guardians may surrender children to such societies for adoption. This makes legal a practice long in vogue but because of which there have been many suits of habeas corpus.

ESTIMATES OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHARITIES FOR 1901.

The provisional estimate of the Charities Department for 1901 was considered by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, Tuesday morning. October 2. The total amounts were: Manhattan and Bronx, $1,466,852.24; Brooklyn and Queens, $905,137.23; Richmond, $43,941.84. Commissioners Keller, Goetting, and Feeny were present to explain the various items included in their budgets, and Dr. George G. Wheelock, Mrs. C. L. Couper, and Mr. Homer Folks represented the State Charities Aid Association, which sent previous to the meeting, to each member of the Board of Estimate and Apportionment, a statement concerning the condition and needs of the various institutions, and the adequacy of the appropriations asked for for 1901. No definite action was taken by the Board. The total amounts requested for the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx for 1901 is $10,387.73 less than was allowed for 1900. This is due to a decrease of $47,850 in the

amount asked for for alterations, additions, and repairs to buildings. An increase of $15,443 was requested for salaries, of $13,919.27 for supplies, of $5,000 for distribution to the blind, and of $3,000 for the burials. of veterans, and headstones. Some interesting statements are made in

the explanation by the Commissioner for the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx of his estimate for 1901, from which the following is quoted: NEW YORK, Sept. 4, 1900.

To the Honorable Board of Estimate and Apportionment:

GENTLEMEN: Results in the Department of Public Charities for the boroughs of Manhattan and the Bronx have been gratifying in the past year. From a mud-hole the Bellevue Hospital grounds have been transformed into stretches of asphalt and grass that not only make the place absolutely clean but, combined with the flowers and newly planted trees, produce the effect of a small but perfectly kept park. Influence of the change has been felt, not alone among the sick people who are cared for in Bellevue Hospital, but among the people that are employed there. A higher tone pervades the hospital throughout. In a less degree the City Hospital on Blackwell's Island shows the same kind of improvement. It has new floors and metal ceilings and improved grounds. The same statement is true of the Almshouse, while the Metropolitan Hospital on Blackwell's Island will have been changed in a little while into one of the most attractive sanatoriums in the Greater New York. Randall's Island is in fine shape, and the Fordham Hospital reaches in excellence the limitations of the construction of the build

ing. The new Gouverneur Hospital is nearly completed, although I can not say when it will be occupied by the Department of Charities, as its equipment is in the hands of the Department of Public Buildings, Lighting, and Supplies. The Munici pal Lodging House for Homeless Men serves adequately the purpose for which it was conceived, and the new pavilion for the insane affords.

It is an interesting fact that in spite of the natural tendency of the new condition of making the Department of Public Charities the supervisor of public moneys expended by private charities, there has been a decrease in the census of more than half the institutions in this department. The city has not paid so much money to private institutions as it did formerly, and yet its own institutions in the year 1900 have not been as crowded as they were in 1899.

This fact is due to three causes. The first is a reform in the method of taking census in the institutions. I am satisfied from my experience in instituting this reform, that for mer carelessness in this particular made the census show a greater number of people than were really in the institutions.

The second cause has been the exercise of a greater care in admitting people to the institutions and a greater firmness in making them. leave the institution after they had been cured of the ills that brought them there.

The third cause is the elimination of prison and pauper labor from the department, which has tended to decrease the census.

And yet, with all the decrease in census, I have taken care of more sick people this year than last. In Bellevue Hospital alone, I have

room,

and into dormitories for

female help. The present Emergency Hospital for maternity is located in an old fire-house on Twenty-sixth street, between Second and Third avenues. It is unfit for the purpose for which it is used. The college building is a splendid structure for maternity purposes. It is well lighted and well ventilated and thoroughly commodious. The first floor can be made into a fine maternity ward, and half of the second floor can be made into a comfortable waiting-room for preg nant women pending delivery.

