to consider the Jews as a distinct nationality. To state that there are in a certain district a certain percentage of German families, a certain percentage of English, or of Spanish, or Italian, and then a certain percentage of Jewish families, would be to infer that there are no German, or English, or Spanish, or Italian Jews, whereas such is not the case.

It is proper to classify Jews under the heading of religion, and to speak of them in distinction to Catholics or Protestants, but since Polish Jews and Kussian Jews lived in Poland and Russia long before their persecutors did, and German Jews have served under their emperor, and Italian Jews under their king, and American Jews came over with Columbus and have helped to settle this country, it seems a perversion of truth for people to continue to look upon Jews as aliens of every country. A paper as broad

as CHARITIES should not fall into this error. Very truly yours,

MRS. FREDERICK NATHAN.

The difficulty arises because under the heading of nationality it is customary to give some idea of race as well as of political allegiance. In a table of religions or in a table showing present national affiliation there would be no question.

The Century Dictionary in a list of nationalities to be found in Russia includes the Jews among the score or more which are mentioned.

*

Dr. W. M. Swingle, superintendent of the Orange Public Schools, has devised a plan for breaking a boy of incorrigible truancy. The plan is to keep the incorrigible under constant police surveillance, locking him in a police cell each night and sending him to school under the care of a patrolman, who calls for the lad in the afternoon and takes him back to the station-house for the night. The new scheme is to have a thorough trial, and it is doubtful if other boys, seeing the punishment that is being

meted out to this incorrigible, will care to take the risk of offending.

A novel plan has been proposed for raising a permanent endowment for a Home for the Aged in Des Moines, Iowa. One hundred persons are to be induced to pay $40 a year for $1,000 insurance made payable to the home. According to the tables of mortality, there would be thirty-three deaths in that hundred. within twenty years. Thus there. would be guaranteed to be paid to the home an average income of $1,650 per year. At the end of twenty years, the sixty-seven persons still living would hold matured policies amounting to $68,162. The plan means that the home would. have an income of $1,650 a year, and at the end of twenty years an endowment of $68,000. In the event. of the death of any one of the individuals insured another person would be insured, so that the number would be undiminished, and the annual income would remain the same.

* *

An epidemic of typhoid fever among the boys of the Brooklyn Disciplinary Training School assumed startling proportions during the last two weeks of October. The sanitary conditions, upon investigation, were found to be such that the inmates must be moved at once. Accordingly the 170 boys were transferred to new quarters at the Catholic Protectory in Westchester on October 27. The Kings County Grand Jury visited the school and reported that, in their opinion, the mainte

nance of this or a similar institution

is an absolute necessity to the borough. They recommended the immediate repairing of the present building and the appropriation of a sufficient sum, by the Board of Estimate, to provide for the erection of a new building to meet the future needs of the institution.

At a meeting of the Board of Public Improvements, November 9, a resolution was adopted authorizing the appropriation of $30,000 for the use of Commissioner Kearney to make these improvements.

This appropriation was approved without comment by the Board of Estimate, November 13.

President Guggenheimer, of the Council, has been appointed a member of the Board of Trustees of St. Luke's Hospital, and has accepted the position.

** *

The number of alien poor returned to their homes in foreign countries by the State Board of Charities during the quarter ending June 30, 1900, was thirty-five, at a cost of $506.80, or a per capita expense of $14.48.

The National Hospital for Consumptives, located at Denver, Colo., has been placed under the management of thirty-five directors, chosen from different parts of the country.

The hospital was completed about a year ago. The building, equipment, and ground, together, cost

about $50,000, and the yearly expenses are about $20,000. Its capacity will soon be increased so as to accommodate at least one hundred and fifty patients.

The institution is supported entirely by the Jewish people, but no discrimination is made as to the admittance of pulmonary invalids of any denomination, sect, or locality.

Only those in the incipient stages of pulmonary tuberculosis are accepted, and the treatment and board are free. No pay patients are accepted.

The hospital was first organized by the Independent Order of B'nai Brith. In May last this organization divested itself of control in order that the hospital might be an independent corporation and organization, and wholly national.

