received and acted upon by officials, so that a resort to legal measures in but few instances has been necessary.

Among the more important reforms brought about in the administration of charitable work in New York since the organization of the State Board, Dr. Hoyt enumerated the following:

1. An improved condition of the poorhouses generally, with more extended classification, better accommodations for the sick, and special provision for the aged and infirm.

2. A general improvement in the treatment and care of the chronic insane poor by their removal to the Willard Asylum, the erection of new county-asylums, and the employment of medical officers and attendants to look to their welfare.

3. The removal of dependent children from poorhouses and almshouses, and providing for their training and care separate from adult paupers.

During the session of the last legislature, the law regarding the adoption and binding-out of children was amended so as better to protect the rights and welfare of the child; and it was believed that highly valuable results would grow out of this legislation. The last legislature also provided for the establishment of an asylum for unteachable, feeble-minded girls and young women. Heretofore there had been no refuge for this class, other than in the county poorhouses, and the need of a separate institution for their protection and care had long been felt.

In conclusion, Dr. Hoyt said that the importance of the work of the New-York State Board seemed generally to be appreciated by the citizens of the State, and the Board received proper consideration from the legislature.

RHODE ISLAND. BY DR. KENYON.

I need not say much of the legal status of the institutions of charity in the State of Rhode Island; for I see in the published report of the Proceedings of this Conference last year, that the Chairman of Board of State Charities gave a full account of the powers conferred on the Board by the legislature of our State, and I refer any one interested to that as a brief and faithful exposé of the legal status of our institutions. It will be perceived that our powers differ somewhat from those of the boards in other States, older and more experienced in the work of organizing institutions than ourselves; and that, while their legislatures have distributed the control of their institutions to different boards, ours have con

fided to one Board the control of all our charitable and penal institutions. Whether this is wise, or the reverse, time alone can determine; but it certainly adds to the efficiency and executive control of the institutions. If it should not succeed in large communities, we think that in small ones like ours it is preferable to a more extended distribution of authority.

There is now in our State a prison for men, nearly completed, which will be occupied by our State prisoners the coming autumn. This is constructed on what our people believe the most improved plan for the health and reformation of those placed therein; having more comfortable cells for the better class of prisoners, and other comforts for those disposed to reform.

During the last session of the legislature the question of an industrial school was agitated; and, though our hope of its establishment was not realized, yet we were gratified to know that it failed from mere matters of detail, rather than from any doubt or objection as to its necessity, for that was conceded by all. We expect at no late date to be able to report that truant and pauper children will no longer be associated (in our State institutions) with adult paupers and criminals.

The new prison is located upon the State farm at Cranston. All the State institutions, Insane Asylum, House of Refuge, &c., are located on this farm of five hundred acres, and this prison will be a mile from any other institution now on the farm. I cannot give you minute particulars as to the plan of building. It is fitted up on what we call the "graded system." There are different kinds of rooms, intended for different kinds of prisoners, according as they are ordinary, better, or worse. The better prisoners have the larger and better rooms. As yet no plan of labor has been decided upon. At present we do contract-work in our prison, making shoes, &c.

The Board of State Charities in Massachusetts has now been established nearly fifteen years, having been appointed October 1, 1863. Its powers are partly administrative and partly visitorial, and its duties have been much extended since its first organization, without any change in its fundamental character, and less than usually takes place in its membership. The Legislature of the present year has considered for some months a proposition to substitute for this Board an ex officio board of three members, with

much more extensive powers, but the bill failed to pass. The same bill contained provisions for consolidating the charitable establishments so that four lunatic hospitals should be governed by one board of nine trustees, three reformatory and preventive schools by one board of seven trustees, etc., but the measure was opposed as too sweeping, and none of the contemplated changes were made. Two new insane hospitals have been opened in Massachusetts since the Conference last met, at Worcester and at Danvers. The old hospital at Worcester has been converted into an asylum for the chronic insane, and now contains 400 patients of that class, while the asylum for the same class at Tewksbury contains about 275 patients. The whole number of insane in Massachusetts exceeds 4,000, of whom more than 2,300 are in the State hospitals and asylums, about 700 in town and city asylums and almshouses, and about 200 in private asylums. The two new hospitals would soon be filled; indeed that at Worcester is already full- and both will comfortably contain about 1,000 patients. Their cost has been nearly $3,000,000.

