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thirds are men who will not work, except when they are compelled to do so by starvation. In deserving cases the District, through the sanitary officer, furnishes money to take inmates to their homes, and in no case are residents of the District maintained at the Municipal Lodging House. The house is well known throughout the country, and is one of the stations on the round of the great cities. The first superintendent of the Municipal Lodging House was William H. Dunn. The present superintendent is Capt. L. B. Cutler.1

III.

with ten

The Central Union Mission, located at 622 Louisiana avenue, branches in different parts of the city, was organized August 19, 1884, and incorporated January 7, 1887, under the general incorporation act. The value of the lands occupied on Louisiana avenue is $60,000, and one branch and its lands valued at $1,000, the title of these lands being in the Central Union Mission. On the Louisiana avenue property are improvements valued at $30,000, and on one branch improvements valued at $1,500. Other property to the amount of $5,000 is owned by the mission.

The mission is organized as a Christian institution, its object being to preach the gospel to the neglected classes. Its managers do not regard it primarily as a charitable society, although its work is chiefly among the poor of the city, and, as an adjunct to its main work, it has done much to relieve suffering and furnish employment for the poor. The mission maintains an industrial department, including a wood yard for men and a laundry for the employment of women. At times it has had other industries, such as a broom factory, a mending department, and a cobbler shop. Attached to the industrial department is a dining room and lodging establishment. Meals are served at 10 or 15 cents each, and in the lodging department a bed is furnished at 10 or 15 cents a night, or in rooms at 25 cents a night. In the wood yard from 50 to 75 men can be worked, and the plant is capable of enlargement to double its present capacity. A laborer is required to saw one-twelfth of a cord of wood for a 10-cent meal or a 10-cent lodging, and the average laborer can obtain his meals and lodging by about three hours' work. The only drawback the wood yard experiences is the difficulty of disposing of all the wood sawed. The industrial department of the mission is fully self-supporting and has been maintained without financial assistance. Each branch of the work shows a small surplus to its credit, which is used in improving the plant. The religious work of the mission is supported by voluntary contributions, and such contributions are not used for the industrial department.

Timothy Lubey, Commissioner of the Washington Asylum, in his report for 1875, says that it has been the custom of that institution to furnish food and shelter to that class of the poor termed "tramps" or transient paupers. P'ersons of this class to the number of 766 were accommodated during the year.

CHAPTER XIII.

REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS.

ΟΝ

N July 1, 1862, President Lincoln approved an act to incorporate the Guardian Society to reform juvenile offenders in the District of Columbia, by virtue of which act Amos Kendall, John M. Broadhead, Zenas C. Robbins, Sayles J. Bowen, Nehemiah B. Northrup, Benjamin B. French, Joseph Bryan, Peter N. Higinbotham, James C. Jenner, David W. Heath, James R. Barr, Matthew Waite, Samuel A. H. McKim, John R. Nourse, and Stephen Prentiss, being already members of the Guardian Society, were incorporated and made a body politic "for the purpose of encouraging and aiding such children of the poor, ignorant, and vicious as could be induced to make such efforts as they ought for an improvement in their condition."

The act contemplated a house of industry to which minors might be sentenced by the courts, and the trustees were empowered to receive children at the request of the parents, guardian, or next friend upon a written surrender of such child. The trustees were not to be required to receive any offenders known to be extremely vicious or to keep any who might prove incorrigible, but such were to be sent to the jail or penitentiary under an alternative sentence that the court was em powered to impose. It was also contemplated that persons committed as witnesses or committed for trial, if under the age of 18, should be placed in the house of industry instead of the jail or penitentiary. The trustees were empowered to bind out by indenture any who might appear to be sufficiently reformed, or the inmates might be hired during the daytime to employers whose work was not too far distant from the house of industry.

The Guardian Society raised some $5,000 or $6,000 through the liberality of a few citizens and banking institutions of Washington, and in 1865 obtained a large building that had been constructed for hos pital purposes during the war. This building they removed to the Government farm, situated about one-half mile from the Potomac River and 4 miles northwest from Georgetown. The funds of the Guardian Society having been exhausted, Congress established, by

1 The "Laws, By-laws, and Rules and Regulations of the Reform School of the District of Columbia, 1894," contains the brief history of the institution that is the basis of this sketch.

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the act of July 25, 1866, a House of Correction for Boys in the District of Columbia "for the safe keeping, correction, governing, and employing of offenders legally committed thereto by the authorities of the courts and the magistrates of the District of Columbia." It was also provided that the building before erected on the Government farm for the purpose of establishing a similar institution, together with all the other property there collected for the same purpose, should be transferred to the trustees appointed according to the provisions of the act, at a cost not exceeding $1,500.

The government of the institution was vested in a board of seven trustees to be appointed and commissioned by the President of the United States, one to be nominated by the mayor of Washington, one by the mayor of Georgetown, one by the president of the levy court of the county of Washington, and four by the Secretary of the Interior, the term of office of a trustee being three years.

For the purpose of securing the transfer of the building and other property to the trustees, preparing the premises and building for occupancy, and payment of other necessary expenses, $12,000 was appropri ated, to be paid on the order of the Secretary of the Interior; and it was provided that $6,000 of the said appropriation should be assessed and paid by the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the county of Washington, of which amount $4,500 was to be raised by the city of Washington, $1,000 by the city of Georgetown, and $500 by the county of Washington. Of the $12,000 appropriated, $9,500 was spent in 1867, and $2,500, together with the $12,000 appropriated by the act of April 20, 1870, was spent in the latter year. In 1871 Congress failed to make an appropriation for the support of the school, and the board of trustees was left without means to defray the necessary expenses of the institution.

The first boys, 2 in number, were admitted January 13, 1870, and there were 63 boys in the school when Congress failed to provide for its support. At this juncture a number of liberal merchants and others furnished supplies, with the hope of reimbursement when Congress convened; and money for the payment of salaries and incidental expenses was raised on the individual notes of the trustees. The act of May 6, 1870, amending the act of July 25, 1861, changes the name of the school to the Reform School of the District of Columbia, and provides that the mayors of the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the president of the levy court of the District of Columbia shall have full power to commit to the care, control, and custody of the board of trustees of the school, with the consent and at the proper expense of his parent or guardian, any boy under 16 years of age who is destitute of a suitable home and an adequate means of obtaining an honest living, or is in danger of being brought up, or is being brought up, to lead an idle or vicious life. The members of the board of trustees individually were authorized to commit boys for the same reasons as above stated.

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