To the Almshouse were admitted during the last year 296 men, 227 women, 23 boys, 22 girls; total, 441; and there remained May 1, 1871, 102 men, 68 women, 56 boys, 24 girls; total, 250. In the Lunatic Hospital are 233.

To the House of Correction were committed during the year, 591 males, 201 females; together, 792.

The average number of inmates, 1870, was as follows:

House of Correction,

House of Industry, .

Almshouse,

House of Reformation,

Lunatic Hospital,

City Hospital and Temporary Home,

Cost of Houses of Correction, Industry, and Reformation,

Almshouse and Lunatic Hospital,

428

454

277

278

227

1,664

250

1,914

$300,000

113,000

$187,000

$100,000

8,000

$295,000

The City Hospital is rather for acute than chronic diseases, and the latter are only admitted when there is reason to anticipate some decided improvement from treatment. To the Almshouse are sent persons who require full support, and who will be better off there than anywhere else. To the other institutions, the inmates are committed on sentence by the courts. The only compulsion on those who go to the almshouse is the refusal to support or assist them anywhere else, where their own good or that of the community renders this the judicious course.

If, as conjectured, one object of this point of the inquiry is to learn what course is pursued with able-bodied paupers, it is to be

borne in mind, that as a general rule, no able-bodied person of sound mind is unable to earn a fair living in Massachusetts; and that there is no pauper class there, except as the result of intemperance, idleness, or vice, in the persons themselves, or their parents. Those not paupers, who need relief, receive it on account of illness, accident, or tender years. In nearly every case it is in the power of the laboring class to make a sufficient provision for old age.

6. In answer to the sixth point of inquiry, the General Statutes, ch. 165, § 28, provide that rogues and vagabonds, idle and dissolute persons who go about begging, persons who use any juggling or unlawful games or plays, common pipers and fiddlers, stubborn children, runaways, common drunkards, common nightwalkers, pilferers, lewd, wanton, and lascivious persons in speech or behavior, common railers and brawlers, persons who neglect their calling or employment, misspend what they earn and do not provide for themselves or for the support of their families, and all other idle and disorderly persons, including herein those persons who neglect all lawful business and habitually misspend their time by frequenting houses of ill-fame, gaming-houses or tipplingshops, may, upon conviction, be sentenced for a term not exceeding six months, to the House of Correction or to the House of Industry or Workhouse, within the city or town where the conviction is had, or to the Workhouse of the place in which the offender has a legal settlement, if such town is within the county. § 29. The judgment may be conditional, and a fine of twenty dollars substituted; or they may be bound over for good behavior. If committed they are to be set to work. If discharged and again convicted, the second sentence may be for a year. Children playing truant may be sentenced to the House of Reformation.

The truant officers are directed to arrest and carry before the magistrates, children of suitable age, who, without sufficient reason, are not attending school. Education is made compulsory in Massachusetts, and though many children, where the circumstances of their families require their services, are licensed to sell newspapers or for similar employments, schools are also provided for them. There are in our Boston public schools about fortysix thousand pupils, nearly one in five of the population. In

private schools about six thousand are educated, so that very few remain to be accounted for. The number of juvenile vagrants is small and diminishing.

7. In answer to the seventh point of inquiry, settlements were gained from 1692 to 1701, by 1, marriage, 2, parentage, 3, births, 4, slavery, and residence of three months without warning. From 1701 to 1767 in the first four methods, and by residence of twelve months, and by approbation of the town or of the selectmen. From 1767 to 1789, by 1, marriage, 2, parentage, 3, slavery, 4, approbation of the town. From 1789 to 1794, by, 1, being seized of an estate of freehold, 2, residence and payment of town tax, 3, residence of two successive years without warning, 4, vote of the town, and subsequent residence, 5, marriage, 6, parentage. From 1794 to 1822, 1, by marriage, 2, parentage, 3, estate of freehold, 4, estate of income £3 12s., 5, serving as town officer, 6, being settled as minister of the gospel, 7, being voted in by town meeting, 8, incorporation of unincorporated places, 9, division of towns, 10, serving apprenticeship and setting up a trade, 11, residing ten years and paying taxes, 5.

