which the performance of such duties presupposes seems to me to be all but incompatible with an equal familiarity with all the other divisions of the great field of charities and correction.

THE PROBLEMS OF CHILD-SAVING IN NEW YORK CITY.

BY CHARLES LORING BRACE,

SECRETARY OF THE CHILDREN'S AID SOCIETY, NEW YORK.

[Extract from a paper read at a meeting of the section.]

The sociological problems of New York are especially complex by reason of the ignorance and helplessness of the great numbers of emigrants from Europe who throng into certain quarters of our city. In the lower East Side district over 100,000 Russian and Polish Jews are crowded together. Here are the sweaters' shops, where the cheap clothing is made in the filthy rooms in which the people live. North of this district are first the Hungarian cloak-makers; and northward, along the east side of the city, are the great German and Bohemian colonies, the most respectable and law-abiding of all our foreign population. On the west side is the immense Italian colony; and north of that, along the west side are the Irish, and Irish-German-Americans.

It results that each ward presents different characteristics and different problems; and, as the numbers of these people increase, the struggle for life becomes more intense. To make the problem still more serious, we find that the breaking of the home ties with the mother country has a bad moral effect. The new and strange life about them and the removal from, the social and religious safeguards which surround them at home weaken their moral and religious tone. They find the police less strict, the wealth about them far greater, and the boys, particularly the Jewish boys, are learning that it is possible to live by their wits. This is the danger before us, and this is the problem that all those at work among the poor and ignorant are facing.

Unfortunately for us, the public schools of the city do not meet this problem. To make this statement clear, let us consider the population of the East Side districts. It has been said that a certain acre near Essex and Stanton Streets, having 622 people living on it, is the most crowded place of any city in the world; but, on analyzing the census issued by the Board of Health, I find this maximum is nearly maintained for a whole square mile, including parts of six wards. In this square mile there are gathered together 350,000 people, mostly aliens. They live in 8,000 houses, of which 900 are

is 53,000.

rear tenements, being 43 to each house, though very many tenements have more than double that number of people in them. In this square mile the enumeration of children under five years of age From the census returns giving the number of children of school age that is, from five to fourteen years inclusive- I have estimated the number in this square mile at 63,000. Of these it is safe to say that 50,000 should be in the primary schools; but, unhappily for them and to the shame of New York, there are in this whole square mile but 27,000 sittings in the primary schools, so that there are some 20,000 children more than can be received in the schools of this district.

The welfare of the city depends on the training of the children. It is not only the elementary education which is needed. Our authorities should know that these children require individual attention, encouragement, and personal interest. Instead of this, a few days' absence, a little carelessness, and the child loses its seat in the crowded class-room, no further thought is given it; for what can the truant agent do when there are a hundred children ready for every vacant seat? The street, the sweat-shop, the cheap workshop, is its school henceforth. Often, as a result of this neglect, the poor child is brought before the justice for vagrancy and committed to an institution where, for a couple of years, it is herded indiscriminately with all the bad boys or girls of the city at the city's cost. An endless chain of misfortune and expense, easily obviated, if our city would but wake up to its duties. . . .

DESERTION BY PARENTS.

BY REV. E. P. SAVAGE,

SUPERINTENDENT OF THE CHILDREN'S HOME SOCIETY OF MINNESOTA.

[Extract from a paper read at a meeting of the section.]

Out of about six hundred children that had come into the charge of the Children's Home Society of Minnesota, in less than five years, I found that nearly one-third of them had been deserted by one or both parents. I found also that, while this crime was recognized by the law of Minnesota, yet not a single instance of any punishment whatever had come under my notice. About nine-tenths of the desertions were by fathers. Inquiry revealed the fact that our experience in Minnesota was by no means exceptional, and that the evil of the desertion of children by their parents, and especially of illegitimate children and their mothers by the father of the child, was wide-spread.

I sent a list of questions to many persons and institutions in every

State and Territory and in Canada. Few of the institutions replying had kept records bearing upon this subject. But there was a universal recognition of the wide prevalence of the evil. Replies have come from thirty States and from Canada.

One question was, In how many cases was an effort made to secure the return of the father or to secure his arrest and compel him to support his child? Replies received from Connecticut, Minnesota, Michigan, and New York, report a few attempts, almost invariably abortive. Replies from Ohio, Illinois, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, report a much larger number, the proceedings being under laws against non-support. But the large majority of the replies from the States indicate that no such attempt had been made.

Another question was, Do the laws of your State recognize the crime, and do they attach any penalty to it? Replies from thirteen States and Canada indicated that it was treated as a crime,— Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Rhode Island, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. Iowa reports it as dealt with only as a civil liability. Massachusetts reports "no law for punishing a man for deserting his family, but a law against non-support, under which a man may be fined $20 or imprisoned for not more than six months." Nine States and the District of Columbia report no such law,- Arkansas, California, Colorado, Indiana, Nebraska, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, Virginia. Mr. H. W. Lewis, superintendent of the Board of Children's Guardians of Washington, D.C., reports, "Lack of any recognition of bastardy, adultery, and desertion of children as crimes in the District."

