that the indigence dependent on the misfortune of insanity is entitled to something more than a mere almshouse care.

The law of commitment of insane persons from the District, including the determination of their insanity, is cumbersome and antiquated, and, in the judgment of the District authorities, as well as those of the hos pital, might be revised to advantage. I would respectfully request that your committee designate a convenient time when William A. Maury, esq., late Assistant Attorney-General, who is a member of the board of visitors of the hospital, and familiar with the whole subject, may appear before you.

I venture to call the attention of your committee to the large proportion of patients of the transient class remaining in the hospital June 30, 1896, viz, 106 out of 794 District patients, together with my remarks on the same in the report of 1896, page 19, a copy of which report is herewith inclosed.

There is no doubt that the neighboring States of Maryland and Virginia profit by the humane provision of the United States law that is intended to give a temporary shelter to insane persons who have wandered away from their homes, by securing thereby permanent care for many of their defective class at the expense of the District of Columbia and the United States.

If your committee intend to seriously consider a proper provision for the inebriates in the District of Columbia, I want to record myself as unqualifiedly in favor of such provision for a social blight that passes beyond habit, and a vice that, punishment failing to benefit, becomes disease.

I do not wish to extend this paper with its discussion, but will gladly submit my views on this subject at any future time, if they would in any way aid you in your deliberations.

Very respectiully,

Hon. JAMES MCMILLAN,

W. W. GODDING, Superintendent.

Chairman Joint Committee to Investigate Charities

and Reformatory Institutions in the District of Columbia.

[From the report of the Government Hospital for the Insane, 1896.]

Of all classes provided for, the one for which the law evidently intended the provision should be merely temporary seems likely to be the most permanent, viz, the tramp insane found within the limits of the District of Columbia. United States Revised Statutes, section 4850, says, "It being hereby designed to give the superintendent thereof authority to take charge of such insane persons until the governor (District authorities) can discover who his friends are, or whence he came, with a view to the return of such person to such friends, or to the place of his residence." Of the 794 from the District of Columbia remaining June 30, 1896, 106, or about one-seventh of the whole, were of this class. The seat of Government attracts Presidential aspirants, crank inventors, persons with a grievance, the great army of the unemployed, wild-eyed fanatics, and dusty tramps, and it is only to be expected that quite a number of these will each year find rest under the shadows of St. Elizabeth; but why should it become their permanent home? Only 20 of the nonresident remaining at the close of the last fiscal year had been received within the year; 23 had been in the hospital more than ten years, and the remainder for varying terms of less than thirteen months to over nine years. Any view of their case that implies a return to their friends or the place of their residence is still a distant one. Often no friends nor residence can be found, and, if the insanity is active, the District authorities have no choice but to let them remain. But, after making due allowance for this, it can hardly be doubted that there is a considerable number of assisted emigrants from neighboring States, where the hospital has almost too good a reputation, and in far too many cases correspondence with near relatives of the unfortunate man in the State of his residence shows no yearning on their part for his return. These would plainly seem to be cases where the District authorities should actively interfere, and thus, in the language of the statute, "relieve the District of the expense and charge of such indigent insane nonresident."

THE DEAF AND DUMB.

COLUMBIA INSTITUTION FOR THE DEAF AND DUMB,
KENDALL GREEN,

Washington, D. C., April 8, 1897.

DEAR SIR: As requested by Mr. Moore, I have the honor to present certain statements in reference to the admission and support in this institution of deaf and dumb persons from the District of Columbia, and their discharge from the institution. Section 4864 of the Revised Statutes will show how such persons are admitted. The cost of their support and education is estimated for from year to year and covered by an appropriation in the District appropriation bill. The appropriation last year for this object was $10,500, and the number of pupils provided for was 31, making a per capita cost of $358.70. An appropria tion of the same amount has been made for the next fiscal year, and it is expected that this will be sufficient to meet the expense of our beneficiaries from the District. Pupils received from the District are retained so long as they give evidence of mental improvement, when they are discharged by the action of the authorities of the institution. None are retained beyond the period of our collegiate course of study.

