that case the town retains an interest in the persons sent there, and looks out that they are not unworthy. For instance, one of the largest counties in Wisconsin took the interest of the poor in charge, some time ago, and cared for all the poor of the county, including the outdoor relief. The towns thus relieved have recently changed that, so that all the paupers should be a charge upon the several towns, and the result was to relieve the public of a good many paupers they had in charge at the time. This was not done by statute, but by the vote of the county board. One of those paupers, who had been supported for years, was found to be the father of one of the members of the county board.

The PRESIDENT: That is a fruitful suggestion of Mr. Wright; I have no doubt that this question of outdoor relief will be discussed for many years yet. It is true, as Mr. Wright says, there is no analogy between outdoor relief in a city and in the country, for in the country, every person is known to every other person, and the fact of outdoor relief is investigated, not by a special committee, as in cities, — but Mrs. Jones, and Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Baker and the whole community are investigating every week.

Mr. McGONNIGLE: As Mr. Sanborn says, the principle that would apply in one place would not hold in another; in our State it is all town or all county, and we could not apply the system mentioned by Mr. Wright. We have county and town almshouses, and where there is no almshouse, the relief is managed by the overseers. The outdoor and the indoor relief all come out of the same treasury. Outdoor relief is one of those matters that you cannot make a cast-iron law to decide; every case must be decided upon its own merits.

Mr. COLBY: I am neither a doctor of medicine nor a doctor of divinity, but merely a director of the Summit County Infirmary or Almshouse. I have had some experience in outdoor relief. We had a good deal of that kind of work in our county, and just before I came here I hunted up statistics and found we had 107 families to whom we furnished outdoor relief in our county. The expense we find is four cents and one mill a day, while a year ago the expense in our infirmary, not including our own pork and flour, which we raised, was eleven cents a day. In the outdoor relief, we only supplied provisions and sometimes medicine,-no clothes; and the families do more or less work. It is therefore much less costly than indoor relief.

THE ASYLUMS, PRISONS AND PUBLIC CHARITIES OF THE

PROVINCE OF ONTARIO (CANADA).

When the time arrived for Mr. Langmuir, the delegate from Canada, to present his Report, Mr. Lord, of Michigan, was called to the chair, and spoke as follows:

This Conference was at first composed mainly of delegates from the State Boards of Charities in the various States, but at Cincinnati, two years ago, a motion was made by a member of the Conference that the Governors of States should send delegates who were not members of such Boards. At Chicago, in 1879, we made a further change, because we found we were not only to consider charities, but penal institutions; so we made our title read, "The Conference of Charities and Correction." We have then under consideration, along with strictly charitable enterprises, insane asylums, poorhouses, hospitals, reformatories, and prisons, the whole being the work of Charities and Correction. Having this broad charter, the propriety of asking our neighboring Provinces to convene with us was apparent. The Province of Ontario has responded to our invitation, and we have Mr. Langmuir with us to-night, who has under his supervision all the insane asylums, the jails, and all the grade of larger prisons within her Majesty's Dominions in Canada. He is a man of great experience, as well as great intelligence. I will ask Mr. Langmuir to take the platform, and it will afford me the greatest pleasure to introduce him to you, and you, no doubt, to hear him. [Applause.]

Mr. Langmuir then read the following outline of the system of managing the corrections and charities of Ontario.

REPORT OF MR. LANGMUIR.

In these years of advanced civilization, the moral and material standing of a nation or community is judged and determined by well defined standards. If a country be possessed of a sound and effective system of education, we look for, and generally find, widespread intelligence, a large degree of social culture, and a very

marked development in all things pertaining to the arts and sciences. On looking at the converse of the proposition, if the morality of a community be low and vitiated, it follows that its religion is not that having the impress and approval of the Divine Master, whose whole earthly life and teaching were devoted to the elevation of fallen humanity. If, with wide-spread intelligence and unblemished morality, a nation be also blessed with large material resources, and its people be skilful and enterprising, we almost invariably find national greatness, together with the largest degree of comfort, contentment and happiness that such a condition of things can secure.

