accommodations were inadequate, not only were appropriations made for extensions, but a law was passed requiring the respective counties of the State to provide for all whose applications had been rejected by the Superintendent of the Insane Asylum, and to draw upon the Auditor of State for $3.50 per week to pay for their care. There can be no public patients, however, without a verdict of non compos mentis by a jury, and the finding of the probate-judge that the insane person is unable to maintain himself. Private patients are admitted upon the certificates of two respectable practising physicians, accompanied by bonds to cover the expense of board, now $2.80 per week. Private patients may be changed into public by application to the probate-judge.. Under the law of 1876, some of the counties have farmed their insane population out; and thus, to some extent, we have experienced the effect of the family treatment when cared for by attendants and county physicians who are not experts. Kansas has concluded to drop the curtain over that experience. Out of the entire number thus cared for, not two per cent recovered. The Board therefore ordered the superintendent, upon the receipt of an application from a recent case, to return a harmless chronic patient to his county, that room might thus be made for the recent cases. And so overwhelming was the conviction of the importance of prompt attention by experts, that the last legislature made an appropriation to open two sections of the south wing of the Topeka Asylum, and also for finishing the asylum at Osawatomie, and for occupying it. It has been determined to occupy detached cottages upon the Asylum-grounds, for the chronic insane, who will be grouped in families of about twenty, with the necessary head. Recognizing that sunshine is the best stimulant, as large a percentage as the facilities will admit of are engaged in out-of-door and industrial pursuits, with excellent results. In addition to the two State Institutions, a private asylum has recently been established at Leavenworth. Kansas has, perforce, been obliged to erect modest, unostentatious public buildings, and our tax-rolls admit of no extravagance in other expenditures. The land, having all been held by the United States, is not subject to taxation until the settler becomes seized in fee.. In the erection of asylums, our effort has been to secure the comfort of domestic life, as it is found among our best farmers, and thus to give to the unfortunates the comforts to which they are accustomed, and to which they must return when discharged. The legislature of last winter made some important changes in our laws: viz., 1. Devolved the selection of officers of the respective asylums upon the Board, who elect for three years, "subject to removal only for sufficient cause, which shall be determined by full investigation by the board of trustees." 2. Requires the superintendent, at least semi-annually, to submit an estimate of supplies required, for the inspection of the Board. After due advertisement, the contract therefor is let to the lowest bidder. He is also required to present to the financecommittee, monthly, an estimate for all articles which may have been omitted from the semi-annual estimate. No other purchases are permitted, except upon an unforeseen emergency. All purchases except on contract are made by the steward in open market. 3. All property injured, damaged, or lost, must be reported by the supervisors to the superintendent, and must be kept until inspected. The trustees semi-annually appoint a Board of Survey, who inspect the property, and report by whom the damage was done, whether from carelessness or neglect, on the part of attendants or responsible parties, and the value, which is then charged to the delinquents, and deducted from their pay. (This has already diminished the destruction of property onethird.) 4. The steward is required to charge himself with all property and supplies of the asylum, at their invoice value; and all property not accounted for is charged to him, and is required to be paid for in thirty days. Default in the payment works a forfeiture of his office. 5. Monthly payments are made. No distinction is made between male and female employees. 6. The steward has charge of all out-door work, subject to the orders of the superintendent. By these measures we believe we have so relieved the superintendent, that he is enabled to give his personal attention and efforts to the amelioration of the condition of the unfortunates with whose welfare he is directly intrusted. Mr. J. P. Early gave a brief account of affairs in Indiana. That State had no Board of Charities, but some effort had been made of late to establish one. There was a reformatory prison for women, with which Mrs. Thomas A. Hendricks and Mrs. C. F. Coffin were intimately connected; and also a girls' reformatory, which, however, contained less than two hundred girls. They had just provided for an institution for the feeble-minded, which was a scheme yet to be tried. He prided himself on the character of their hospitals for the insane. They had one institution which cost a million dollars. They tried to take as good care of their unfortunate and criminal classes as any State. They would have a less number of the latter class if it were not for the fact that the large cities of the East were sending boys there to find homes. They were unfortunate in finding many others within their borders who were passing over their territory to other points East or West. PENNSYLVANIA. BY MR. MILLIGAN. Rev. J. L. Milligan, Chaplain of the Western Penitentiary, in the absence of Dr. Luther of Pennsylvania reported for that State. He said that the Pennsylvania Board of Charities had done a very good work, and an advance had been made, not only in the care of the insane, but in the protection and care of the general poor. For the last two years