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population of the District of Columbia outnumbers the colored population two to one.

"From the reports of the superintendent of the Metropolitan police, the girls arrested in the District of Columbia from the fiscal year ending June 30, 1887, to June 30, 1894, are as follows:

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"In a period of seven years, from 1887 to 1894, this table shows an increase of nearly 50 per cent in female criminals, while the population increased at about 2 per cent per annum. Of this large number of arrests made by the Metropolitan police in the District over 2,500 were committed to the workhouse.

"Up to the time of the opening of the Girls' Reform School of the District of Columbia there was absolutely no effort made in the District to reform colored girl criminals. The House of the Good Shepherd in Baltimore, and later the House of the Good Shepherd in Washington, and the House of Mercy in Washington, have been actively engaged for some time in their efforts to reform white girls. While the present reform school is not intended alone for colored inmates, still up to the present time no white inmate has been received at the institution. It will be observed that since the opening of the Girls' Reform School (now some eight months since) the result appears to have been that there was a decrease in the number of convictions by 160, or over 40 per cent."

From the beginning the school has had the cooperation of the Board of Children's Guardians in placing out girls, and to that extent has been able to find homes for such as were fitted for home life without any tax upon its own resources. The industrial report for the second year of the school is both interesting and instructive. Mrs. Jessie Aldrich, the superintendent, states:

All the garments (some 570 in number), consisting of dresses, underwear, aprons, etc., have been made by the inmates under the direction of the sewing teacher. The majority do not like this work, and as this is an age of ready-made clothing, few, if any, knew anything of sewing when committed.

The most satisfactory work that is done is in the laundry, but they are comparatively young for such heavy washing as ours, and I would recommend that with increased accommodation provision be made for a practical laundress.

Our opportunities for teaching cooking are limited; the food is necessarily of the plainest kind, but our matron has succeeded wonderfully with the material at her disposal, and has turned out several excellent bread makers.

It is most encouraging the progress many have made during the past few months in their school hours; they have become so interested and seem anxious to learn all they can, fully two-thirds of them being entirely ignorant of their alphabet when they came to us.

We have not been able to make as good a showing with the farm as we had hoped, owing to the condition of the land. For fifty years it has been allowed to remain in an uncultivated state, and was a vast wilderness of locust and undergrowth, requir ing much labor in grubbing and clearing. Notwithstanding this and a long, dry summer, we have grown nearly all the vegetables required for our use and sold $24 worth of early potatoes.

We also planted an orchard of six different varieties of fruit, 200 trees in all, 1 acre of Early Rose potatoes, 14 acres late potatoes, one-half acre sugar corn, 4 acres of late corn, one-half acre of melons, one-fourth acre of tomatoes, one-eighth acre each of cucumbers, celery, squash, and pease, one-half acre of beans, 4,500 heads of cabbage, one-half acre of strawberries, one-fourth acre of sweet potatoes, 14 acres of turnips, one-eighth acre of beets, parsnips, and oyster plant.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE RELIEF OF THE POOR.

THE

HE first appropriation made by Congress for the relief of the poor in the District of Columbia is contained in act of July 4, 1864, appropriating $2,000 for the relief of the victims of the explosion in the cartridge factory in the United States Arsenal, the amount being increased by $2,500 two years later. In 1867 the sum of $15,000 was expended, under the direction of the Freedmen's Bureau, for the tempor ary relief of the destitute poor, and it was provided that where practicable the money should be used to give employment on public works. In 1869-70 $30,000 was expended under the direction of the mayors of Washington and Georgetown and the president of the levy court of the District of Columbia, and in 1870-71 the further sum of $30,000 was appropriated to enable the Secretary of War to provide for cases of absolute necessity among the poor of Washington and Georgetown, on recommendation of the Washington Association for the Improvement of the Condition of the Poor, or the National Freedmen's Relief Association, or the Industrial Home School. The Secretary of War was empowered to agree with the benevolent institutions named, or with other persons, to furnish the supplies necessary, whenever he could do so advantageously. In 1872 the Secretary of War expended $12,000 on the care of destitute aged persons in the District of Columbia, and in 1875 the Commissioners of the District of Columbia obtained an appropriation of $10,000 to relieve the suffering poor.'

Under the act chartering the Washington Market Company the annual rental of $25,000 paid by that company was set apart for the support and maintenance of the poor. Under this law the District Government became a trustee of this fund. The company claimed that the rental was subsequently reduced to $20,000 by joint resolution of the District Assembly; and that, still later, the Board of Public Works, acting under a law of Congress authorizing it to purchase a site for a municipal building, purchased from the company the property immediately in front of the market building, agreeing as a consideration to further reduce the annual rental to a sum varying from $5,500 to $7,500, according to the amount of annual tax upon the market company; and

1 Senate Ex. Doc. 84, Forty-fifty Congress, second session, pp. 119, 120.
Act approved May 20, 1870.

that the difference between the varying sum and the full amount of the poor fund should be paid by the District Government. From July 1 to December 1, 1874, the amount received from this source was $3,257.44; of which sum $656.50 was paid for the treatment of the poor at the Freedmen's Hospital and $200 was paid to charitable institutions.