These last rules have remained substantially unchanged since 1794. But in 1822 it was provided by law that owning and living on an estate of freehold three years should give a settlement, and in 1853 that illegitimate children of parents who intermarry, acknowledged by father, take the father's settlement. After the civil war of 1861-5, it was enacted in 1865 that soldiers and sailors who had served one year on the quota of any city or town, died or become disabled in the service from wounds or sickness, having been twenty-one years of age when enlisting and an inhabitant of said town six months next previous to bèing mustered in, should have thereby gained a settlement in said city or town. Service on such quota, where not of age when mustered in, or not resident as aforesaid, entitled soldier or sailor, and wife and minor children in want, to relief in such city or town, and they were not to be sent to State almshouses.

In 1870, a law was passed that single women who shall reside in any city or town ten years consecutively, without becoming chargeable, shall thereby gain a settlement. The present law stands then as stated, page 56 of the Manual, Gen. Statute 69.

1. Marriage woman takes that of her husband if he has one, otherwise retains her own.

2. Legitimate children, till they acquire one of their own, have settlement of father; if he has none, that of their mother.

3. Illegitimate follow settlement of mother; but neither legitimate nor illegitimate gain settlement by birth in place where neither parent has settlement.

4. Any person twenty-one years, being a citizen and having estate of inheritance, and living on it three years successively.

5. Any person twenty-one years, being a citizen and having estate of $200, income of $12, and taxed five years successively. 6. Clerk, treasurer, selectman, overseer of the poor, assessor, constable or collector of taxes in any town for a year.

7. Settled ordained minister of the gospel.

8. Admitted by vote at meeting especially notified for the purpose.

9. A citizen dwelling in unincorporated place when incorporated.

10. Where towns are divided, settlement is regulated by last abode.

11. A minor who serves apprenticeship to a lawful trade for four years, and within one year after said term, being twenty-one, sets up and continues the same for five years.

12. Any citizen, twenty-one, residing ten years, and paying taxes five of them consecutively.

13. By serving on quota in the late war one year, or less time if disabled.

14. Single women residing ten years, and not becoming chargeable.

8. In answer to the eighth point of inquiry, the general agent of the State Board of Charities, or his deputy, in each maritime place, is required to board every vessel arriving, and examine all' alien passengers on board never before within the State, and is not to permit any insane, idiotic, deaf and dumb, blind, deformed, or maimed persons, or alien who had been before a public charge within this State, to land until the master, owner, consignee, or agent makes and delivers to said superintendent a bond to the Commonwealth for each of said persons in the sum of one thousand dollars, that said passenger shall not within ten years become a city, town or State charge. And no other alien passenger shall

be permitted to land until a bond is given as aforesaid in the sum of three hundred dollars, that said passenger shall not become a charge as aforesaid within five years. But in lieu of the bond last mentioned, said agent may receive such sum, not less than two dollars, as in his judgment is sufficient to cover the risk incurred by the Commonwealth in permitting such passenger to be landed. In accordance with a recent act, this sum is to be returned when the passenger leaves the State. If the bond is not given and passenger is so sick or destitute as to require relief within ten years, said master, owner, consignee or agent is liable therefor and shall also forfeit five hundred dollars for every passenger so landed. Information is required of any individual or corporation as to any foreigner brought into the State by land or water, and such foreigner, if chargeable and recently arrived, is to be sent back to the place from whence he came. * Two thousand were sent out of the State last year at a cost of $12,000; the number sent out of the country to Europe and Canada being 129, at an expense of about $2,600. These regulations were in consequence of persons, needy and helpless, being shown to have been sent here from asylums or almshouses abroad, by local authorities, to relieve their own communities of the burden. Nearly all go away at their own request, and when they are found in the almshouses or elsewhere, disposed to go to their homes, means are funished, or their fares and passagemoney paid.

9. In answer to the ninth and last point, we are somewhat embarrassed by the doubt how far any conclusions from such opportunity of observation as we have had, may be of value in England for the purposes of the inquiry. Having become familiar with what has already been accomplished in London by the society for repressing mendicity, with its aims and publications, its central and district offices, we realize how similar to our own, though of course of more formidable dimensions, are the difficulties with which they have to contend in perfecting any system of relief. In every large city, especially where accessible by sea, is attracted from abroad, or other parts of the land, a vast horde of embryo pauperism, in expectation of work and subsistence, and a considerable portion of the destitute whom it is necessary to aid are strangers. In Boston nearly one-half our entire

* This capitation tax was taken off the last session of the legislature.