The greatest change of the year has been occasioned by the opening of a new reformatory prison for women, in the town of Sherborn near South Framingham, 20 miles west of Boston. It was opened early in November, 1877, and now contains more than 400 women, and about 50 infant children of convicts. The cost of this prison, with its equipment, has been about $350,000, and its current expenses for 1878, with an average of nearly 400 women will be about $60,000. When the prison industries have been well organized, this cost will be reduced by the earnings of the women, which it is estimated, will be from $15,000 to $20,000 a year. It is governed wholly by women, the only male officer being the steward, and it is very well governed. Its board of management consists of four gentlemen, aided by an advisory board of three ladies. The prison is supported by the State, and takes about half of the women who were formerly confined in the city and county prisons, or in the State workhouse at Bridgewater. The shortest term of sentence is four months, and the average term exceeds six months. A prison-school is maintained the first in Massachusetts where female convicts have been taught to read and write, systematically. It is open for six hours a day, and six classes are taught in it, each for one hour. The hospital is large, sunny and well arranged, and in nearly all respects it is a complete contrast to the old-fashioned prisons, in which men and

women were confined. Of its reformatory results it is too early to speak, but its management, thus far has been good and effective. The largest of the State establishments is the Almshouse at Tewksbury, near Lowell, with about 900 inmates, including 275 insane patients in the asylum already mentioned. The State Workhouse having lost most of its female convicts, now has less than 300 inmates. There are two reform schools, one for boys at Westborough, with 325 inmates, and one for girls at Lancaster, with something less than 100. At Monson is a State Primary school for poor children of both sexes. All these, and the State almshouse, are now subject to inspection by women. There is a Visiting Agency in connection with the Board of Charities, which finds places in families for the children of these schools, and visits them there. Nearly 1,000 children are thus kept out in families and visited once a year or oftener. In the Monson school there are about 450 children. The expense to the State of these three schools and of the Visiting Agency will be about $150,000 for the present year; of the four State hospitals for the insane the net expense will be about $450,000, of which the State pays about $100,000. The State Almshouse costs about $100,000 a year in current expenses and repairs; the State Workhouse about $40,000.

The number of dependants, paupers, etc., exclusive of convicts, supported by the State is between three and four thousand at any one time, and the annual cost exceeds $500,000. There are also the city and town poor in large numbers, costing for their support and relief not less than a million and a quarter dollars a year. The number of these paupers is now somewhat less than it was a year ago. In regard to the mode of supporting the poor, and especially the new system of medical relief for the out-door poor of the State, the paper of Dr. Wheelwright, to be read this afternoon, gives much information.

MICHIGAN. BY MR. LORD.

The State of Michigan, since the last biennial session of her legislature in 1876-77, has made such progress in reducing to practice what her people have learned of social science in its application to charitable and correctional institutions, as the laws and appropriations hitherto made have permitted.

The jails, in which a little more than seven thousand persons are confined within the year, and in which the average number is two hundred and fifteen, are still in bad condition, as heretofore

reported. They are all seminaries or common schools of crime, in which, at the public expense, the youth is instructed by those who have taken degrees; and when a trial is had on the charges for which the arrests were made, and when about three-fourths of those confined are acquitted, they go forth well taught in all that was known to the guilty; and many of them to test by practice the theories that have been discussed.

The county poorhouses receive during the year about six thousand occupants, and the whole administration in this department is undergoing steady improvement. The county superintendents of the poor meet in annual convention, where men of long experience compare their labors; and reforms and ameliorations are agreed upon that have produced a very marked alteration for the better in a large portion of the county almshouses.

We regret to report that our State has as yet no proper prison for women, a very serious difficulty, and no reform school, or

shelter for fallen or exposed young girls.

The new Eastern Insane Asylum is now nearly completed, and will be ready for patients in August. It will have a capacity for four hundred, is built in good style, presents an elegant and imposing appearance, and the whole cost will be four hundred thousand dollars. This asylum, with that at Kalamazoo, will afford room for a thousand patients. It is the opinion of the Board of Charities, that a third asylum should be provided for by the next legislature, since the whole number of insane in the State, for whom provision of this kind should be made, is probably not less than fifteen hundred. The State legislature, at its last session, enacted that it shall hereafter be unlawful to confine insane persons in the county poorhouse whenever there shall be room in the State asylums; and further, that when a county shall have paid the expenses of an insane person for two years at a State asylum, the patient shall thereafter become a State charge. This is a very important enactment, and is designed to remove from the counties a desire to keep the insane in the poorhouses in order to lessen the cost of maintenance.

Michigan has no asylum for idiots. Of this miserable class there are about three hundred in the poorhouses, and six hundred more in some way supported by their relatives.

The State Public School for Dependent Children at Coldwater, heretofore sufficiently described, we are gratified to say, continues to fulfil the expectations of its projectors. It has now passed be