justice to the criminal. There has been no change in the management of the jails in the lower counties for many years. In New Castle County within the past few years stone-breaking has been introduced as a means of employment, the only resource they have. The accommodations are quite inadequate to the needs, and prevent any possible thought of classification. The old and young, frequently ten and twelve in one cell, are crowded together, regardless of the influence of the recurrent criminal over the young offender, thus making our prison a veritable school of crime, and creating, rather than diminishing criminals. This injustice of the State to her unfortunates and the necessity of making some effort at reformation through a better system of prison discipline have influenced many of the best men and women of our community and State to some practical movement. The Delaware Union for Public Good, one of the outgrowths of our State Charities Conference, took up for its first line of work the prison question; and through its earnest practical effort for a year and the influence of the president, Chief Justice Charles B. Love, there is hope of obtaining through our recent legislature the passage of a bill providing for a State penitentiary or workhouse. The bill passed the lower house without a dissenting voice, but was lost in the Senate by a tie vote. This disappointment only gives impetus for renewed effort for its accomplishment at our next session.

Great encouragement was felt at our last annual Conference by increased co-operation, as practically shown by reports from twentythree charitable and philanthropic organizations, telling of the substantial assistance, ample protection, or home extended to those unable to help themselves, and the encouragement and assistance to place the weak and doubting ones on their own resources. One of the most effective factors in this we feel to be the kindergarten schools.

The demands upon our Associated Charities during the past year for employment by the self-respecting poor have necessitated the establishment in a small way of two new auxiliaries to our work, a wood-yard for men and a work-room for women, compensating them in fuel, food, or clothing. This has proved to be an invaluable aid and self-reliance, as well as a test of those who really want to work. It is hoped this will grow to larger proportions and remain permanent.

in preserving self-respect

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

BY HENRY B. F. MACFARLAND, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY.

The public charitable work of the District of Columbia is in need of better organization, and until that is secured cannot be regarded as satisfactory, in spite of what has been accomplished by the numerous independent institutions and relief organizations in the way of caring for the dependent and the destitute. The indoor relief is provided through institutions of which a few are purely federal, a few purely municipal, a few purely private, and the larger number private institutions receiving State aid, some of them wholly supported by it. Until 1890, when Congress created the office of Superintendent of Charities, with a view to having the work of these institutions receiving public money co-ordinated and their expenditures supervised by a representative of the tax-payers and of the government, there was no effective attempt to systematize the indoor relief work. The first Superintendent of Charities, after making a brave effort to carry out the purpose of the act, stated in his second annual report that it was not practicable for a Superintendent of Charities, and especially for a non-resident of the District of Columbia, as the law required him to be, to accomplish the task of bringing the institutions to work under a general plan and with greater efficiency and economy; and he therefore recommended the abolition of his office, and the creation of a District Board of Charities and Correction. Congress did not abolish the office, however; and the superintendent resigned. He had failed to do what could not be done; but in his two annual reports, although the first was obliged to be made within three months after he took office, he brought out all the facts of the situation more fully and graphically than they had ever been presented before, and he succeeded in getting Congress to create a Board of Children's Guardians, a Municipal Lodging-house and Wood and Stone Yard, both of which were greatly needed, as their success in the face of difficulties has demonstrated. The Board of Children's Guardians was created to take charge of all the child-caring work of the District of Columbia, for which appropriations were made from public funds; and the private institutions which have been receiving State aid were to look to it for compensation for the actual work which they did for its wards. The new Superintendent of Charities.

promptly withdrew the recommendation of his predecessor for the abolition of the office, together with the recommendations for the establishment of the National Bureau of Charities and Correction and. a District Board of Charities and Correction.

The outdoor relief is carried on partly through the District Commissioners with public funds, but chiefly through private organizations, some of which receive aid from public funds, and are not brought into co-operation under any permanent organization. During the past two severe winters a committee of citizens appointed by the District Commissioners on behalf of the community, called the Central Relief Committee, has collected from the citizens, and distributed through the different organizations, large sums of money.