May I be permitted to add that this institution is not considered to be one of the "charities" of the District of Columbia, but is regarded as a purely educational institution, not being classed with the "charities" in the appropriation bill.

Very respectfully, yours,

Hon. JAMES MCMILLAN,

Chairman Joint Select Committee, etc.

E. M. GALLAUDET,

President.

THE FEEBLE-MINDED.

Senator FAULKNER. Mr. Lewis, we will hear from you in regard to the feeble minded children of the District.

Mr. LEWIS. In the consideration of the care of the feeble-minded in the District of Columbia, one is met at the outset by a total absence of statutory provision which can be considered as doing more than permit such care in the broadest and most general terms.

The Fifty-fourth Congress, when considering the sundry civil bill, and upon the particular item of an appropriation for the deaf and dumb, approved and passed Senate amendment No. 120, as follows:

Current expenses Columbia Institution for Deaf and Dumb, for support of the institution: Provided, That when any indigent applicant for admission to the institution belonging to the District of Columbia and being of teachable age is found, upon examination by the president of the institution, to be of feeble mind, and hence incapable of receiving instruction among children of sound mind, the Secretary of the Interior may cause such person to be instructed in some institution for the education of feeble minded children in Pennsylvania or some other State, at a cost not greater for each pupil than is or may be for the time being paid by such State for similar instruction, and the sum necessary therefor is appropriated out of the sum above provided for current expenses of the institution.

Under this authority certain feeble-minded children were taken in charge from time to time by the Secretary of the Interior, upon recom mendation of the president of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, and provided for at the great training school at Elwyn, Pa., at a maximum rate of $250 per annum.

The Fifty-second Congress, considering the District appropriation bill, and upon the particular item of an appropriation for the support of

the work of the Board of Children's Guardians, approved a proviso as follows:

Provided, That the authority for placing feeble-minded children of the District of Columbia, heretofore given to the Secretary of the Interior, is hereby transferred to the Board of Children's Guardians. (See Public Document No. 115, p. 17.)

It would seem, therefore, from the language of these provisions, that the duty and responsibility of certifying to the propriety of taking up any feeble-minded child as a public dependent still rests where it was placed by the act of the Forty-fourth Congress, and that the Board of Children's Guardians was simply substituted for the Department of the Interior in permission to place such children in appropriate institutions, and pay for their maintenance. The president of the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, however, contends that it was the intention of the committee of the Fifty-second Congress, which secured the transfer of the authority to place such children from the Secretary of the Interior to this board, to relieve him of every duty and responsi bility in the matter, and he has, therefore, continued to act as investigator of such cases only because the authority conferred upon the board seemed to be defective in this regard.

Upon the creation of the Board of Children's Guardians it was found that there were 23 feeble minded persons at the Pennsylvania Training School, at Elwyn, Pa., for whom the Department of the Interior had been paying a maximum rate of $250 per annum; 19 were maintained at the maximum rate, 1 at $150, and 3 at $100. This number was added to from time to time as cases of urgent necessity arose.

At the beginning of the fiscal year 1896 an urgent appeal for a reduction of the rate met with refusal. It was found impossible to arrange with any other institution within reasonable distance for the care of all such dependents from the District. An offer of $200 per child per annum was declined, for the reason that it was found upon investigation by a committee of the board that the institution would have been overcrowded by the transfer of all, and for the further reason that the institution making the offer declined to receive any colored children, several of whom were on hand. On January 1, 1896, an arrangement was effected by which the maximum rate at Elwyn was reduced to $225. In the meantime an additional arrangement had been made with a small private institution at Falls Church, Va., for the care of a few children at rates to be agreed upon in each case.

The following table exhibits just what has been done in this branch of work by the Board of Children's Guardians:

*At $250 rate reduced to $225 January 1, 1896, with three exceptions.

An arrangement has just been effected by the terms of which the maximum rate paid for the support of feeble-minded children will not in any case exceed $225 per annum.

Appended hereto will be found a proposed bill, to which your attention is invited, and it is suggested that unless some other and more comprehensive measure is originated and made effective some such arrangement as that proposed should be enacted into law.

