CONCLUSION. The benefits to be derived through a study and comparison of methods and needs common to all institutions designed to afford shelter to the war-worn veterans of our country can only be secured by the assembling of persons engaged in the practical work of management in a conference school. The losses and failures consequent upon a continued working on lines of individual experience are not creditable to the intelligence of the country. It is within the power of officials who accept the management of these great trusts to largely increase their power for useful service by the adoption of a conference system of study and by systematic co-operation in efforts to secure grants of legislative support. In the name of a common humanity we urge a general advance in the interest of better results. C. E. FAULKNER. A. O. WRIGHT. GENERAL R. BRINKERHOFF. MAJOR R. H. DUDLEY. Reports from States. REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE ON REPORTS FROM STATES. The plan of collecting the reports from States has been somewhat modified this year. The Corresponding Secretaries have been asked to present simply a brief report of progress, such as can be read in five minutes, omitting statistics. The statistics of State institutions have been collected by direct correspondence with the superintendents of the institutions, supplemented by reference to the printed reports of the institutions, the printed reports of the auditors of States, and correspondence with the secretaries of the State Boards of Charities. We have the pleasure of presenting for the first time a report, more or less complete, from every State. Returns have been received from about 300 out of the 350 State charitable and correctional institutions. The results are exhibited in the charts which follow the reports from States. These charts consist: first, of a directory of the State institutions, giving the corporate name, location, date of establishment, name of superintendent, title of the managing board, and address of the secretary of the board; second, a statistical statement, showing the normal capacity of the institution, the number of inmates present Dec. 31, 1893, and Dec. 31, 1894, and the expenses of maintenance, gross, net, and per capita, for the last fiscal year, together with the estimated value of the property belonging to the institution. These charts will repay the careful study of those who are interested in such institutions. It is unnecessary to anticipate the details, which will be presented the Corresponding Secretaries of the several States. The work te institutions has been much less affected by the hard times than the work of city charities. In some of the States for example, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, and Indiana - appropriations for the State institutions have been materially reduced; but in most of the States it has been recognized that the need is greater than usual, and the appropriations have been kept up to their usual mark. Institutions for the feeble-minded have been established in Michigan and Wisconsin, and institutions for epileptics have been established in Ohio and New York. It seems probable that institutions for epileptics will be created before many years in most of the States. A State Board of Charities has been established in New Hampshire. Efforts have been made to establish State Boards of Charities in Iowa, Missouri, Nebraska, Tennessee, and Louisiana; but thus far they have been unsuccessful. The statistical charts which accompany this report were prepared by Mr. George G. Cowie, clerk of the Minnesota State Board of Corrections and Charities. ALABAMA. BY MISS JULIA S. TUTWILER, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. It is with pain that I state that Alabama has retrograded during the past year. The terrible financial depression caused the election of a legislature pledged to retrenchment along every possible line. The convict commission created two years ago, with a view to the abrogation of the lease system, has been abolished, and matters restored almost to the old status. It was claimed that the State had not the means necessary to provide for the convicts, and could not possibly at this time take charge of them; in fact, that she could feed and clothe them only by continuing to hire their labor to the highest bidder. Public opinion, which two years ago so urgently demanded the abolition of the lease system, seems now to have acquiesced in its indefinite continuance. Doubtless the conduct of the free miners who attacked and killed nine striking miners at Pratt City last summer has had some effect in putting a stop to the agitation so far as it originated in sympathy with the free miners, but the condition of the State finances was the alleged reason for the backward movement. The State Woman's Christian Temperance Union procured the insertion of a clause in the new bill, permitting the inspectors to establish a reformatory for boys and a prison for women; but, as the legislature made no appropriation for these objects, these clauses must remain inoperative. The new law abolished the convict commission, and placed the whole convict system again under the care of the inspectors. The new law fails to put this system even on as high a plane as it was before, since the paragraph requiring night schools wherever one hundred convicts are gathered was omitted. This paragraph was in the bill, but, when it was read before the legislature, was violently attacked on the ground that the sum proposed to be thus expended should be spent on the education of the children of honest citizens instead of being used for worthless reprobates. This omission closed the school at the old penitentiary, where all boys have been sent for several years past, also the school at Coalburg, where only county convicts are sent. Fortunately, the Tennessee Coal & Iron Company in their lease contract had pledged themselves to maintain a night school for the prisoners hired to them. So the two schools at Pratt mines are continued, and will be continued so long as the contract with this company lasts. The average number of State convicts for the past two years has been 1,380. The average number of county convicts has been 907. The State convicts are said to increase in number at the rate of more than one hundred a year. Of course, things will grow worse instead of better in this regard so long as we continue to use a system which does almost nothing for the reformation of the prisoners. The failure of the legislature to provide an appropriation for the Boys' Reformatory is particularly distressing to the friends of prison reform, because the United States government has just offered to the State the barracks at Fort Mt. Vernon to be used for this purpose. The lack of means to carry on such an institution has prevented the State from accepting the gift. Those of us who have worked for fifteen years in hopes of seeing the State clear these stains from its good name and take rank in this respect with civilized communities are heartsick, weary, and ashamed. Before the legislature met, thousands of circulars were sent out to ministers of all denominations, county officials, and all other prominent men in the State, urging them to use their influence for a boys' reformatory, a woman's prison, nd the improvement of our county jails; but all has availed nothing. here has been a receding wave. The only bright spot in this dark picture is the hope that we are about to form an Alabama branch of the National Conference of Charities and Correction. A prominent citizen in a letter received by the Secretary during this month says: I believe I can now secure the co-operation of some of the enthusiastic members of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in forming an Alabama branch of the National Association of Charities and Correction. I am one of the vice-presidents of the former society, and am arranging to amend our State charter, so as to include prevention of cruelty to children; and I have suggested the organization of a society to embrace the larger objects of the National Charities and Correction Association. If we succeed in establishing a State branch with this society, I trust that our next annual report will not be so discouraging, to use the mildest word, as this one. ALASKA. BY REV. SHELDON JACKSON, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. I find myself much in the same position as last year with reference to the report from the district of Alaska. We are still practically in an unorganized condition. Alaska, as you know, has an area The American, or white equal to one-sixth of the United States. population, is confined to a very small section in South-eastern Alaska and around the head-waters of the Yukon River. I presume that they number not over 3,000 people, mostly men. The remaining country, comprising almost all of Alaska, is occupied by scattered bands of barbarians that can in a general way be classified as: first, the Esquimaux, occupying the three coast sides of Alaska; second, Athabascan Indians, occupying the valleys of the interior rivers; third, Thlingets, occupying the extreme south-eastern portion; and, fourth, the Aleutians, occupying the Aleutian Islands. The first three, comprising three-fourths of the entire population of the country, are barbarians, controlled and governed by their own customs and laws which have grown up among them from the indefinite past. The small number of whites in the country can be better described from the fact that there are only three schools in all Alaska composed of children of the white popula |