the worthy individual and the professional beggar without asking him to "pass a civil service examination," or making the unfortunate object conscious of his own condition, and asks, "What does it matter if in the multitude of people helped some are undeserving?" We have observed that indignant inquiries of this kind are generally used to excuse actions which are either heartlessly thoughtless or uncharitably careless, or to curry favor with those who have the prejudice against the word "charity," to which reference has been made. The statements to which we have taken exception are objectionable chiefly because of the uses to which they are constantly put.

That Mr. Straus himself has sound and thoroughly practical views is sufficiently shown by the following paragraph from the article:

"The principle on which I have always tried to work in fulfilling the duties of the stewardship that has been placed in my hands by Providence is to help men to help themselves. It is a very easy matter to hand out money to every applicant for relief, and persuade oneself that this is practical philanthropy. In reality it is practical folly. To really benefit the deserving poor it is as necessary to be cautious and careful and wise in the distribution of money as it is to be so in the ordinary vocations of life. My son,' said a wise father, if I give you money some one will surely get it away from you. But if I give you a good

'

education nothing can ever deprive you of its benefits' To found a hospital is good; to prevent the necessity for the presence of the hospital is better. A healthy man is a wealthy man. Root out of the early lives of the poor the evils that cause so many to grow s'ckly and ailing. eventually to find their way into the hospital ward or to become a charge to the community, and you are giving them a fair start in life on even terms with the ones more fortunately born."

** *

There is an ordinance pending in the Board of Aldermen looking toward the abolition of all street music, and aimed especially at the traveling hand organs or street pianos. A hearing was had on this subject before the Committee on Highways of the Board last Friday. A number of people appeared in favor of the ordinance, but no one in opposition. One can readily understand that an ordinance of this kind, prohibiting the playing of hand organs in certain neighborhoods, might be desirable, but when it is attempted to prohibit this practice in the tenement districts, a very serious blow will be dealt to the people of such neighborhoods. The hand organ is about the one pleasure that the poor people, and especially the children. have, and there is no way in which so much delight and real pleasure can be given to the children of the poor as by a street piano. It would be far more fitting for the city au

thorities, instead of attempting to deprive the children of the poor of their only amusement, to subsidize the owners of these instruments. It is It is to be hoped that the committee of the Board of Aldermen will have the ordinance so amended as not to apply to the tenement districts, and that they will not make the serious mistake of cutting off this source of pleasure to so many people.

**

*

The Committee on the Blind for the State Board of Charities attributes the material reduction in the number of inmates in the institution for the blind in New York city, to "the better care of the eyes of children in the homes of the poor and in charitable institutions of the metropolitan district." The State School at Batavia is overcrowded, and the committee suggests that the territory from which pupils are admitted to the city institution at state expense should be enlarged so as to increase the number of its inmates and lighten the pressure upon the institution at Batavia

**

On July 19 the Floating Hospital of St. John's Guild celebrated its twenty-fifth anniversary by a trip down the bay. Tickets for these trips including salt-water baths, substantial dinner, pure milk for the children, and proper nursing for all are given out to the mothers of children, who need the fresh air, and are available at 500 places of distribution.

Since 1875 the "Emma Abbott,"

which was the first boat fitted up by this Guild, has carried 826,312 mothers, sick babies, and delicate children; needs of a larger service were felt and an additional boat was added, so that now two boats make six trips each per week

**

The mortality from consumption in New England is gradually decreasing. In 1892 there were 1,352 deaths from this disease. Since then, through the efforts of the Board of Health and the press to convince the people that consumption is a communicable and preventable disease, the number of deaths has been reduced year by year, numbering 1,021 in 1898.

** *

The Boston Bathhouse Company opened recently the first public washhouse in Boston.

The object of this house is to provide a place where washing may be done easily and quickly by people who have not the proper facilities at home in the crowded tenement districts. For a fee of ten cents per hour, all washing facilities are supplied except the manual labor ordinarily required.

**

The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals gives notice that it has withdrawn from the Eleventh Annual Convention of the Societies for the Prevention of Cruelty in the State of New York,

THE STATE CONFERENCE.