**

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The annual report of City Mission Shelter at 14 and 16 Tillary street, Brooklyn, has been made public by the Rev. F. Osten-Sacken, chaplain. In lodging houses 150 beds, distributed over three large, well ventilated floors, are all occupied nearly every night. A restaurant is maintained, where simple but substantial fare is provided for a small charge; a reading room, furnished with books and magazines, is available to all lodgers who desire to spend their day or evening in the building. to date 499 men have been placed, and out of these over half, 291, have obtained permanent situations with average wages of $9 per week. Over 300 men have professed conversion during the last two years, and many

Up

more have expressed their desire to lead Christian lives in the future.

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At a meeting of the Sinking Fund Commission in the Mayor's office, the trustees of Mt. Sinai Hospital obtained a conveyance of the property now occupied by the hospital at Sixty-seventh street and Lexington avenue. The hospital held the property on a long lease from the city, and now wishes to dispose of it and move elsewhere. Mr. Guggenheimer reported in favor of granting the application, provided that the property be restricted against nuisance and the money obtained be. devoted to the exclusive use of maintaining Mt. Sinai Hospital.

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*

The following data relative to average weekly cost of support of inmates in twelve state charitable institutions, for the quarter ended June 30, 1900, was compiled by Mr. W. P. Sprattling, superintendent of the Craig Colony for Epileptics. The figures were taken from records in the office of the state comptroller, and from the Quarterly Record, September issue, published by the State Board of Charities: State Custodial Asylum for Feeble-minded Women, Newark, $2.06 per week;

New York State Soldiers and Sailors' Home, $2.47; Thomas Asylum for Orphan and Destitute Indian Children, $3.00; Syracuse State Institution for Feeble-minded Children, $3.11; Craig Colony for Epileptics, $3.15; New York House of Refuge for Delinquent Youths, Randall's Island, $3.27; Rome State Custodial

Asylum, $3.45; The State Industrial School, Rochester, $3.80; Western House of Refuge for Women, Albion, $4.31; $4.31; New York State Woman's Relief Corps Home, Oxford, $4.34; House of Refuge for Women, Hudson, $4.37; New York State School for the Blind, Batavia, $5.49.

For the quarter prior to the above, the average weekly cost of support at the Craig Colony for Epileptics was $3.74. The per capita cost for maintenance decreases as the number of patients increases.

At the annual meeting of the Hebrew Sheltering Guardian Society, Mr. Samuel B. Levy, president of the institution, read his annual report, which showed that the receipts for the year have been $102,164.76. The expenses for the year have been $102,097.50, which leaves a balance now on hand of $67.24. The number of children in the institution on

October 1, 1899, was 976. The number on October 1, 1900, was 907. Of this number 301 have been received and 270 discharged during the year. There had not been a The library at present has 1,800 volumes. death among the children. The directors held a special meeting and re-elected Mr. Levy as president, this being his fifth term. Mr. Ely Bernays was elected treasurer. The rest of the offices were left open.

**

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The regular fall meeting of the board of trustees of the Brooklyn Bureau of Charities was held November 13. The report of the treasurer for the six months ending November 1, showed receipts amounting to $4,987.55, an increase over the

From the report of the General Secretary, William I. Nichols, it appears that 855 inquiries for information were received at the central and district offices; 4.508 personal applications were received at these offices. At the various industrial agencies work was provided for 2,262 different persons on 13,284 days; $7,568.12 were distributed among beneficiaries in return for the work done, besides 11,063 meals which were furnished on the premises.

In the three day nurseries maintained by the bureau, 5,071 days' care were given to 621 different children; 1,715 persons were sent out for odd jobs, at which it is estimated not less than $1 a day each was earned, and 105 persons were recommended for permanent employment, of whom fifty-five are known to have secured positions.

Three trained nurses have been kept constantly employed in gratuitously visiting sick people. For two months in the summer sterilized milk

was distributed free by the bureau in co-operation with the Health Department. The expense of conducting this work, amounting to about $2,000 was met by special contributions.