The causes, the preventives, and the cares of idiocy, if studied with that end in view, would help to answer the question as to whether it is expedient for the State to educate and foster the imbecile at public charge or whether it be better that he should be vicariously cherished at all, as well as the related question as to how great is the value to the community at large of his protection from suffering and his possible rescue from total mental darkness. Such a course is recommended for three principal reasons: First, the welfare of the subject; second, the relief of the afflicted home; third, the benefits accruing to society. The first two fall within the field of the philanthropist; the last that of the legislator. Does society receive an adequate return for its generosity expended upon an abnormal, unwholesome, imperfect classone, from the standpoint of race improvement, wholly and totally unfit? I answer that it is not a question of present benefit, but of the defense of our posterity against the rising tide of idiocy, which we already feel to be a very appreciable burden. Endemic and accidental causes of idiocy are rare, as compared with hereditary and parental causes. As an instance of the public cost of nonattention to the idiocy at large in a community, I refer to a history, hitherto unwritten:

In 1878 Robert R. Cross assigned to the Washington City Protestant Orphan Asylum his two girls, aged 7 and 9 years. In 1886 they were declared feeble-minded and sent to the Pennsylvania Training School by direction of the Secretary of the Interior. Last September one of them was transferred to the Government Hospital for the Insane. Tracing back their history, I am informed that their father was the illegitimate child of a feeble-minded girl, begotten and born in an almshouse. He was a man of herculean strength, a great fighter, and gave the police of this city much trouble. He was a drunkard, in old age a pauper, and died two years ago in the Almshouse Hospital. Besides the two girls referred to, he had one son, who has married and has children. Three years ago this son was charged with drunkenness and nonsupport and his two children were taken from him and placed under the protection of public authority. Considering the expense of police supervision of Robert R. Cross and his son, John Cross, the expense of trials, convictions, and imprisonment for numerous offeuses, the damage done by assaults and brawls, the money spent in giving temporary relief to families during imprisonment of the men, the money wasted in drunkenness and licentiousness, the entailment of pauperism upon the children of John, and the physical degeneracy resulting from specific disease of both father and son, the liability of the reappearance of idiocy or insanity in the progeny of John, and his continued ability to bring forth after his kind, and last and least the direct expense of the lifelong sequestration of the two girls, it would seem that we have borne rather a heavy burden for the neglect of the almshouse girl of sixty years ago.

Any plan which this commission may devise for the purpose of making plain and definite the duties and powers of someone regarding feebleminded children will be timely.

Finally, I urge that in whatever hands you leave the management of S. Doc. 185-5

this branch of the charitable work of the District of Columbia you provide a separate and distinct appropriation for its maintenance. I know of no possible reason for keeping it confused and involved with the appropriation of the Board of Children's Guardians, given for the care of children simply dependent for the time being, and with respect to whom it is expected they will speedily become self-supporting citizens.

PROPOSED BILL.

That the Board of Children's Guardians of the District of Columbia is hereby authorized to receive applications on behalf of children under sixteen years of age, alleged to be of feeble mind, and who have resided within the District of Columbia for not less than one year inmediately preceding the filing of such application, and to cause such children, accompanied by their parents or guardians, to be brought before the Board for examination touching their mental condition; and whenever, upon such examination, it shall be shown to the satisfaction of the Board that any such child is of unsound mind, or is an epileptic, or is idiotic or imbecile, and, therefore, incapable of receiving instruction among children of sound mind, the said Board may cause such child to be placed in an institution conducted for the special care and training of such children, at such rate of payment as may be found necessary, not exceeding two hundred and twenty-five dollars per annum.

That whenever it shall be made known to the Board of Children's Guardians that the parents or guardian of any feeble-minded child, who is for the time being supported at public expense, or on behalf of whom an application for public support is under consideration, is able to contribute toward the support of such child, the Board shall require such parent or guardian to show, under oath, the extent of his or her income or property, and ability to contribute toward the support of such child, and the Board may thereupon order and require the payment to the Board, monthly or quarterly in advance, of any sum less than the full amount paid for the support of such child by said Board.