Congress appropriates annually (half from the taxes of the District. of Columbia and half from the Treasury of the United States, which owns over half the property in the District of Columbia) about $350,ooo for charitable work, chiefly for indoor relief in the institutions above described. It is estimated that the citizens contribute privately upward of $150,000 a year besides. Having Congress to deal with, any central organization for supervising the charitable work of the District must be official. Therefore, the Committee on Charities of the Washington Board of Trade reported, and the Board of Trade adopted, on April 26, 1895, the following resolution:

Resolved, That Congress be asked to abolish the office of Superintendent of Charities for the District of Columbia, and to create a Board of Charities to consist of nine citizens of the District of Columbia, to be appointed by the Commissioners of the District of Columbia, who shall serve without pay, and who shall have the general supervision of all the public charitable work of the District of Columbia in and out of institutions receiving aid from the revenues of the District of Columbia (except those which are strictly correctional or educational or which belong to the federal government) and the direction of permanent and outdoor relief of the destitute.

The Board of Trade directed the Committee on Charities to procure the necessary legislation from Congress, and the attempt will be made to do this at the next session. This plan of organizing all the public charitable work will, it is believed, be practicable and valuable. It is not regarded as an ideal plan, but as the best practicable project for the improvement of charity work in the District of Columbia under the peculiar conditions here existing. The Board, which would be composed of our best citizens, and would have an

expert executive officer, would combine the duties and functions of the Superintendent of Charities for the District of Columbia and of a charity organization society, and in the circumstances would, it is believed, be the best possible form of central supervisory organization for Washington's charitable work.

SUPPLEMENTARY REPORT.

BY COLONEL JOHN TRACEY, UNITED STATES

SUPERINTENDENT OP

CHARITIES FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA.

Certain characteristics render the charitable and correctional system in the District of Columbia particularly worthy of careful, candid, and instructive observation.

So far as regards official support or aid, the rule is that half the expenses are borne by the people of the United States at large and half by the tax-payers of the District.

To this there are, however, certain exceptions, as in the cases of Garfield and Providence Hospitals, whose appropriations are wholly at the expense of the United States Treasury.

Another distinctive feature of the capital city and District is of an ethnological nature. Of the 270,514 inhabitants of the District of Columbia, as ascertained by the latest enumeration, one-third 90,000 are colored.

Approximately, the public money expended annually in the District of Columbia for charities, reformatories, and minor correction of local origin or relation, is half a million dollars.

There are few centres of population relatively better equipped than our capital city, or where fewer pressing wants remain to be supplied. The great government establishment for the insane at St. Elizabeth's affords opportunity for care of the mentally alienated at a cost to the District of $100,000 a year. So with the deaf and dumb who receive instruction at the Columbia Institution at a District charge of $10,500, while children of feeble mind are supported at the Pennsylvania Institute and at an establishment in Virginia. near Washington. The hospitals and public dispensaries receiving official appropriations are 10 in number. The asylums and homes. for children, including 2 foundling asylums, are 11. There are 4 homes for the aged, separate or in combination with other establishments, and 3 for young women. There are 4 reform schools and

Of the wards of the Board of Children's Gwanitans

The National Colored Home cares for 11 Pg vibya For aged colored men and women there is ofcat provison i nection with the Washington Asylum, the Freedmen's Hospaal, and the National Colored Home, while unofficial but suitable and gener ous care is given by the Little Sisters of the Poor. The Rove Ne form School receives colored as well as white children for industrial and literary education, and the wild and wayward, as well as tho sentenced by courts. The Reform School for Girls is entirely de voted to the African race. At the Freedmen's Hospital about three fifths are colored; and a very nearly similar proportion obtains in the Washington Asylum, the strictly public institution of the District, which combines almshouse, workhouse, and hospital. Hospital for Women, an institution to which the government com

s annually $20,000 for maintenance. besides sums needed for