the State had been wrought up considerably on the subject of building hospitals for the insane. Two large buildings were in process of construction, and would hold a high place in the esteem of humane people. The powers of the Board had been continued so as to include the supervision of penal institutions. In the State of Pennsylvania they were divided between two systems. The eastern counties still clung to the old barbarous system of solitary labor in cells. In Western Pennsylvania this system had been abolished, and the convicts no longer work in solitude. A very noticeable improvement had been made in the system of public charities. New asylums had been erected, the poorhouses improved, and the general treatment of criminals was being reduced to a humane and corrective system. Public sentiment supported the Board of Charities; and it had done a good work in keeping up a central office to which penal and charitable institutions had to report, and to report correctly. In regard to the insane, the Board had been very active and successful. The Western Asylum at Dixmont, under Dr. Reed, stood in the very front rank of scientifically-managed insane-asylums. The Eastern Penitentiary at Philadelphia had been enlarged by the addition of fifty cells for solitary confinement. The Western Penitentiary had received an appropriation of three hundred thousand dollars for its removal from Allegheny City to a point three miles farther down the river. The Philadelphia Penitentiary adhered to solitary confinement and unremunerative labor in the cells. The Western Penitentiary pursued the opposite policy, and taught trades to the prisoners. In regard to legislation in Pennsylvania, Mr. Milligan said that his State was rather conservative, but he thought her tramp-laws so strict that the ambulatory loafer would be very glad to give Pennsylvania a wide berth. There had been no change in the charitable laws during the last year. One thing of importance was the establishment, in the central portion of the State, of a prison for boys and men, under the age of twenty-five, who had been convicted for the first time. Before the presentation of the regular report from New York, made by Dr. C. S. Hoyt, Secretary of the State Board of Charities, Mr. Letchworth, President of that Board, said that others also would speak on special points. Dr. H. B. Wilbur, Superintendent of the New York Idiot Asylum at Syracuse, who also represents the custodial branch of the Asylum for the cure of female idiots at Newark, is present, and will be able to inform the Conference fully as to the working of these institutions. The Susquehanna Valley Home is represented here by Mr. J. P. Noyes, who will speak of this institution. Its work embraces seven counties, and its aim is to restore the dependent children of those counties to family life. The Children's Aid Society of New York City is represented by Mr. J. W. Skinner, who will at the proper time speak of the extended work of this society. The Bureau of Charities of Kings County, having its headquarters in the city of Brooklyn, is represented in the person of Mr. Seth Low, who has prepared a paper on "The Problem of Pauperism," which he will submit at the pleasure of the Conference. I should not fail to mention that Mrs. C. R. Lowell, a member of the State Board of Charities, has prepared a paper, which is in the hands of the Secretaries of the Conference, who also have letters from organizations and institutions extensively engaged in charitable work. Among these are the following: from Miss Susan M. Van Amringe, Secretary of the State Charities Aid Association; Mrs. A. D. Lord, of the New York Institution for the Blind at Batavia; Israel C. Jones, Superintendent of the New York House of Refuge; Mr. George E. McGonegal, Superintendent of the Poor of Monroe County, and President of the State Convention of Superintendents of the Poor of the State of New York; Dr. Willard Porter, Superintendent and Physician of the New York Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, New York City; and William B. Wait, Superintendent of the New York Institution for the Blind, New York City. Dr. Hoyt then gave a brief history of his experience and observations, and the condition of affairs in his State. There had been a substantial reduction of pauperism in New York as a result of the application of intelligent remedies. The care of the chronic insane was one of the chief difficulties with which they had to contend, and he believed it was the same in other States. This difficulty had culminated in the establishment of the Willard Asylum on Seneca Lake, for the chronic insane, by themselves. The tendency of opinion was in favor of this separation, and he had no doubt the legislature would soon provide for another institution of the kind, in addition to that just established at Binghamton. The establishment of institutions for feeble-minded girls had been an important step in advance, and he thought the result would prove satisfactory. The State Board of New York had nothing to do with prisons. Since it was organized, in 1867, it had done much to improve the county poor-houses. The chronic class of insane had never been brought under State influence until the establishment of the Board. Now they had as much care as the acute insane. It had been demonstrated in New York that the system of having the insane-asylum and poorhouse under the same direction, and at the same place, was a failure. The insane needed separation. Children were also being removed from the poor-houses, and New York had made a great advance in the treatment of all dependent children. A long step forward was the establishment of the Custodial Asylum for Female Idiots, which was economically managed, and promised to become self-supporting, beside taking care of a class of feeble-minded persons, and restraining them from becoming the parents of diseased offspring. |