Some of the laws worthy of note are: The law of Illinois enacted in 1893, making abandonment or non-support of wife or child a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of not less than $100 nor more than $500, or imprisonment not less than one month nor more than twelve months, or by both fine and imprisonment. Under this law the attorney of Cook County (Chicago) reports 150 cases in action or pending. A commendable feature of the Wisconsin law is that which authorizes supervisors to prosecute. Reports from many of the States indicate that the law is made inoperative by the requirement that the complaint shall be made by the wife or mother, which she often refuses to do.

Ohio reports a most effective law. It is commonly known as the "truant father" law, and was enacted in 1890. It is more specifically a law against non-support, and makes it a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment at hard labor from three to twelve months; but it provides that, if after conviction, and before sentence, the guilty party files a bond in the penal sum of $1,000 for support of the child, the court may suspend sentence. Under this law the Humane Society of Cincinnati through its efficient superintendent, Mr.

James Smith, collected in 1894, from 539 truant fathers, $11,591, which has been paid the mothers and guardians. This is pre-eminently the most gratifying report that has come from any State. It is a striking illustration of what may be accomplished under an effective law by an energetic and persistent attempt to enforce it. A further question was, How does the law work? The answer from Connecticut was, No instance of its working has come under my observation." From Delaware, "Poorly: not attended to." Kansas, "Almost a failure." Michigan, "Not well." This is the purport of all the replies received.

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The question was asked, Would you suggest any change in the law? Every reply favored an increase of the penalty. Several recommended that desertion of children be made a felony. Mr. Kelso, of Canada, Mr. Thurber, of Rhode Island, Mr. Birtwell, of Massachusetts, proposed that the offence be made extraditable. The favorite plan of the majority, as stated by Miss J. C. Lathrop, of Illinois, was, "Let the man be placed in jail, and compelled to work, and the value of his labor applied to the support of his family." The plan here suggested was advocated in replies from Delaware, Illinois, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, and Wisconsin. In Toledo, Ohio, this law is in force, the workhouse board paying forty cents a day to the family of the prisoner. A response from Delaware recommended that there should be national legislation upon the matter.

As to an adequate agency through which a mother, without money, deserted by the father of her child, can secure any redress, a reply from Michigan designates the Associated Charities and the police. Replies from Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Connecticut mention the humane societies. Miss J. C. Lathrop, of Illinois, mentions, besides the county attorney, two private agencies, the Bureau of Justice and the Women's and Children's Protective Agency; but eighteen replies from as many States answer, "We have none."

In regard to the chief hindrances to bringing the guilty parties to justice, Mr. H. C. Whittlesey, of Connecticut, replies, "Lack of local and State appropriation of funds." Similarly from California, "The expense." From Michigan, "The poverty of the mother." Many reply, "Lack of proper legislation." From Minnesota, "Lack of adequate agency to follow and punish the offender." Many replies indicate a similar thought. Mr. Birtwell, of Massachusetts, "The unwillingness of the mother to testify"; and replies from Delaware, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin, mention the same thing. 'Escape of the guilty party beyond the jurisdiction of the court,' is a difficulty frequently assigned. While California assigns this reason, in Minnesota we find that the truant fathers of our section escape to California and other distant points.

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Juvenile Reformation.

THE INFLUENCE OF CHILDREN IN THEIR

HOMES AFTER INSTITUTION LIFE.

The question to which I am about to invite your thoughts for perhaps twenty minutes or half an hour is, "What may be legiti mately expected to be the influence of boys and girls, who have been trained in institutions for reformation, upon their homes, when they return to them after a sufficient period spent there to change their habits?"

I am perfectly frank in saying I am not going to declare what the influence is with anything like catagorical certainty, because I do not believe that a sufficiently wide range of observations has been made to be of any value. Of course, individual cases are continually coming to our notice; but it is not fair to draw general conclusions from individual cases. If we should do so, those who wish to present an optimistic view on the subject would declare that the influence of children returned from reformatory institutions is omnipotent in redeeming the homes to which they return, because such and such a boy, after he returned to his home, completely revolutionized the habits of the family by the influence which he exerted. On the contrary, the pessimist would declare that these children have no influence whatever, because such and such a boy, after he went to his home, did not elevate that home, but by vicious habits dropped even to a lower stage of degradation than the members of the family already occupied. Of course, neither of these conclusions is justifiable from the observation of a single case; and I, therefore, simply ask what we may expect rather than what we have accomplished.