NEVADA.

First. Nevada supports an orphans' home at Carson City, its capital, and provides for the deaf and dumb and blind in the institutions of California.

Second.

These institutions are alike free to all.

Third. No changes in legislation during the past year.

Fourth. The indigent poor are provided for by the counties. Fifth. The prison system consists of county jails and a State penitentiary.

NEW HAMPSHIRE.

First. New Hampshire maintains no organized "public charities," unless you include in "public charities" the asylum for the insane, which is only partially supported by the State, and in which most of the patients are supported by themselves or their friends. Our blind, deaf, dumb and feeble-minded are supported and educated by the State at institutions in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Second. We have no institutions free alike to all classes except jails, the State prison and the public schools.

Third. At the last session of our Legislature in June, 1879, an appropriation of $6,000 was made for the purpose of providing machinery, and other suitable appliances, to enable the inmates of the State Reform School to acquire some industrial trade or calling.

Fourth. Our poor are maintained by the counties.

Fifth. The prison system includes a jail in each of the ten counties, one State prison and one State Reform School.

NEW JERSEY.

First. New Jersey has two asylums for the insane, and a home for disabled soldiers. The deaf and dumb, blind, and feeble-minded are provided for in institutions in New York and Philadelphia, the State paying a certain sum per capita for their maintenance. Second. Conditions of admission not reported.

Third. No changes in legislation during the past year.

Fourth. The poor are provided for in the townships by the township committee, in the city by the overseer of the poor, and nearly every county has a poorhouse.

Fifth. There is one State prison and two reform schools, one for boys and one for girls. There are also two county penitentiaries, and every county has a jail and every city a lock-up.

NEW YORK.

No report furnished, but the annual reports of her Board of State Charities afford such abundant information that further explanation was probably considered unnecessary. New York, as befits her wealth and position, is in the front rank of States in her charitable and correctional institutions, and in some respects is in advance of all others. Her reformatory at Elmira is in most respects the best model for prison management in America, and her asylum for the chronic insane, in a large degree, has solved the problem of economy and comfort combined, in the care of that unfortunate class. Any State about to build a new penitentiary or insane asylum, ought not to begin without a thorough inspection and study of the Elmira and Willard systems.

NORTH CAROLINA.

No report rendered.

OHIO.

Ohio has six asylums for the insane, four owned wholly by the State, and two patronized by the State, one of which is partially under State control. They afford accommodation for 3,400, and are overcrowded, and 600, greatly to our discredit, are scattered through our infirmaries with such care as infirmaries can give.

We have an institution for the deaf and dumb, for the blind, for idiots, and imbeciles, and a home for soldiers' and sailors' orphans. We have also county or district institutions known as children's homes, for indigent or neglected children. We have ten of these now in operation, with an average of about ninety children in each, and more are in process of construction. We hope in a few years to have every child out of our infirmaries, and then we believe it ought to be made a penal offence to leave a child in any infirmary. We believe all of these institutions will compare favorably with the best of other States, and we cordially invite the members of this Conference to examine for themselves before leaving the State.

Second. These institutions are free to all, the rich and the poor alike, without a shadow of distinction in care or treatment. In

Ohio, the deaf and dumb, the blind, the feeble-minded and the insane are the children of the State, and all are thus recognized by the law, and all are entitled to the best care that a cherishing mother can give.

Third. New legislation during the past winter affecting our public institutions has been quite extensive. The most important is their political reorganization, the effect of which remains to be seen. Thus far, however, through the moderation and good judgment of the new boards of trustees, no general disturbance of our institutions has been inflicted except in the penitentiary, and we have reason to hope that the evils of reorganization will, in large measure, be warded off by wisdom in administration.

Another law increasing the number and powers of the Board of State Charities is a large improvement on previous legislation, and, if permitted to remain, will work a vast benefit to the State. The new features of the law are:

First. An increase of members from four to six, with the Governor ex-officio chairman. Not more than three members can be appointed from the same political party.

Second. It requires the officers in charge of all correctional and charitable institutions, and especially of prisons, jails, infirmaries, public hospitals and asylums, to furnish to the board, on their request, such information and statistics as they may require ; and, to secure accuracy, uniformity and completeness in such statistics, the board may prescribe such forms of report and registration as they may deem essential."