There are also equally unfailing tests by which the status of a nation in the scale of civilized humanity can be determined; and none is more certain nor more practical than that afforded by an examination of the system designed by a country to supply the needs of its moral, mental and physical defectives, and of its dependent classes generally. If a State, blessed with large national resources and other advantages of a material character, neglects to make proper and sufficient provision for its afflicted and offending classes, it assuredly will, to the extent of such neglect, occupy an inferior position in the scale of civilized humanity, and the more wealthy and powerful such a defaulting nation is, the greater will be the national shame attaching to such neglect. It is the solemn duty of the State, by some organization or other, to provide for her insane, her homeless orphans, her indigent sick, and to care for those who have been so afflicted as to be unable to care for themselves. Moreover, with regard to offenders against the laws, if for no higher object than that of public economy, it is in the direct interest of a community that they should be graded and classified in a properly devised system of prisons and reformatories.

Of all the vexed problems in social science, the one involving the care of the criminal and the dependent classes, and relating to the systems of managing the prisons, asylums and public charities designed for their accommodation, is, perhaps, the most intricate and the most difficult to solve. Apart from the financial and social difficulties which must always surround the question, the extreme sensitiveness of public opinion in respect to all matters relating to the care and custody of the classes coming within the scope of charitable and correctional systems, while being one of the greatest safeguards against improper treatment or mal-administration, is at

the same time one of the chief elements of danger that has to be guarded against.

That the inmates of our prisons and reformatories must be deprived of their liberty and, for the time being, subjected to disciplinary control; that the insane in our asylums must be carefully watched and needfully restrained; and that the helpless poor in our refuges, and the orphans and abandoned waifs in our benevolent institutions must be subjected to wholesome rules and regulations, renders the care of these classes, under such conditions, a work involving the most delicate and careful management, and requiring in its performance the highest order of talent and executive ability. Moreover, even with these indispensable qualities, the honest and faithful administrators of a charitable aud corrective system, and the executive heads of the institutions and organizations attached thereto, will always find cause for constant anxiety, continued watchfulness, and the exercise of the largest amount of discretion and well directed zeal.

Having regard, therefore, to these difficult and delicate questions, which must always attach to the care of the offending and dependent classes, it follows that the systems intended to supply their needs should, in the first instance, be devised with the greatest care, and afterwards should absorb all that is good in any other system which has stood a practical test.

In reading this paper it is neither my object nor my intention to enter into a critical comparison of the respective charitable and correctional systems in existence in the various civilized countries of the world; but rather to furnish a brief outline of that obtaining in the Province of Ontario, which, by your courtesy, I am permitted to represent in this National Conference. At the outset, it is proper to state the number and character of the institutions coming within the scope of the system to be reviewed.

The penal, reformatory and charitable institutions of Ontario, comprise, in their relations to the government and to the provincial system of management, three distinct classes, as follows:

First: Institutions erected solely at the expense of the Province, and when founded and organized, entirely maintained and exclusively controlled by the Provincial Government. The institutions of this class comprise four hospitals for the insane and one asylum for idiots, an institution for the education of the deaf and dumb, an institution for the education of the blind; a central,

or intermediate prison for male offenders, a reformatory for boys, a reformatory for women, and an industrial refuge for girls; the two last named being now in course of erection.

Second: Gaols erected and maintained jointly by the government and various counties of the Province, namely, thirty-seven county gaols, and eight district gaols in unorganized territories; the latter being built and maintained in the first instance by the Province.

Third: Charitable institutions founded and erected by cities. and towns, and by private individuals in a corporate capacity, and only partially maintained by the Province, but whose affairs are under the inspectorial supervision of the government. The institutions of this class comprise twelve general hospitals, fourteen houses of refuge, twenty-one asylums for orphans and neglected and abandoned children, and four Magdalen asylums.

These one hundred and seven institutions are all comprised in, and form part of the correctional, reformatory and charitable system of Ontario; and in all their relations to the Province, and in their systems of management, are placed by law under the supervisory control and inspection of a government official, known as the Inspector of Prisons and Public Charities, which position I have held since the confederation of the British North American Provinces, in 1867. In order to convey a correct idea of the system of supervision and inspection it will be necessary to define, as briefly as possible, the duties of this official. They comprise the statutory inspection three times a year of the asylums for the insane; of the institutions for the deaf and dumb and the blind, and of the prisons and reformatories belonging to the Province; twice a year of all the county gaols, and once a year of all the hospitals and charities aided by government.

The designs for new buildings required in all branches of the service, have to be prepared under the inspector's direction, and all the repairs connected with the buildings owned by the government are under his supervision, as is also their furnishing.

Besides the general oversight and control of the maintenance routine of the institutions established by the Province, he has to frame the by-laws and regulations governing their discipline, management and general economy, and to approve of the by-laws made by corporate bodies for the government of other charities. He is further empowered and required by statute, as a commissioner,