This very heavy reduction in the amount received for the relief of the poor was accompanied by a change in the method of administering relief and by an economy that left the District rather benefited than injured by the new system. During the fiscal years 1871 to 1873, inclusive, the average annual expense was $18,406.92. Under the board of health during the three months ending November 30, 1874, the expendi ture was at the rate of $5,000 per annum. The number of persons treated by the physicians to the poor was 840, and the number of burials at public expense was 49. During the succeeding eleven months 5,797 persons were treated, at a cost of $7,029.06 for physicians' services and $2,162.65 for medicines. Congress having failed to provide the necessary means to continue the work, the employment of physi cians to the poor was discontinued August 31, 1876. The number of people who died in the District of Columbia without medical attendance during that year was 689, as reported by the medical sanitary inspector. "What a comment upon a civilized community!"2

II.

The act of June 11, 1878, providing a permanent form of government for the District of Columbia, abolished the board of health and created the health office, to be under the charge of a physician appointed by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, and known as the health officer. Dr. Smith Townsend, the first incumbent of the office, in his first annual report called the attention of the Commissioners of the District to the fact that a number of people died annually in the cities of Washington and Georgetown for want of medical attendance and the want of medicine, while untold suffering was entailed upon many that survived. He held that the District of Columbia had a large pauper element, brought hither by certain peculiar causes which have affected no other city. In his first report Dr. Townsend says:

There are at this time 40,000 negroes in the District, a majority of whom flocked to the seat of Government just after the war, expecting to gain an easy livelihood and find perpetual employment at the hands of those who gave them freedom; but the reaction came, and with it hard times, and these people found that freedom had its trials and tribulations as well as its joys and pleasures. Once imbued with the customs of city life, they were loath again to return to the farm and field, and they have remained in the shanties and huts which fill the alleys and back streets of Washington and Georgetown. Poorly clad, ill fed, and surrounded with filth and

Report of William Birney, assistant attorney, District of Columbia, December 1,

Report of the Board of Health for 1897, page 9.

squalor, they fall an easy prey to disease and are a constant care to the health authorities.

There is also a large number of poor whites who find the struggle for existence a hard one, and who, when sickness overtakes them, find difficulty in procuring medical attention. Many persons are annually brought to the national capital by reason of the tedious delays which sometimes attend legislation, or the procurement of official position, or through the failure of some cherished plan, and are thrown upon the charities of the District. Should disease overtake them in poverty there is no provision for their cases. There is no other city in the country of even half the population of Washington but that makes provision for the medical care of its indigent poor. That many die for lack of medical care is illustrated by the fact that the health officer is called upon daily to investigate the cause of death in cases where no physician had been in attendance, and where no medical aid whatever had been rendered.

On January 15, 1879, authority was granted to the health officer to expend $1,200 in the care of the sick poor, that amount to defray the expenses of the service to March 31 following. Dr. Townsend set out at once to organize the service and systematize its workings. The first thing done was to appoint 9 physicians, at a salary of $30 a month each; then 12 druggists were designated and contracts entered into with them to furnish medicines upon prescriptions of the physicians to the poor at reduced rates. Knowing that the most rigid economy and closest surveillance would be necessary in conducting the service, the health officer issued explicit instructions to the physicians, stating that reliance would be placed upon their judgment in determining those properly entitled to this charity, and in judiciously selecting and prescribing medicines and appliances in the treatment of diseases, with a view to economy, as well as to the best interests of the patient and the public. A sick pauper entitled to their attention and prescription was defined in plain terms, and they were then instructed in cases of doubt always to lean on the side of humanity and sympathy for the suffering.

A list of preparations and the quantities designated were given as being believed to be adequate for the requirements of the service, and the contract druggists agreed to furnish, at a price not to exceed 15 cents for each prescription, medicines of the best quality, properly prepared and put up, upon prescriptions of the physician to the poor, and to furnish to the health officer weekly statements of accounts upon blanks furnished for that purpose, prescriptions being retained as vouchers. The physicians were also required to make weekly reports, showing the name of patient, location, age, sex, color, social relation, whether the attendance was by office consultation or visit, and general remarks.1

In the opinion of the health officer the system worked admirably, and in a short time everything ran smoothly, and the sick poor were well provided for. Before the expiration of the term for which the $1,200 was furnished, an appropriation of $5,000 for this service was secured and the work was continued on the same basis, better results ensuing

The system then adopted is still in use.

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