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pension or in the hope of obtaining a Government position, are maintained for a time and sometimes are assisted to return to their friends. Working women who earn less than enough for a living are provided with a home, and from 8 to 10 women who have committed offenses against chastity are sheltered in the Home and have employment given them until they are ready to go out into the world. All those who earn anything are called upon to pay sums varying from $4 to $15 per month. During 1896, 5,692 free lodgings and 16,874 free meals were given to needy women. Employment was found for 84 persons as childrens' nurses, waitresses, housekeepers, or cooks. During the twenty-six years of its existence the Home has sheltered upward of 6,000.

Another branch of the work which does not appear in the reports of the committee, but is mentioned in the twenty-seventh annual report, is that of outdoor aid rendered during 1896 to the amount of $300 from the association funds. During that year 250 families were aided by gifts of food, fuel, and clothing. Homes were found for 4 children and employment was found for 13 persons.

While the committee has no doubts as to the benefits of the work done by the management of the home, yet we feel called upon to suggest that the field covered is entirely too broad for any one institution to manage. The committee therefore recommends that

The work for the aged be discontinued; that the outdoor relief be turned over to the Associated Charities, leaving to the Home its more legitimate task of providing temporary accommodation for those in need of such service.

It would seem, also, that work of this kind should so commend itself to the charitably disposed that, with the plant it already has, the Home need not call upon Congress for so large an appropriation as it has been receiving.

More than this, full reports of all the receptions and dismissions should be made to the board of charities, so that the practice of women in seeking refuge in one home after another at public expense may be checked. The committee also doubts the advisability of the association undertaking work among fallen women, in view of the fact that there are so many other institutions designed especially for this class of work.

THE YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN HOME.

This institution occupies lands and buildings valued at $10,000, the gift of Miss Kibby, to be used for charitable purposes. The work of the institution is to furnish homes for young women of good moral character who need assistance. The income from Congressional appropriations during 1896 was $1,000, from the boarding department $2,901.23, and from private sources $621.21.

The committee can see no good reason why the work of the Young Women's Christian Home and that of the Women's Christian Associa

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tion could not profitably be consolidated, and we therefore recommend that no further appropriations be made for this institution.

NATIONAL FLORENCE CRITTENTON HOPE AND HELP MISSION.

This institution was organized in 1888, and occupies a property to the value of about $18,000. This institution seeks an appropriation of $5,000 toward the purchase of the property occupied. The institution is one of a series of like missions which have been established in different parts of the country for the purpose of affording a refuge for women, and during the past year the Washington Mission admitted 397 such. It received $1,000 from Congressional appropriations and $2,969.23 from private sources.

Some system should be adopted whereby the cases may be investigated by competent authority, and such of the inmates of the homes as may be found to be properly public charges be paid for at a specific rate—all admissions and dismissions to be regulated according to rules to be adopted by the board of charities, if such a board shall be established.

WORK AMONG MEN.

In 1878 the Night Lodging House Association was incorporated, and until 1892 this association maintained a temporary refuge for men who are out of employment-practically for the accommodation of tramps. In 1892 the association was reorganized as the Municipal Night Lodging House, the property owned by the Night Lodging House Association being taken by the Government, which thenceforth assumed the entire support of the institution, at an annual expense of $4,000. The property is still owned by the Municipal Night Lodging House Association, and it is in very bad condition.

The institution has lodging for 72 people, but has maintained as many as 91 in stormy weather by letting the inmates sleep on the floor. In winter the average number of inmates is from 40 to 60; in mild weather the average is about 14 a day. Lodging is provided for the men, not to exceed three days in any one quarter. About one-third of the men are what are known as "good men;" the others are men who do not or will not work, except when they are compelled to do so by starvation. Inmates saw and split wood in payment for food and lodging unless incapacitated by infirmity or illness. Tramps who refuse to work are treated as vagrants and sent to the workhouse. The need of an institution of this kind is recognized in all cities, and as a matter of protection to the community the institution performs a valuable service. The committee, therefore, recommends that steps be taken to secure the title to the land and buildings, and that an appropriation be made to provide such repairs and such provision for cleanliness as may be necessary to put the institution in good condition, or, what would be better, that the

property be sold and a more available site purchased. It is not necessary to expand this work, for the reason that the Central Union Mission, a private institution, provides for the same class of dependents.

MEDICAL CHARITIES.

A statement at once comprehensive and definite in regard to the medical charities of the District of Columbia appears as Appendix A of this report. The committee requested Dr. Henry M. Hurd, the superintendent of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, at Baltimore, Md., and Dr. John B. Chapin, in charge of the department for the insane at the Pennsylvania Hospital, Philadelphia, Pa., to inspect the District hospitals and to make a report thereon. They made two visits to Washington, visited each of the hospitals mentioned in their report, made a thorough examination of all portions of each hospital, talked with the persons in charge of the hospitals, studied the reports in the hearings before this committee, and united in recommendations which may be found in detail below. Both doctors have been unusually successful administrators in the field of hospital management, and the committee can not commend too highly the painstaking, lucid, and impartial consideration they have given to the intricate and perplexing problems with which they were called upon to deal. While it is too much to expect that each of their recommendations can be put into immediate effect, this committee believes that until the general system proposed by them shall be carried out the medical charities of the District will continue to be at once extravagant and inadequate, furnishing care to the people from other portions of the country and to those who are able to pay for treatment, while at the same time the really needy are shut out.