The following is the list of committees which will have the preparation of the program for the first State Conference of Charities and Correction of the State of New York -to meet at Albany soon after the November election:

On the Care and Relief of Needy Families in their own Homes, Frederick Almy, chairman, Buffalo; Thos. W. Hynes, Brooklyn; J. R. Washburn, Watertown; Rev. S. V. V. Holmes, Buffalo; Joseph A. Crane, Rochester; Mrs. M. Fullerton, New York; Rev. William I. Nichols, Brooklyn; Edward J. Hussey, Albany; Mrs. E. V. H. Mansell, New York; Lee K. Frankel, New York; William P. Constable, Yonkers; John J. Barry, New York.

On the Care of Defective, Dependent, Delinquent, and Neglected Children, Rev. Thos. L. Kinkead, chairman, Peekskill; Homer Folks, New York; Dr. F. Park Lewis, Buffalo; Professor Franklin H. Briggs, Rochester; Frederick E. Bauer, New York; Ogden P. Letchworth, Buffalo; Henry Esser, Mt. Vernon; Mornay Williams, New York; Miss Lucy C. Watson, Utica; Philip W. Ayres, New York; George B. Robinson, New York; Mrs. John Davenport, Bath; Mother Mary Ann Burke, Buffalo; Edmund Lyon, Rochester.

On the Mentally Defective, William P. Spratling, chairman, Sonyea; Dr. Peter M. Wise, New York; Mrs. Charles W. Winspear, Newark; the Hon. Charles McLouth, Palmyra; Timothy E. McGarr, Albany; Dr. Charles W. Pilgrim, Poughkeepsie; Dr. E. H. Howard, Rochester; Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler, New York; Dr. Stephen Smith, New York; Dr. Selden H. Talcott, Middletown; Mrs. M. C. Dunphy, New York; Dr. John F. Fitzgerald, Rome.

On Institutional Care of Destitute Adults, Byron M. Child, chairman, Albany; George Blair, New York; Levi A. Page, Seneca Castle; Dr. J. T. Duryea, Brooklyn; D. C. Grunder, Angelica; the Rev. N. O. Halstead, St. Johnland; Simon Borg, New York; Dr. Henry S. Oppenheimer, New York; Robert W. Hill, Canandaigua; G. L. Mosher, Machias; the Rev. Dennis J. McMahon, D.D., New York; M. G. Frisbie, Homer.

On the Treatment of the Criminal, Thomas Sturgis, chairman, New York; Herbert E. Mills, Poughkeepsie; Omar V. Sage, New York; Arria S. Huntington, Syracuse; the Rev. Thos. F. Hickey, Rochester; the York; the Hon. Cornelius V. ColRev. Samuel M. Jackson, New lins, Troy; Mrs. C. R. Lowell, New York; George McLaughlin, Albany; Newton O. Fanning, New York; W. H. Gratwick, Ellicott Square, Buffalo; William J. Sterritt, Middleport.

HENRY ARDEN,

JAPANESE ART OBJECTS, NOVELTIES IN SILKS FOR LADIES' Use SILK CREPES AND GRASS LIinens, PILLOW COVERS, ETC.,

38 WEST 22D STREET.

CAUSES OF CRIMINAL TENDENCIES AMONG

BOYS.

BY JAMES B. REYNOLDS, HEAD WORKER UNIVERSITY SETTLEMENT.

[Outline of an address before the Summer School in Philanthropic Work, July 5.]

The influences which work for good or ill in the career of the average boy are three-fold: First, heredity, or the influence of birth. Second, the tendencies of human nature, or the psychological influence. Third, the influence of environment, or that which arises from social conditions. Heredity determines the boy's character at the start. If the parent bequeaths him an inheritance of fair physical, mental, and moral qualities, he has a fair chance to achieve good character, and there is a fair possibility that he will respond to good influences. The criminal traits, or tendencies in parents, however, frequently bequeath similar traits to the child. The low forehead, the flat ear, and other signs of the brutal type stamp the mark of Cain on the child at his birth. Of such it may be said, as Bishop South remarked, that they "are not born, but condemned into the world."