But a far greater service can be rendered the department by reconstructing this building. For years the great cry against Bellevue Hospital has been its lack of accommodation for its paid help. They have been herded together in cellars and wherever they could find a place to sleep, and every agency investigating the charities of the city has condemned the practice. Nor was this all. Self-respecting working people would not sleep in the quarters furnished for help in Bellevue Hospital. This fact is one of the most potent in keeping the standard of help so low.

I would ask $8,000 with which to build a brick extension, seventy-five by twenty-five feet, to the Industrial School on Randall's Island. Since the Department of Correction ceased to make the hospital clothing for the Department of Charities I have had to do it myself. I find that it is not satisfactory either from an economical standpoint in the actual expenditure of money or from an expeditious standpoint in obtaining clothing, to undertake to attach to each institution a manufacturing bureau.

What I need is a central manufacturing plant for my whole department where the hospital clothing can be cut with intelligence, and made with care and delivered on time.

It is not fair to poor people who are sick to bring them into a hospital and then either not give them clothing or give them such clothing as to make them grotesquely ridiculous in wearing it.

I have already a good industrial school well housed on Randall's Island, but there is not room enough to do all the work of the department. This plant not only would centralize the manufacturing efforts of the department but it would relieve each of the several institutions from the responsibility of trying to make clothes, and from the overcrowding resulting from the inter

APPLICATION OF THE LABOR LAWS.

The application of the Labor Law to the Department of Public Charities is a hard problem to solve. Many judgments have been confessed dur ing the last year against the city in suits under the Labor Law brought by employés in this department. There have been also numerous judicial decisions affecting this matter. For my own part, without assuming to know anything about the intricacies of the legal aspects of the case, I am certain that there is one class of employés in this department that are entitled to the prevailing rate of wages and only eight hours a day service. This class embraces the engineers and firemen of the department. These men have to work as hard for the city as they would for any other employer, and therefore it seems to me that they are entitled to as much compensation from the city as they would have. from any other employer. To show the additional cost to the city by conforming to the Labor Law, as far as engineers and firemen are concerned, I have prepared the following table:

From this it will be seen that it will cost the city an increase of $41,545 to change the existing system to one to conform to the Labor Law. By making this change the city will be the gainer, in that it will not have to board and lodge these men, and also in the improvement of the serv ice. First-class firemen will not work for the wages that we are paying now. The result is that through negligence and carelessness the machinery of the various institutions of the department suffers materially and there is a greater cost for repairs than would be if more compe

be

These buildings, by the way, will valuable a addition to the Department of Public Charities. Two of them are so situated that

they can be used for phthisis patients without endangering other patients by contact with tuberculosis. Here is the solution of one of the hard problems of the department, viz.: a proper place for the isolation of phthisis. The third of these three buildings is practically an addition to the Metropolitan Hospital.

For a long time I have realized that the people in the Almshouse hospitals were not properly treated. In the first place they are housed in buildings that were built for dormitories and not hospitals, and in the second place they are cared for by people who are not trained nurses. By the use of the buildings that will come to this department when the insane quit Blackwell's Island I shall be able to take care of the sick in the Almshouse in properly equipped hospitals and with trained nurses.

The operation of the existing arrangement whereby the Depart ment of Public Charities supervises the expenditures of public

moneys in private institutions will fill up all the hospital room at my command. Therefore it will be readily seen that there is no possibility of reducing the force of employees in this department, and consequently no chance of running the service at less cost than is here estimated.

LODGING HOUSE FOR HOMELESS WOMEN.

The need of a lodging house for homeless women becomes more and more apparent every year. At the present time homeless women and children are lodged in the Municipal Lodging House for Men-not only at the expense of room for accommodation, but under conditions for ventilation, bathing, sleeping, and eating that are not desirable. The present Lodging House for Homeless Men was arranged and equipped No account was taken of the possible necessity of having to lodge homeless women and children.

for men.