Doctors Hurd and Chapin advocate for the medical charities the same general system that this committee recommend for all District charities, namely, a board of charities with power over admissions and dismissions. Indeed, in no other way can the medical charities reach the persons for whom they are intended.

The doctors also call attention to a matter that for many years has been a standing disgrace to the District of Columbia-the want of suitable provisions for the treatment of the milder contagious diseases. Hitherto a mixture of greed and ignorant fear has been effective in preventing the establishment of isolating buildings for the treatment of such cases in connection with several of the general hospitals. For the want of such provision lives are being sacrificed and disease is being spread throughout the District. Hospitals are drawing annually tens of thousands of dollars from the District treasury, and at the same time absolutely refuse to make reasonable provision for the treatment of those diseases which, as every medical man knows, can be treated, not only with the greatest success in hospital, but with absolutely no

danger either to the health of the neighborhood or to the value of the surrounding real estate. The time has come when common humanity demands that appropriations be made contingent on the hospitals supplying accommodations so imperatively demanded by the community and for which Congress has already provided the money.

FREEDMEN'S HOSPITAL.

Unquestionably the ordinary hospital accommodations of Washington are in excess of any legitimate demand, and the appropriations made for the support of such institutions are more than sufficient to provide for the really poor and destitute; and yet, since this committee was appointed two or three hospitals have been organized, and one hospital has been closed because the person who provided the building neglected to provide funds for maintaining the institution. In view of these facts, a reorganization in hospital work may safely be made at this time without creating any suffering.

The work of reorganization should begin with the Freedmen's Hospital. This institution, occupying a site and a class of buildings entirely unsuited to hospital work, is supported by the District of Columbia and is managed nominally by the Secretary of the Interior. As a matter of fact, there is no management worthy of the name; and it certainly speaks well for the honesty of those immediately in charge of the institution that Congress has not oftener been called on to investigate its affairs. The surgeon in charge has no power over the admissions or dismissions of inmates. He must take in all who bring orders from the Interior Department, where no adequate examination is made into the merits of the cases. He also receives persons sent by the physicians to the poor and those who apply in person. Although established and ostensibly maintained for the benefit of the colored people, about one-third of the hospital population are white, and a very considerable proportion of the entire number are legitimate patients for an inebriate asylum. Patients known to be perfectly able to pay for their accommodations are received and cared for at the expense of the District, and there is now no way of preventing this state of affairs.

Added to these considerations is the fact that the hospital is unduly expensive. Although the hospital furnishes the means of medical instruction for the medical department of Howard University, the hospital pays to the university an annual rental of $4,000 a year for ground rent and for a portion of one building. The total expenses of the institution are $51,000 a year, a sum grossly disproportionate to the amount of medical and surgical work actually done at the hospital. After an extended and careful consideration of the matter, the committee recommend that the entire plant, such as it is, be turned over to the trustees of Howard University, and that the appropriation be reduced to an amount not exceeding $30,000, to be paid for the care and

treatment of a specific number of patients according to a contract to be entered into between the said trustees and the Commissioners of the District of Columbia. The committee make these recommendations in the full belief that when the admissions and dismissions shall be properly guarded the sum named will enable the hospital authorities to furnish care and treatment of a kind vastly superior to that at present furnished to the great majority of the patients. Also by placing the trustees of the Howard University in charge of the institution provision can be made for pay patients and in this way both the income and the benefits of the hospital can be extended legitimately, and also the dual management, that is now no management, can be ended. Moreover, when the Freedmen's Hospital shall be reduced to its proper work, it will be found, doubtless, that the trustees of Howard University can dispose of the lands now owned by them and occupied by the hospital, and with the proceeds can erect on their university grounds, or near by, modern hospital buildings of sufficient size and of such a character as to care for the needy poor of the colored race who seek a hospital managed by people of their own race. In this connection it should be remembered that as a rule the other hospitals in the District admit colored people.

THE ASYLUM HOSPITAL.

The hospital operated in connection with the Washington Asylum has far outgrown the uses for which it was intended. It has become a municipal hospital, and it is the only hospital to-day that is really under municipal control in the sense that persons can be sent to it by the municipal authorities with a certainty that they will be received. It is located in a situation where the patients have to suffer not only from the diseases they have when they enter, but also from the malaria created by the exhalations from the Anacostia flats on the one side and from the James Creek Canal on the other.

Moreover, the hospital draws its supplies from the asylum-that is, from the poorhouse-and while the committee does not doubt that the intendant is disposed to furnish the patients the diet and other neeessaries needed by the sick, yet the fact remains that those persons who are so unfortunate as to be consigned to its ill-adapted pavilions are deprived of those advantages of nursing and maintenance to which the needy sick are justly entitled.

The committee therefore recommend that the management of the asylum hospital be divorced absolutely from that of the asylum proper; that a superintendent and two resident physicians of the hospital be employed, and that a staff of physicians be secured on the same basis that other hospitals secure their staffs.

The work now done at the asylum hospital and that done at Columbia Hospital might well be combined in one institution but in separate buildings; and thus a duplication of agencies might be done away with. S. Rep. 700

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