The ordinary nature of the boy will predispose him to crime under certain conditions and to good conduct under other conditions. For instance, boys are by nature venturesome, courageous, and active.

To

repress those tendencies is to encourage crime. Firm leadership, which will control at the same time that it directs and offers a chance for the expression of these attributes, should be the line of procedure. So far as possible we should remove the temp

tation to deceive merely in the spirit of bravado and venturesomeness. Hence, in managing boys' clubs, selfgovernment rather than the control of some outside authority has been shown to encourage responsibility at the same time that it removes the temptation to deceive the teacher or director.

I want to mention another source of criminal influence. It is considered subtle and mysterious, and while we have guessed much we know little of its real power. Yet I believe that it is to be named and studied, and that any attempt to reckon with forces which make for crimes would be incomplete without it. I mean that peculiar influence which is sometimes called "personal magnetism" and sometimes "hypnotism." How far one person can control another by sheer force of will or by an overpowering charm we do not know, but we know that the power exists. The moral problem which arises in criminology from the extent of this subtle power is, then, can the will of one well-intentioned be so far controlled by one with. criminal intent that he may be forced to do that against which his conscience rebels? The classic illustration on this point is a famous case of Eyraud and Gabriel Bombard. I was in Paris when the case was tried. The public prosecutor, M. Beaupaire, conducted the prosecution. guilt of both the man and the woman, who had a share in the murder, was easily established. It became evident that the man would be guillotined, and there was only the uncertainty as to whether the woman would suffer the same fate. The claim was said, in her defense, that she had been under the hypnotic influence of the man and had been an

The

unwilling accomplice, but that she did not share in the actual deed of murder. To prove the claim, the woman was put in an hypnotic state, and while in that state she was made to go through the act of murdering her victim. She placed the cord about his neck and tied the knot, but when told to draw the knot and strangle the victim, even while under the control of the hypnotist she refused absolutely to act. The con

tention was made by the hypnotists of the Nancy School that this experiment proved, first, the contention of the woman's counsel that she was the victim of the man, and, second, that it established the general principle that even in the hypnotic state one can not be forced to do a deed repugnant to his conscience. The case was subsequently much discussed in France. At the moment it served to save the woman's life. The same question will certainly be raised with equal seriousness in this country before long, and we are bound to admit and to understand the operation of the subtle force of personal magnetism and hypnotic control to a greater or less degree.

I remember when first coming to the University Settlement, I found that the smallest boys' club at the settlement, consisting of boys from eight to ten years of age, had for its president the most diminutive member of the gang. I found, howI found, how ever, that he ruled the club firmly, and maintained order to a far great er degree that his physical stature would lead one to expect. There was a peculiar expression, which I noticed, in his eye, and which led the other boys to usually do what he told them. Since the boy has grown older he has, to a large degree, lost that peculiar power, and I see it in

other boys, some of whom are an influence for good and some of whom are an influence for bad. I repeat, then, this subtle quality, however we may name it, is an element that may be reckoned with carefully and carefully observed, for it will produce results which we do not expect and will explain why certain bad boys have a most undue influence over certain of their fellowmates.

The longer I live in one of the poorest quarters of New York city. the more deeply am I impressed by the harm done to young people, and especially boys, through the evil character of the ordinary social life. We may take it for granted that every boy is a social being. He may not have a very large idea of home, but he has an extremely large idea of club life and of other social agencies. He feels himself to be an intensely social being, he is going to have his athletics in company with others, music in company others, dancing in company with others, dramatic entertainments in company with others, and he is going to do as much eating with others as he can. The character of the social influences resulting from these desires is likely to be, therefore, a determining factor in the career of many boys. It is. therefore, most unfortunate that nearly every one of these agencies is preyed upon by those who wish to degrade rather than elevate and to harm rather than help. The boy likes clubs and we regard the instinct as natural, but observation teaches us that the candy store. the tobacco shop, and the saloon are the three agencies which universally welcome such clubs: that each of these agencies is