefore the interpretation of work is quite a family issue.
On the other hand if a town dweller relative visited and witnessed the labor intensive life in the prairies, due to difference in lifestyles the interpretation of work will definitely vary even to the inclusion of torture. Therefore the issue surrounding children labor is definitively diverse and in accordance with the general background of the subject in question. Nevertheless, the building of Sods, rats and other procedural activities are briefly out of context with child labor though the main intention of the author was to elaborate further for the reader to gain understanding of the daily lifestyle (33-35). Unfortunately, Sandra Rollings scope of detail is outstandingly amazing and deep till he gets out of the main theme of children labor and the social forces pushing them and instead emphasizes the routine settlement lifestyle in the prairies. The photography of felling and hauling logs on a sleigh in the winter (36) bears out for my argument since though there is a presence of a child the general landscape activity defines an economic activity and lifestyle but the same does not portray the Heavy Burdens on Small Shoulders title that Sandra Rollings choose.
The topic productive labor discusses more about the glaring life realities that followed the settlers and their children as they got their portions of land. Some got rocky areas that were unfavorable for farming. Sandra discuses about the prairies lifestyle as the people struggle with the paradoxes of the unfolding life that was supposed to be a paradise haven of success. Brilliantly, the author exposes the conservative and one sided nature of though among the settlers. The best example could be the Mr. F.N. Krischke whose land portion was too rocky for farming but yet insisted on the idea without prior knowledge to other economic activity that could have made his life easier (46). Thus the power of creativity among the settlers was questionable. A possible explanation for their narrow-minded entrepreneurship was because their society almost equated land to farming. Possibly he could have built better houses to house visitors and locals who had no time to build during the winter by using his terrain advantage.
The visual illustration that accompany the land breaking procession, Clearing brush and breaking the land (47) with a boy sited on a plough is an example that explicitly depicts the settlers hardship to gain financial freedom. The boy is slowly being inducted to the way of life in the hardship hit prairies by the family. Boys seemingly loved to help out their parents in the farm work as a way of attaining some form of appraisal worthiness and probably the most admired boy in the locality must have possessed strength and hard work reputation for a girl to be confident about her future with him as potential husband and father to her children. Moreover, even girls had to show off in their ability to make a painstaking husband. Parents participated ridiculously in the brainwashing of children to accepting of hard labor as the only solution to financial freedom in order to maintain rural literature and lifestyles that insisted on the value of farming as the everlasting family investment and future ancestral occupation.
Sandra Rollings introduces the entrepreneurial labor with reverent attribute of skilled labor that many settlers engaged in the hope to raise the 500 requirement before accessing the propose 160acres farming activity. The author delves into the lifestyle of the settlers and their troubles to achieve a fair financial status but in vain due to the strictly controlled market whose prices were controlled by cartel-like exploitative business agencies. Otherwise the rest of the chapter about entrepreneurial work weakly identifies the supposed place of children in the labor sector. Exploitation of the farmers is discussed at length and particularly the inability of farmers to break even due to malicious business traditions that made fool of the early investment vehicles like a pig farmer selling a pig at 2 a price far less than the maintenance fee. A wages earner would wind up wasting more by investing and therefore the exploitative commerce system forced the settlers to adopt the usage of children labor to produce just enough food to last the winter season in order to escape agony of never settling down for lack of financial stability.
Therefore children formed a basic human resource asset that many families sought to have big families in order to make work easier and more favorable. Out of the cultural affiliation and desire to provide for their family children who were employed always sent virtually all their few coins back to their families. Hunting was a common free source of food yet preposterously the governments one cent bounty on every killed rodent was turned into a lucrative business activity. Nevertheless, Sandra usually gets carried away by pass by one topic that the intended theme of the entrepreneur labor gets diluted and forgotten mid way. The gopher history has taken an inappropriately four pages that could have been delved into informing us more about child labor.
The author Sandra should have reduced the pages of the book from unnecessary descriptions that successively make the book lose touch of the vivid picture of its main topic. I believe that once the key point has been pointed out much of the breaking down into subsistence labor is unnecessary because the information covered so far is much enough for a mind to reconstruct pieces of home life together. Gendered roles are easily divided into muscle intensive labor for boys and their fathers while common household chores attract the meticulous nature of the girls and their mother. Cooking was a feminine role and women took it upon themselves to train girls on home cleanliness and laundry (115). Therefore the feminine call for a man help in cooking is purely unfounded and discriminative as though trying to force equality even in sectors that the society is already organized on by default. Unsurprisingly boys are rarely trained to cook and wash utensils and therefore the kitchen environment might be quite green for their performance.
Washing and laundry required the master of the feminine power an d some muscle was welcomed so that fetching and drawing if water was a common occurrence. At the same time the collection of fire wood and other fuel sources were organized b y the gendered system that to a large extend made lives comfortable for the whole family as a family responsibility. Some instances have recorded the involvement of boys in heavy family washing process due to the amount of physical work required in due time.
Childhood dominant culture that parents induced their children to affected their overall reaction to being involved in other house chores later in life. For instance if a family participated in blanket washing experiences that invited the father to help out during the wringing process the children could adopt that culture to their later lives while if the father viewed the same experience as a womans job the same traits influenced the children. Young boys did help in the general house cleaning work.
Basically the home keeping training in conjunction with sewing of clothes was common with the girls but for boys mending of fences was universal. The skills the children of the prairies leaned were strictly for their own survival and could soon be overcome in presence of more and easily accessible credit that could allow the financial broke society to be transformed. Child care is a universal common task for both genders as a source of more wealth and labor once these children grew. First aid lesson were passed on during such conceivable moments of care for the young as a way to creating lasting habits that could be mimicked later in life.
In conclusion Sandra Rollings quantity of research is outstandingly disclosing about the lifestyles that defined the settlers of the Canadian prairies and their children. The challenges family life faced in the environment is best dealt with than the proclaimed children labor difficulties. As such most of the children presented in the research seem to be readily disposed to engaging in family economic activities that defined their whole life both then and their latter lives that were to be duplicated as their parents lives. Therefore children took it upon themselves to understand the basic life guiding principles that we effective as to lead successful life in the prairies. The author is successful in providing an insight into the types of labor intensive activities that children engaged though sometimes too much of information on unnecessary aspects of life did taint the expectations of the theme thus rendering the book a bit boring to reading. Overall the authors intention was successful in the exposure of the constraints and hardships that the Canadian prairies settlers went through together with their children as a source of labor.
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