REPORT. 'To the State Board of Charities: I. have the honor to submit my annual report upon the almshouses and public hospitals in the Fifth Judicial District. In submitting the same I am glad to be able to state that these institutions in the several counties of the Fifth Judicial Dis trict have been personally visited by me; that they have been inspected also by the almshouse inspectors of the State Board of Charities, as well as by the Superintendent of State and Alien Poor. In this district three types of institutions come within the general definition of "almshouse" as that term has been used in the past. One is the almshouse proper, which with its various buildings, serves as the home of the aged, infirm and disabled poor who have no other refuge. The second is the hospital maintained wholly at public expense, and intended to provide for the indigent sick who are not inmates of the almshouse, and who upon recovery will be able to undertake their own support again. The third type of institution is a new venture in the field of public charity-the municipal lodging house. Only one institution of this character exists in the Fifth Judicial District. It has so far been an experiment, an attempt on the part of the city of Syracuse to provide temporary shelter and food for homeless men and women seeking employment. CLASSIFICATION. These three types of institutions are developments of the original almshouse, which served as a shelter for all classes of dependents upon public bounty. As the necessity for the classification of public dependents has gained recognition, the inmates of the almshouses have been divided into groups for more efficient administration, in order to secure to each group that particular form of assistance of which it stands most in need. This process of classification has freed the almshouse, to some extent, of a number of objectionable groups of inmates-objectionable because of the peculiar nature of their infirmity, and from the fact that their presence increased greatly the difficulty of properly ministering to the interests of other inmates. As classification in this district has progressed, the most of the defectives have been removed, although in some of the almshouses inmates who belong to the defective groups still remain. Children between the ages of two and sixteen years have been entirely removed except in a single instance, to which reference will be made in the part of this report which bears upon the particular almshouse in which the child is kept. Epileptics are not numerous in the public institutions of this district, and an effort has been made to remove the sick from close association with the well. But the idea of a better grouping of public dependents has resulted in another advance-to organization of public hospitals for the reception of such members of society as are temporarily incapacitated by sickness, and who are unableto pay for medical treatment from private funds. The estab lishment of these public hospitals relieves the almshouse of a large number of cases which otherwise would have to be taken care of therein. It also brings about a separation, morally beneficial, by which those temporarily disabled are neither associ ated nor classed with the great body of paupers who make up the population of the almshouse. By this arrangement the fact that an individual requiring medical attention receives treatment at public expense does not weaken his desire for independence nor degrade his sense of self-respect, as would be the result if he were sent to the almshouse and recorded as a common pauper. The last development of the idea of classification, embodied in the municipal lodging house, is an effort to assist worthy but unfortunate persons who are willing to work. Formerly the only refuge of the penniless unfortunate seeking employment and struggling against falling into degradations of pauperism was that assistance supplied by lodging in a police station. In this lodging all applicants for shelter were herded together. No discriminations were made except in the one matter of sex. The young, the old, the clean, the foul, the tramp, and honest workman, all were herded together and found place in the same lodging room. The practice was destructive of health and morals, and resulted in fostering crime, for these station lodging houses were schools of vice. The municipal lodging house attempts to separate the worthy from the unworthy. It makes inquiry into the antecedents of applicants for relief, and exacts a price to be paid in labor for the relief extended. It also proposes to prevent the abuse of public charity by tramps and other members of the vicious and criminal classes. The one example of this type of public institution in this district, while still an experiment, has accom-plished much good, and rightly managed it must prove a blessing to honest poverty. ALMSHOUSES. The chief improvement in almshouses during the year is in more ample provision for the care of the sick, and rearrangement of the dormitories so as to provide more comfortable quarters for the inmates. Credit should be accorded the boards of supervisors whose intelligent interest in the needs of the county dependents has led them to make large appropriations: for these betterments. The board of supervisors of Onondaga county has been working toward a general reconstruction of the county almshouse, and they have so far progressed as to make it safe to forecast that in a few years at the outside the county will possess an almshouse modern in all its appointments, equal to the requirements of the county, and managed in a way to reflect credit upon the community. The matter of fire protection has received consideration in this district, and one of the almshouses is equipped with a model fire-escape, by means of which the most infirm inmates can be quickly and safely transferred from the upper stories of the almshouse to the ground. The operation of this tubular |