NEW YORK STATE CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES AND CORRECTIONS.

[Continued from page 9.] class and condition of the prisoner and the character of the management may justify.

The time has gone by when we seek to punish the criminal simply. Punishment as a deterrent has failed. We now seek to reform if we can and to seclude for the protection of society if we cannot. Education and. training in self control and in the

work, are at the basis of reform.

Finally, whatever the system in any prison, it should contain, high above everything else, the element of hope. This should never be abandoned while life lasts if the mental powers are normal. Omit this and you take away the strongest inspiration to reform and substitute despair. Include it and you give to the guardian of the prisoner his strongest strongest weapon, and to the prisoner himself a gleam of light in the surrounding darkness, shining from the open door through which, if he wills it, he may once again pass to finish his life experience under the conditions of freedom.

"The Prison System of the State of New York: How it can be Improved," was the subject of the paper presented by Secretary George McLaughlin, of the State Commission of Prisons, Albany. His address was in part as follows:

The total prison population of the State, including all prisoners in custody October 1, was in 1895, 12,661; 1898, 11,091, and in 1899, 10,350, showing a decrease in population during the year preceding October 1, 1899, of 741, and a decrease since October 1, 1895, of 2,311. Of the 10.350 inmates of prisons and reformatories in this state October 1, 1899, there were only 1.197 women; 342 of this number were in the workhouse on Blackwell's Island, New York City.

The task of finding employment for the convicts of this state within the limitations imposed by the constitution and by the legislature, has occupied a great deal of the time of the commission during the five years of its existence. New industries had to be established, and, as the men were without experience, a considerable percentage of the first

output was found by the consumers to be more or less defective and unsatisfactory. This difficulty has been largely overcome by time and experience.

The second serious obstacle was found to be in the unwillingness of officials and institutions to purchase and use prison-made goods. This unwillingness is now less pronounced than at any former time, especially among state officers and state institutions, but is still very general among local officials.

Turning to the reforms needed in prisons, Secretary McLaughlin said that every prison from a jail up should be in some measure a reformatory, and suggested the following improvements:

1. In order to furnish the convicts with employment under the present Constitution further legislative restriction should cease, and officers and institutions should comply with the law in good faith.

2. The state should furnish the prisons with new and modern buildings, especially at Sing Sing and Auburn.

3. We may expect to see the lockstep and the present prison stripes superseded among prisoners of the higher grades.

4. When prisoners whose education has been utterly neglected are received there should be compulsory education in the common English

branches.

5. An efficient parole law should be adopted applicable to the state prison.

6. The state should watch over a man after his discharge from prison, aiding him in finding employment, and in the meantime should render him assistance if necessary.

7. It has been wisely suggested that even life prisoners should be under a system of parole, probably a special law. On September 30,

1899, there were in the three state prisons 177 convicts serving a life sentence. Many of these were not habitual criminals, but were convicted of murder in the second degree, while more or less intoxicated or in the heat of passion under more or less provocation. Some of these convicts have been in prison twenty, thirty, and forty years.

The speaker briefly referred to present conditions at Elmira Reformatory and to the Houses of Refuge for Women. He also spoke of the difficulty of finding employment for inmates of penitentiaries.

According to all accepted teachings of modern penologists there ought not to be any county penitentiaries; they should be made into State institutions. The state should retain the custody of its convicted criminals.

In conclusion the speaker favored. removal of the industrial schools for juvenile offenders from their present location in cities to farms in the country. He also spoke of the need of a state reformatory for boys convicted of misdemeanors. The only option which the court has in sentencing such a prisoner is to commit him to a county jail or a penitentiary. This serious omission in the prison system of this state should be supplied at an early date.

The conference closed with the

presentation and discussion of the paper entitled "Houses of Refuge for Women, their Management, Purposes and Possibilities." This paper was read by Mrs. Charles Russell Lowell, member of the board of managers, New York State Reformatory for Women, Bedford. In opening her address Mrs. Lowell said: "The two houses of refuge for women in this state were the first institutions of the kind in the