men and children, a small social settlement,- all point toward better conditions for the prevention of pauperism and crime. Public sentiment is daily growing stronger in favor of more practical education for our poor children in the public schools, and we hope that in the near future manual training for boys and for girls will be part of the curriculum of our schools. Our new jail for misdemeanants is progressing. Our Boys' Reformatory promises to become a more useful place for little vagrants and truants. The new system inaugurated last year in our penitentiary is a great step taken by the state to better the conditions of the prisoners, who are kept at work on two immense plantations, producing thousands of bales of cotton and thousands of barrels of sugar, as well as vegetables for the men and feed for the horses and cattle. We think, with the present administration, there is some hope of having soon a reformatory for men as well as for boys. DELINQUENT AND DEPENDENT CLASSES. GROUP OF DELINQUENTS. State convicts serving sentence in the state penitentiary: White males White females. Colored males Colored females Total Juvenile delinquents in the Boys' Reformatory (during the year) 158 I 944 39 1,142 287 258 545 119 48 15 194 29 405 Destitute children in sectarian orphan asylums. 2,037 In the Charity Hospital of New Orleans: Total number of patients during the year (daily average) Number of beds. Outdoor clinics Charity Hospital of Shreveport: Daily average of patients. Touro Infirmary: Total number of patients during the year Outdoor clinics GROUP OF DEFECTIVES. Louisiana State Institute for the Deaf and Dumb. Pupils Insane patients in the State Asylum at Jackson, La. MAINE. MRS. L. M. N. STEVENS, PORTLAND, STATE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. Maine has no session of the legislature this year. There has been no new charitable organization or institution established during the year; but several existing charities and institutions have been strengthened and enlarged, among them the Temporary Home for Women and Children, situated at Portland, Me. A new wing has been added to the institution. This has been built as a memorial to Mrs. Philip H. Brown, who passed away during the year. She was one of the founders and trustees of the home. The Invalids' Home, Portland, Me., where patients are received for small remuneration from any part of the state, is soon to be enlarged. It is a very beneficent institution, and the plans for its enlargement are well under way. Constant improvements are being made at the Reform School for Boys. The board of trustees have unanimously recommended that the cottage system entire shall be adopted. Heretofore they have had several cottages, but have retained the large central building, under whose roof are more boys than the perfect cottage plan would admit. The criminals are cared for in state prison and county jails, the vicious and insubordinates in jails and houses of correction. The poor in poorhouses are better cared for than formerly. Many of the poor are placed in boarding-houses. Many are assisted, so that they can remain in their own homes. There is a fast-growing tendency to care for destitute children outside of the poorhouses, in the various homes for children in the state. There are wards in some of the hospitals where sick poor children are received free of charge. The sick and injured are cared for in general and in city hospitals, city dispensaries, etc. There is The blind are cared for in and out of state institutions. in Portland an excellent state institution for deaf-mutes. There are in Maine two hospitals for the insane, one in central and the other in eastern Maine. It is claimed that the best work and advanced methods of caring for the insane prevail in these hospitals. MARYLAND. MISS KATE M. MCLANE, STATE CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. The Maryland legislature for 1902 passed an unusual number of bills of importance from the standpoint of the sociologist. This legislation was largely due to unity of effort among such organizations as the State Board of Health, Medical Societies, the Federation of Labor, the Bureau of Industrial Statistics, a number of women's clubs (notably the Arundell Good Government Club), the Supervisors of City Charities, and leading private charitable associations of Baltimore City, particularly the Charity Organization Society. The School Attendance Law (applying only to Baltimore City and Allegany County) becomes operative September 1, and provides that all children between eight and twelve, physically and mentally fitted, must attend the public schools unless receiving elsewhere adequate instruction. Children from twelve to sixteen, physically and mentally fitted, must also attend school unless legally employed at home or elsewhere. Such employment is forbidden, if they cannot read and write simple sentences in English, unless they attend an evening or some other school. Attendance officers (not over twelve in number) for Baltimore City, appointed by the School Board, shall try to secure attendance, arrest serious offenders, and visit mills and factories