PENNSYLVANIA. BY DR. JAMES W. WALK, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY FOR THE YEAR ENDING MAY 31, 1897. The legislature (biennial) has not yet adjourned (May 31, 1897). The session has been extraordinarily long. A revision of the general poor law has passed the House of Representatives, and is now in the Senate. The Western Pennsylvania Training School for the Feeble-minded, referred to in last year's report, was opened in April, 1897, and has 300 inmates. The Pingree Potato Patch Plan has been put on trial in Philadelphia. A. GROUP OF DELINQUENTS. Class I.Criminals. The aggregate number in the three State prisons is nearly 3,300, or about 1-20 of 1 per cent. of the population. Class 2. The Vicious. The vagrants, drunkards, etc., confined in the two correctional institutions devoted to this class are about 2,000, or 1-30 of 1 per cent. Class 3.— Insubordinates. The population of the Reform Schools reaches nearly 1,500, or 1-40 of 1 per cent. B. GROUP OF DESTITUTES. Class 1.- The Aged Poor. The bulk of the almshouse population consists of old people; and their ratio tends to increase, as the insane and other defectives are more and more removed to special institutions. Class 2.- Destitute Children. Very few of these are now left in the almshouses. They have been removed under the children's law passed in 1883. The number of children dependent upon county support does not tend to increase. Class 3.- The Sick and Injured. The State continues to maintain several small hospitals, chiefly in the mining regions. The greater number of the hospitals are supported by churches or benevolent corporations, assisted by occasional State aid. C. Group OF DEFECTIVES. Class I. The Blind. The two boarding-schools for the blind (pupils 300) and the industrial homes for blind men and women (inmates 250) continue their good works. Class 2.-Deaf-mutes. For this class of defectives there are four State schools, combining both the oral and manual methods of teaching. Aggregate population, about 800. Class 3.- Feeble-minded Children. The two institutions now in operation, one in the eastern and one in the western part of the State, provide for about 1,300 of this class; and an equal or larger number remain under county or private care. The Class 4.- The Insane. There are six large State hospitals, with nearly 6,500 patients; and 2,000 more are in county hospitals. increase goes on steadily. RHODE ISLAND. BY REV. JAMES H. NUTTING, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY FOR THE YEAR ENDING JAN. 1, 1897. Our State is so well supplied with charitable organizations that it would be difficult to find place or name for a new one. Our method of governing the various State institutions through an unpaid, non-partisan Board of State Charities and Correction continues abundantly successful and satisfactory. An act looking to the appointment of probation officers, and changing somewhat the methods of court procedure with juvenile offenders, was introduced at late session of legislature, but failed to be executed because of certain very glaring defects in its provisions. We are not much given in Rhode Island to copying the methods of other States unchanged: they must first be adapted to our circumstances and conditions. A. GROUP Of Delinquents. Class 1.- Criminals. In State prison, 191; in county jails, 250; total, 441. Class 2.- The Vicious. In State Workhouse, 203. Class 3.- Insubordinates. (a) In Boys' Reform School, 302; (b) in Girls' Reform School, 37. SOUTH DAKOTA. BY W. B. SHERRARD, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. The following-named bills were introduced, but failed: to convert the Reform School into a State printing-office; to place reform. school children in family homes; to provide for the care of feebleminded children. A bill was enacted to remove children from vicious surroundings. The Catholics, under the leadership of Bishop O'Gorman, are arranging to establish three or four hospitals in different parts of the State. A. GROUP OF DELINQUENTS. Class 1.- Criminals. In State prison, 106. Class 3- Insubordinates. (a) In Boys' Reform Schools, 88; (b) in Girls' Reform Schools, 29. Class 1. Class 2. B. GROUP OF DESTITUTES. The Indoor Poor. Number unknown. The Sick and Injured Poor. Number unknown. Class 3.- Destitute Children (not "insubordinate "). The Children's Home Society covers the field for this class, and has received, during the four and a half years of its existence, 337 children, all of whom are in family homes. Class 1. C. GROUP OF DEFECTIVES. The Blind. No provision. Number unknown. Class 3.— The Feeble-minded. No school. Number unknown. BY REV. W. L. KENNEDY, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. No acts, so far as I know, have ever been attempted in behalf of the charitable institutions of the State, except to make the usual appropriations; and, so far as I know, nothing has been done by women's clubs or secret organizations. Class 1. A. GROUP OF DELINQUENTS. Criminals. Are confined in two State prisons, Hunts ville and Rusk. In the former are 906; in the latter, 862. The remainder are at work on farms, railroad trains, etc. 4,616, an increase of 216 since my last report. Total convicts, Class 2.The Vicious. Are very little cared for, except to restrain them from crime and punish them when it is committed. Class 3.— We have an institution called a Reformatory, where boys are confined. But it seems to rest entirely with our juries to say in their verdict whether a boy shall go to the Reformatory or to the Penitentiary. B. GROUP OF DESTITUTES. The aged poor are supported in the county and city poorhouses and almshouses, but at county and municipal expense. Our cities provide for the wounded and sick dependents by hospitals, while nothing is done for the children of the poor except as orphans. Of these there are a number; but with a single exception, the Orphans' Home at Corsicana, these are either denominational (as the Buckner's Orphan Home at Dallas, under the supervision of Baptists; at Waco, under the control of Methodists) or private and supported by individual benevolence. C. GROUP OF DEFECTIVES. The blind and deaf and dumb have separate schools in Austin, where they are provided for and educated at the expense of the State. A recent letter from the superintendent of the school for the deaf and dumb gives the following statistics: pupils received during 1896–97, 38; pupils dismissed and suspended, 6; pupils enrolled during session 1896–97, 263; pupils remaining out of school voluntarily this session, 37. At the insane asylum in Terrell there are now now on hand 814. From San Antonio received from Nov. 1, 1896, to date, 42; discharged Nov. 1, 1896, to date, 10. From Austin, number patients received, 77; number discharged, 45, since Nov. 1, 1896. Of our orphans I have only heard from Rev. W. H. Vaughn established 1894; on hand, 85; 22 received last year. : VERMONT. BY J. EDWARD WRIGHT, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. The most important legislation is as follows: (1) An act to prevent cruelty to children. (2) An act giving county courts discretionary power to commit persons over sixteen years of age to the Vermont Industrial School. (3) An act empowering towns and cities to appropriate money for the support of incorporated non-sectarian hospitals. (4) An act pronouncing parents and grandparents, children and grandchildren, brothers and sisters, under obligation to support destitute kinsfolk when able to do so. The new charitable institutions established are: (1) The Heaton Hospital, a cottage hospital built by Hon. Homer W. Heaton in Montpelier, at an expense of some $25,000, and partly sustained by a city appropriation of $2,000 a year. (2) A bequest from Hon. Homer Goodhue, for many years one of the Supervisors of the Insane, to the Brattleboro Retreat, its income to be devoted to entertainments for the patients. A. GROUP OF DELINQUENTS. Class I. Criminals. In State prison, 159. Most of the men are employed in making shoes at 72 cents a day, at which rate the institution is expected to be self-supporting. Class 2.The Vicious. In House of Correction at Rutland, III. The men are employed to a large extent in working on marble. Average daily earnings per man, less the amount paid for power, engineers, and overseers, has been 35180 cents. In county jails, about 75 persons, mostly confined for short periods. A "House of Mercy" in Burlington furnishes shelter under reformatory influences for a few wayward girls. Class 3.— Insubordinates. In Industrial School at Vergennes, 109 boys and girls. |