they sink into apathy and decay. But difficult as it is to make such labor efficient and economical, considerations of health and discipline require a patient and sustained effort. The law and administrative rules should make it obligatory on every superintendent to do his best in this direction, and he should be kept to his duty by state supervision and the requirement of reports.

There should be a careful discrimination between the able bodied and the feeble. Industry in the case of the strong should be a work test, a proof of the willingness of the inmates to labor and a partial means of covering the expenses of their support. The poorhouse cannot be made a place of punishment or correction; that task belongs to another branch of government. Charity and penalty must not be mixed and confused. If men refuse to work, the police should be called in to arrest them for vagrancy, and send them to a workhouse.

For the feeble, industry must be regarded chiefly as a means of furthering physical and moral health, discipline, good order, and such production as is possible. All production of goods should be for immediate consumption on the premises, not for sale in the market in competition with free labor. Various methods of stimulating feeble persons to such work as they are capable of performing are easily devised, as extra comforts, amusements, and marks of distinction.

Outdoor relief should be used to prevent the necessity of begging or suffering; so that any one who begs is without excuse, and may be sent without reluctance to a workhouse or house of correction.

Private charity should not interfere with this system by ignorant and unreflecting almsgiving, or by aiding strangers without an understanding with the public authorities for the poor and with the police. Private charity should have work tests for all it relieves, and through organized bureaus should coöperate with public agencies in every case.

A very needy and attractive field for private charity at the poorhouse is the provision of employment for aged women.

A

life of inactivity and aimlessness is torture. A society of good women in a county, imitating the example of Lady Brabazon in England, could furnish materials for plain and fancy work, and aid in occasional bazaars for the benefit of the unfortunate and aged people. This would relieve the tedious and depressing monotony of the almshouse life, bring cheerful motives into the dull existence, and awaken sisterly interest for the desolate and friendless in the entire community. We soon forget those for whom we render no personal service.

7. Regulation of Admission and Discharge. — The legal responsibility of relatives should be enforced before the county assumes support of a dependent person, and the resources of this kind should be carefully investigated before the pauper is admitted to permanent residence. Able bodied vagrants should be sent to a real workhouse, not to jail, and not to a poorhouse. The county institution should not be made a school of vice by being turned into a foundling asylum "with no questions asked" about parentage.

Discharge should not be at the option of the inmate, but only upon order from county authorities; and the order should not be given if the pauper is an unsafe person to enjoy entire freedom. Self-discharge should never be permitted; and this is especially harmful in case of feeble-minded women. Brokendown inebriates should be retained in custody, and not permitted to come and go in the intervals of debauch. If they are incapable of self-control, the state should assume charge of them and control them in their own interest.

All these, and other desirable regulations and improvements, can be secured only through systematic supervision by the state board of charities or its agents. But local voluntary associations may coöperate with the state in this task. Legislatures have, in some states, authorized the appointment of responsible citizens, by a court or otherwise, to visit and inspect county institutions at regular intervals, and to make reports. Women are very useful on such committees, since their housekeeping instincts and

tastes are very exacting, and their eyes are open to things unseemly, hurtful to health, cruel, and harsh.

8. The Churches have a special duty to the helpless inmates of the poorhouses. Religious care is too commonly neglected. There should be an organization in every county to appoint persons to hold musical and other religious services on Sunday, and to visit the feeble and weary with gospel comfort. The agency for providing these means of grace may be the Sunday School Convention, the Young Men's Christian Association, the conference of pastors, or any missionary organization.

9. Private Indoor Relief aims to spare the humiliation of the poor who are ashamed" by providing homes for the sick, the invalid, and especially for aged people who have lived reputable lives and who dread the almshouse more than they dread the grave. The field left open by public indoor relief for private charity is defined in the proposition that public relief cares for extremity, cares for all without distinction of character, and provides only the necessities of existence: while private charity provides more particularly for special classes, as members of a certain nationality, or sect; may provide better accommodations for some who have been accustomed to them; may hide the shame of pauperism; may protect sensitive and refined dependents from association with the degraded; and may use the partial resources of the aged poor, and supplement them with gifts and endowments.

10. The Result and Outlook. Even when the special classes of defectives are placed in separate institutions, according to their needs, the poorhouse will continue to draw into itself the most wretched wrecks of society. If the worn-out criminals and paupers could be selected, and the respectable aged given separate accommodations, the evil might be diminished. But it seems impossible for public institutions to make such discriminations. While many representatives of the labor movement are demanding that some such distinction should be made between the honest, though defeated, working-man and the criminal, and sepa

rate accommodations provided, others think a better plan would be an imitation of the German insurance of aged working-people. We have pensioners of war; why not have pensioners of the army of labor, who have served their country faithfully, at low wages, and come at last to want? The old-age pension scheme might be made to provide for those who have homes and partial support; but public institutions would still be needed for the childless, homeless, and entirely destitute in prolonged feebleness and old age.

CHAPTER VI.

THE UNEMPLOYED AND THE HOMELESS DEPENDENTS.

1. Classification and Characterization. - For purposes of scientific explanation or of practical philanthropy, the first requirement is the distinct separation of the elements with which we must deal. Those who in times of financial depression and distress appeal for help on the plea that they cannot find work are too commonly confused in one mass, and are regarded either with undiscriminating pity or with unjust suspicion and hostility. Classification is demanded by justice and by wise charity.

In a first group we may mentally place those who are temporarily out of employment, but who have some resources and are able to work. There are laborers who are not employed at certain seasons of the year on account of the periodical nature of demand for the products of their trades; others are displaced by the vicissitudes of climate, or by strikes, lockouts, industrial depression. The resources may be in the form of property, savings deposits, credit with shopkeepers, trade union funds, or lodge benefits. Every year a great host of masons, bricklayers, painters, sailors on inland lakes, and farm hands are regularly without income from their crafts. Such persons are not driven to ask relief of the public unless deprivation is prolonged. Their idleness does affect the classes below them by increasing pressure on certain occupations by those who are thrown out of their usual trades, and by reducing their expenditures for commodities and services.

Persons without Resources. - Able bodied persons, engaged in irregular employments, are often affected by climate or by