employing children. Penalties are provided for persons preventing children attending school and for persons who employ children illegally. An amendment to the Child Labor Law raised the legal working age from twelve to fourteen, except when a child is the only support of a widowed mother, an invalid father, or is solely dependent on self for support. trate. Consideration for the rights of children secured the passage of a carefully drawn provision for the appointment by the governor of a special magistrate in Baltimore for the trial of juvenile cases, and probation officers appointed by the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City will look after the children under the orders of the new magisThe bill was indorsed by the leading charitable and educational organizations, public and private, of the city; and the prospect is that this much-needed reform in the treatment of juvenile offenders will be carried out under admirable officials. At first but two of the probation officers will be paid, by funds from persons interested in child-saving. It was not possible to provide for a court presided over by a judge, except by constitutional amendment. The Workman's Co-operative Insurance Act aims to protect employees in perilous occupations. The act creating the Bureau of Industrial Statistics was amended so as to provide Baltimore with a free employment agency aimed to bring together employers and laborers out of work. This same state bureau was successful in securing a bill providing for two inspectors (to be appointed by chief of bureau) of sweat shops and factories in Baltimore City. It provides that all manufacturers must have permits from the bureau after July 1. It is understood that one of the inspectors is to be a woman, and that both will co-operate with school attendance officers in preventing the illegal employment of minors. Amendments to the Chattel Mortgage Act of 1900 make it an offence to loan money upon security of chattels, in any form of negotiation, at an illegal rate of interest, with penalty of a fine of $100 for first offence and imprisonment for thirty days for subsequent offences, and the further forfeit of the entire amount loaned. A tuberculosis commission of five persons (three of them physicians), appointed by the governor for two years, was authorized. The members are to serve without pay; but $4,000 is appropriated for the expenses of the commission, whose duties are to investigate the prevalence and cause of tuberculosis, its economic relation to the community, and to devise and recommend measures for its restriction. An act was passed to punish the slaughter for food of diseased animals, and yet another bill gives local boards of health summary powers in abatement of nuisances. The Board of State Aid and Charities received little consideration at the hands of the legislature, to whom its first report was presented. The board had taken slight pains to investigate institutions or to consider on any general plan the rights and needs of the poor. The legislature appropriated $75,000 to charitable institutions in excess of similar items in 1900. This increase went chiefly to institutions managed by private boards. Fourteen institutions never before granted public money were added to the former list, and none were struck from it. Among the new corporate dependants on the State's bounty are a social settlement, I hospital, 3 dispensaries, 2 medical colleges, all in Baltimore, and 2 hospitals and a home for aged in the counties. Until some systematic and intelligent principle is adopted to govern charitable appropriations, this same indiscriminate expenditure at the cost of the tax-payer, with no adaptability to the needs of the poor, will continue. Public opinion, no less than legislators, needs education in this matter. The appropriation to the Maryland Training School for the Feeble-minded at Owings Mills was wisely increased $28,000 a year for 1902 and 1903,- an annual increase of $12,000. $36,000 was also given for buildings and furnishings. The second annual report of the Supervisors of City Charities of Baltimore City for the year ending Dec. 31, 1901, makes clear that the cardinal principle underlying the methods adopted by the board in their varied work is careful treatment of the individual, keeping primarily in mind two queries, Can the applicant's relatives help? can some private agency help? Negative answers to these two questions alone entitle an applicant to city aid. Thus, out of 490 children referred to the supervisors, but 149 on investigation were found to be proper city charges. In the realm of private charity in Baltimore the most important fact in its immediate consequences is the resignation in April of Miss Mary Willcox Brown, general secretary of the Charity Organization Society. She will resume her place in the society's corps of volunteer workers. The vacancy in the office of general secretary of the Charity Organization Society forced to the front a question which has been before the active managers for some time, i.e., the possibility and advisability of closer relations between the society and the Associa |