Third. "All plans of new jails and infirmaries shall, before the adoption of the same by the county authorities, be submitted to said board for suggestion and criticism."

Fourth. The Governor, in his discretion, may at any time order an investigation by the board, or by a committee of its members, of the management of any penal, reformatory, or charitable institution of the State, and such board or committee, in making such investigation, shall have power to send for persons and papers, and to administer oaths and affirmations, and the report of such investigation, with the testimony, shall be made to the Governor, and shall be submitted by him, with his suggestions, to the General Assembly.

Fifth. The poor are provided for by the counties. Each county has a poorhouse, called an infirmary. Outdoor, or temporary

relief, however, is administered by the infirmary directors, and by township trustees, and paid for by the county.

Sixth. Our prison system consists of one penitentiary (which ought to be subdivided into three, and properly graded), a jail in each county, and a workhouse in Cleveland and Cincinnati. Our penitentiary, and most of our jails, are on the ordinary congregate system, but we hope to change for the better very soon. We already have a few jails constructed on proper principles, and one of them is in the city of Cleveland. The Cleveland jail is not perfect, by any means; nor is separation absolutely enforced at all. times as it ought to be, but it is a large advance in the right direction, and we hope you will visit it and examine for yourselves.

The new city prison at Columbus is one of the best structures of the kind in the whole country, but the principle of separation, which is its most praiseworthy feature, is in a large degree nullified by the mistaken zeal of the Young Men's Christian Association, which insists upon congregating the prisoners on the Sabbath for religious worship, instead of visiting them singly in their cells, as they ought, which would be truly Christian, and far more useful.

Ohio also has a reform school for boys at Lancaster, and a reform school for girls at Delaware, and both are doing great good, but like most institutions of this kind they are not as carefully guarded as they ought to be against the intrusion of children who are neither criminal nor vicious, whereby a double wrong is perpetrated, first upon the children and then upon the State.

The cities of Cincinnati, Toledo and Cleveland, have each a house of refuge, under city control, and all are admirably managed and greatly useful, but that at Cleveland is unfortunately connected with the workhouse, which is an association always to be deplored, and which, in this case, constitutes no exception to the general rule.

OREGON.

First. Oregon has an insane asylum, and a school for the deaf and dumb and blind.

Second. No new legislation.

Third. Each county cares for its own poor.

Fourth. Its prison system consists of a State penitentiary and county and city jails.

PENNSYLVANIA.

First. For the indigent insane five hospitals have been established, three of which are completed and occupied, and two others are far advanced toward completion. When the latter shall be finished accommodations will be afforded for 3,200 patients. An act was passed at the last session of the Legislature to establish a State hospital for the care and treatment of the sick and injured in the mining regions, in addition to which occasional State aid is granted to hospitals already established in other parts of the State for the benefit of the latter classes.

Institutions for the care and training of the deaf and dumb, the blind, and for feeble-minded children, have been established by incorporated associations with State aid (to some extent). The State grants a fixed per capita rate annually for the care and training of a certain number of the indigent class in each of these institutions.

Second. Admissions are granted to all the above-named institutions without regard to creed, color or nativity.

Third. With the exception of granting aid for larger numbers of beneficiaries, no changes have occurred during the past year in the legislation of public, benevolent, correctional and penal institutions.

Fourth. The poor of the counties are provided for by county almshouses, for the poor of the entire county, and local or district almshouses for the indigent of a single borough, township, city, or for several boroughs and townships. There are thirty-three of the former and twenty-seven of the latter. Besides these there are twenty-two entire counties in which almshouses have not been erected. The poor of these counties are cared for under what is termed the township system.

Fifth. In the prison system of Pennsylvania are included three penitentiaries (one of which is not yet finished), sixty-seven county prisons, a workhouse, and a house of correction, and two reformatories for juvenile delinquents.

RHODE ISLAND.

First. The organized charities provided by the State of Rhode Island consist of a State Almshouse and a State Asylum for the Incurably Insane. Insane paupers, not pronounced incurable, are