lewd language, and the remedy for these, unceasing inspection, and firm, wise, but kind rule, administered by women of strict integrity and dignity."

As to the remedies, one is, as Mrs. Holt says, the appointment of officers of such a character and in such number as to render a severe discipline possible. This, however, would not suffice. It is necessary, to prevent the contamination of the younger prisoners, to remove them from association with the more hardened. You will remember that in July, 1887, I made a report to you upon the work-house, and that you thereupon ordered that the following letter should be addressed to the Mayor:

STATE OF NEW YORK:

OFFICE OF THE STATE BOARD OF CHARITIES,}

ALBANY, August 12, 1887.

To His Honor the Mayor of the City of New York:

SIR.- We deem it our duty to lay before you the facts which have been reported to us concerning the work-house on Blackwell's Island, and to ask that you will cause to be prepared for the next session of the Legislature, a bill to enable the authorities of New York to establish two reformatories for adults (one for men and one for women) in or near the city, as this course seems to be the only possible remedy for the evils described in the accompanying report.

We would respectfully suggest that the proposed reformatories should be established upon somewhat the same principles which govern the State Reformatory at Elmira, and the House of Refuge for Women at Hudson. That is, the ages of the inmates should be limited; the sentences should be indeterminate; there should be different grades in the institutions; and the managers should have power to discharge inmates, on probation or finally, according to their moral improvement.

The managers, we think, should be unpaid and appointed by the mayor, and the managers and all the officers of the reformatory for women should be women.

By direction of the Board.

CHAS. S. HOYT,

Secretary.

No steps having been taken to carry out your recommendation, and the work-house continuing in almost the same condition that it was eighteen months since, I desire again to call your attention to it, and to make some suggestions which may tend to diminish some of the great evils which it now entails upon the community. As I have said, the work-house is a disgrace to the city, and an unfit place for the retention of any persons of vicious or criminal tendencies, but there is no doubt that it is worse morally, and more unwise as a matter of public policy, to commit young men and women to it, than such as have already become confirmed in degradation. During the ten months from January, 1888, to November, 1888, there were (according to the following table [No. I,] furnished me by the Superintendent):

TABLE I.

From 20 to 25 years

From 26 to 30 years

Over 30 years...

From 20 to 25 years

From 26 to 30 years

Over 30 years..

Total males and females

Total admissions, 19,147; committed by justices, 17,176 or 89.70 per cent; committed by commissioners, 1,971 or 10.29 per cent.

Seven hundred and thirty-eight commitments of boys under twenty years of age to the work-house, and 205 commitments of girls under twenty during the same time. Even allowing for several recommitments, this must represent at least 400 boys and 100 girls, sentenced for the first time to the contaminating influences of the work-house, such as they were described in my last report, on the authority of the superintendent and matron.

According to the same table, nine per cent of these were sentenced for five days or less, thirty-six per cent for from six to ten days, twenty-two per cent for more than ten days but less than one month, that is, sixty-seven per cent of all these young creatures received a sentence which meant simply a contamination without even the countervailing advantage of a severe punishment, which a sentence of six months or a year would have seemed to them to be.

The fruitlessness of these frequent short sentences is made clear by the Tables II and III, also furnished by the Superintendent of the Work-house, and they can not fail to convince anyone of the wickedness and folly of the course now pursued by the city of New York towards its minor offenders and able-bodied paupers.

The following table (No. II) shows that of 12,521 men admitted during the year 1887, 4,837 or thirty-eight per cent confessed themselves to be "rounders," that is, to have been more than once before at the work-house, while of the 10,079 women admitted during the year, 7,731 or seventy-six per cent were of this class:

TABLE II.

"Rounders" for the year ending December 31, 1887.