It is not necessary that there should be a large independent lodg ing house for homeless women and children with its own equipment, but it is necessary that there should be an annex to the Lodging House for Homeless Men that could accommodate the homeless women and chil dren without bringing them into contact with the men.

WORK FOR WOMEN.

The American Hebrew for September 28 reproduces, under the heading "Work for Women," the poverty map of the ten blocks cast of the Bowery and south of Grand street, published in CHARITIES, September 1, with the with the following comment which will, we trust, bear fruit:

There are numbers of Jewish women in New York who have time

to devote to charitable work if their interest could but be enlisted. There are societies composed of women who can find nothing better to do than to kill time at a Kaffee-Klatsch when meeting day comes around. The sisterhoods and other societies co-operating with the United Hebrew Charities have done some excellent work, but they can not do it all. The accompanying map shows the large amount of work ready to hand, if more women will but come forward and offer to give of their time.

This map tells a story better than columns of figures could do it. Every spot represents five applications for relief either to the United Hebrew Charities or the Charity Organization Society. For the use of this map we are indebted to the editor of CHARITIES.

This is one of a number of maps submitted to the Tenement-House Exhibition last February that attracted wide attention. On this large map, there were colored spots to tell the work of the respective societies, but it is safe to say that the United Hebrew Charities held a monopoly in its color pretty well. This district is in the heart of the Ghetto, yet but two blocks are covered by any sisterhood; the Beth Israel has charge of the two in the upper right hand corner, bounded by Hester and Forsyth streets.

We are sure that Mrs. Wm. Einstein, the energetic president of the Federation of Sisterhoods, will be glad to encourage any women who are ready to devote themselves to the work.

Five ap

words of the prophet Isaiah may be given heed to:

Is not this the fast that I have chosen?

Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house; when thou seest the naked, that thou coverest him and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine health shall spring forth speedily and thy righteousness shall go before thee: the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward.

And if thou draw out thy soul to the hungry, and satisfy the afflicted soul: then shail thy light rise in obscurity, and thy darkness as the noon-day:

And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones, and thou shalt be like a well watered garden.

A Young Men's Christian Association building is now at the disposal of soldiers on Governor's Island. It is thoroughly modern in every respect, and cost $5,000. It is the gift of Mr. Wm. E. Dodge.

Classified Advertisements. Advertisements under this head, two lines or more without display, 5 cents a line.

HE ANNUAL BUSINESS MEETING of the

Charity Organization Society will be held in Room 305, United Charities Building, 105 East Twenty-second street, on Wednesday, October 10, 1905, at 3.30 P. M.

N°

OTICE is hereby given to the Board of Managers, Life Members, Patrons and Annual Members, that pursuant to the by-laws of the Association, the Annual Meeting of the New York Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor will be held in the Trustees' Room of the United Charities Building, 105 East Twenty-second street, Borough of Manhattan, New York, on October 15th, 1900, at half past four o'clock P. M., for the purpose of electing a Board of Managers for the coming year, and the transaction of such other business as may properly come before the meeting. A meeting of the Board of Managers for the election of officers will be held immediately after the Annual Meeting. FRANK TUCKER, General Agent.

TH

HE CHARITY ORGANIZATION SOCIETY, a few days ago, asked the public for a sum sufficient to pay $15 a month, to help two widows, one with three and the other with five children, all under fourteen. The women are faithful and hard working, but find it impossible to support their families on their earnings. In response to the appeal the sum of $138 has been obtained, enough to pay the sum needed for a period of a little more than nine months. An offer has also been received from a friend who offers to be one of three contributors to make up the remainder. The Society will appreciate two favorable responses to this suggestion. If a larger number is received, the sum obtained will be used for the same families in continuing the pension (which will be necessary) beyond the period for which contributions were originally asked.

Any contributions for this purpose sent to the Charity Organization Society, 105 East Twenty-second street, will be duly and publicly acknowledged.