includes all bills audited and paid, to November 30th, the close of the fiscal year.

In estimating the cost to the state of a central board of public charities, it must be borne in mind that the creation of this board rendered possible the reduction of the local boards of control of the several institutions, to three members each. The saving thus effected in the item of traveling expenses, must be placed to the credit of this board. In addition to this, there will be a saving, the amount of which cannot be calculated, by the introduction of better methods of doing business, by the establishment of rigid accountability for all expenditure of public funds, and by the prevention of imposition upon the state authorities in the matter of requests for unwise or unnecessary appropriations. In the organization of a state government, a board of charities is an economy, and not an expense.

Vol. I-3

PART SECOND.

GROWTH OF PUBLIC CHARITY.

MAGNITUDE OF THE WORK.-The growth of public charity, during the past half century, in the United States, is one of the salient features of our national life. Few know the extent of the demand for relief.

EXTENT OF DEPENDENCE IN THE UNITED STATES. -At the time of writing this report, the result of the national census for 1870, in thirty-four states, has been officially promulgated.

According to very generally received estimates, the proportion of insane, in this country, is not less than one in every thousand; of idiots, not less than one in fifteen hundred; of deaf mutes, one in seventeen hundred and fifty; of blind, one in twenty-five hundred.*

All of these unfortunates are wholly, or in part, incapacitated for self-support and self-direction. In the race of life, the best of them carry weight.

According to the census and the estimates just given, the number of unfortunates belonging to these four classes alone, is as follows:†

These are the lowest estimates, and employed here in order to guard against exaggeration.

It must not be expected that the figures in this table will tally with those of the census, when published, showing the number of the insane, etc., in the various states. First, because the proportion varies. It is somewhat greater, for instance, in the east than in the west. Second, because the statistics of misfortune obtained by the censustakers are never accurate, owing to the universally prevalent desire to conceal family griefs from the public eye. Dr. Edward Jarvis, the eminent statistician, of Dorchester, Massachusetts, found, by means of a thorough investigation made in that state in 1854, by direction of the legislature, that the proportion of insane persons to the total population, was, at that time, one in 427. He obtained the names of 2632 lunatics. The number reported in the preceding census of 1850, was only 1680. Dr. Jarvis obtained the names of 1087 idiots. The census-takers, four years before, found only 791. Other illustrations might be given.

TABLE showing the estimated number of Insane, Idiotic, Deaf and Dumb, and Blind, in each and all of thirty-four States.

Totals.

29,384,088 29,389 19,594 16,810 11,754 77,547

The states not included in the above enumeration, are New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania, whose aggregate population will probably prove to be not far from nine millions. If we add this amount to the total population in the table, we shall obtain, as the grand result in all the states, not including the territories

* A convenient statement for retention in the memory, and one perhaps equally nearly approximating the truth, is that there are in the United States, not including the territories, forty thousand insane, thirty thousand idiots, twenty thousand deaf mutes, and fifteen thousand blind; one hundred and five thousand in all.

Startling as the figures are, they fall below the truth.

But these are only four classes of dependents, and not the most numerous. To these must be added paupers,t criminals,+ orphans, destitute or neglected children, and the sick and crippled poor, who do not belong to the pauper class. There will not be wanting voices enough to join in the final chorus of accusation, "Ye did it not unto me."

EXTENT OF RELIEF.-An examination of the statistics of public institutions would show the inadequacy of any provision yet made,

The number of paupers in Massachusetts, reported in 1869, was,

The proportion in Illinois is about one-fourth of that in Massachusetts, and onethird of that in New York.

The average daily number of convicts in the penitentiaries of the land, is sixteen or seventeen thousand. The average daily number of boys and girls in public reformatories, is more than seven thousand. The annual cost of penitentiaries and reformatories, leaving the county jails out of the account, is over four and a half millions of dollars.

The number of persons sentenced, for minor offenses, to imprisonment in county jails, each year, is probably five or six times as great as that of those committed to state prisons.

The number of commitments to county jails and houses of correction, in Massachusetts in 1869, was 12,000. Proportion, 1:121, or .008 per cent.

The number of commitments to jails in New York, in 1863, was 62,717. Proportion, 1: 66, or .015 per cent.

The cost of the county jails and houses of correction in Massachusetts, in 1869, was $208,237 73, over and above the cash earnings of prisoners. The cost of jails in New York, in 1863, was about $225,000.

The earnings of the Massachusetts state prison, on the other hand, in 1869, exceeded the total expenditures, by $25,575 37, a cash balance paid into the treasury of the

state.

The Massachusetts ratio of commitments, if uniform throughout the country, would give, as the grand result, 300,000 commitments to jail in the United States every year. The New York ratio would give 570,000. The actual number, though it cannot be ascer tained, is much less.

to meet the demand for public relief. The statistics of insanity will serve as an illustration.

We have seen that the number of insane in Alabama may be estimated at at least 1022. The number treated in the Alabama asylum for the insane in 1869, was 251.

Thus, in eighteen states, of 17,190 persons supposed to be insane, provision (other than in county poor houses and private families) is made for only 7214, or for 42 per cent. of the entire number.

The deaf and dumb afford another striking illustration of the same inadequacy of provision. The total number of deaf mutes in the United States, as we have seen, is over 21,000. One-third of these (or 7000) are of an age to be in the institutions for the education for the deaf and dumb.* The number actually in such institutions, in 1869, was 3246, or .463 per cent. of seven thousand.

The demand for relief, however, does not increase with the increase of population, nearly so rapidly as the amount of relief extended does.

* The census of 1880 showed that 3437 persons in every ten thousand, (1:28, or .3437 per cent.-a little more than one-third), are between the ages of five and twenty.