lars and fifty cents per week which the working ones pay is sufficient to enable yau to carry a certain number of others who are, to a certain extent, drones that is, the busy ones can carry the drones on that? A. Oh, yes, sir, and we pay house rent, also. I paid the house rent for a person the last thing I did before I came here. That goes out of the fund, of course, and those in the Home are contributors to that. Of course there are other things. There are occasions, as I have told you, where we send poor to their homes in different parts of the State and away to other States. There are many ways in which we pay out money outside of the Home from what we consider the product of the labor of these inmates. Q. And all of that is done on this average, $2.25 to $2.50 of expenses all around? A. Yes, sir; I should judge that we can run it on $2.50 per capita. I should be willing to take men and board them for that. Q. And that would pay for every particle of work that is done in the institution? A. Yes, sir. Might I also say that we support our summer Home? I have a summer Home at Beachmont where I take the poor children in the summer, the mothers and babes, and when my coal teams are not doing anything else I decorate them up and send them out for rides. I make that a point, and we have refreshments for them, and they go in bathing, clam-digging, etc. Some I keep over and some I bring back, and all the expense comes out of this same fund. Q. I wish you would tell us something more about the summer Home. That is an adjunct of the institution that I had not thought about 4. Perhaps I am wearying you? Q. Well, I am sure I have not heard anything so intelligent and interesting as has been presented in your testimony, in the course of the whole investigation, and I believe the other gentlemen here would be pleased to have you go into this matter as myself. I believe they feel the same as I do. A. Well, this is what we call our seashore Home for boys and girls and tired mothers. There are three buildings - one for women with their babes, one for boys and another for girls. That is a separate organization from the one to which I have had reference. It is a sort of private Home to which I contribute personally myself, and the extra expense is contributed by a sort of an appropriation that the board of directors vote to me. And of course there is an expense, as you know, attached to everything of that kind car-fares for those who go down on the cars, and so on. I pay all their fares; and then there is the expense for teams and men, the stable down there, and all that kind of thing. Q. But you are able out of this weekly per captia expense that you refer to to give them also an opportunity, or some of them the opportunity, to avail themselves of that? Of course all cannot go, but you give some of the women and children an opportunity to enjoy a little seashore life? A. Yes, sir put up tents there, also, so that them en can go down and go fishing, swimming, etc., so that they can have a day of recreation. I think every one ought to have some recreation, sir, that is one of the necessaries of life. Q. And you consider that a part of the reform that you are undertaking? A. I think so. Q. To bring them up as much as possible like other humarı beings like yourself and others with whom you are associated? A. Yes, sir. We take people down there, children and adults. It is a part of the process of what we call redeeming these people, redeeming them to a better life. Q. And you find that that better treatment which you give to these people has changed them and has led to their being better? A. Yes, indeed. I have a number of children who don't know any other parents than myself. They call me their papa, for instance, and those children I take care of. I look after them in some way or other. Q. And the older people themselves similarly benefited? A. They appreciate it; yes, sir. Q. way? you find that they are They appreciate it, and it helps them along in a better A. Yes, sir. I have women there I couldn't go into the details of those things, because a great many things are private, are intrusted to me. But at the Home, to-night, for instance, the officers may bring men or women to me to be taken care of, and that is done constantly. The men are very good in Division 5, and I have a night-bell by which I can be aroused at any time in the night to receive people. Last night, when I was over-crowded in my Home, I put down, I think, 24 mattresses in the chapel, and every man, of course, who goes in there gets a bath, a clean nightshirt, a mattress, a pair of blankets, and they all rested, of course, very comfortably. I think it is a good thing to do that, and I want to buy another building now. So that all this is carried on, as I have said, from the direct labor of these men, with the exception of what is donated by merchants here who feel disposed to send contributions. Q. And that donation in the aggregate A. You can see it there. Everything is mentioned there in the back of that report; everything is detailed. Q. Well, the total cash donations you have here are not very large in all? 4. No, sir; not very large. Q. A few hundred dollars — less than $1,000 would cover the whole? A. $700, I believe. Of course, we are organized for help and relief outside, in emergencies. Q. And you are doing a small amount of out-door work? A. Yes, sir; which we are not supposed to do as an institution, a corporation. Q. In this list which is given showing a varied list of donations of merchandise, the merchandise is fairly small in quantity, the individual things? A. Yes, sir. Q. One piece of ticking, four mattresses, twenty-five pounds of coffee I mean it isn't anything very large in bulk? 1. Well, people who want to be identified with the work of the institution, people interested in its work, send those things, and of course we have a printed slip and acknowledge everything sent and put it in there so that people may see the purpose to which it is put. We, of course, give them credit for it. Q. But after all, taking all the donations together they constitute but a small part, I mean but a comparatively small part? A. But a very small part of the total of about $50,000 a year very small. Q. Is there much book-keeping at your institution, much record writing and book-keeping? A. Yes, sir; we have a regular system of book-keeping. In fact, they have patterned from our system of books all over the different institutions. Everything is kept account of in that way. Q. Well, how much of a man's time does it take to keep the books there? A. My daughter at the present time wants to do something towards that, and she is practically the stenographer now, and I have a man who is a book-keeper himself, you might say. But she does all the posting and does the stenographic work. Besides that she has what is known as her little mission-work. She has from eighty to one hundred children that she looks out for in the community, besides the book-keeping — clothes them, instructs them, etc. Q. But the work itself a book-keeper at any time have you bad the work done there by by a book-keeper who was paid for it? A. Never, no, that is, we pay a man, of course, who keeps the books that is to say, in the industrial department. He keeps his day book, the time hook, and so on, and there is another clerk, a night clerk, and of course it all comes back to my private office and there the books are made up and posted up, and at the end of the month everything is taken off. Then we have what is called a voucher book, etc., and a statement is made out from those books. We have a printed statement of all expenses. We can tell, exactly, to a cent what we have made, or what deficiency there is, each of the board of directors and the president each have one of those statements once a month sent to him, so that he can practically see exactly where we stand. We take an inventory every month, and in that way, with the expenses, disbursements. and soon, can tell exactly where we are, the amount of cash received for different purposes, including donations and everything under the printed head, and we put it up and take it off on this statement and send it right out. I indorse it. Q. Well, aside from your daughter, whose work, I presume, like your own, is largely from philanthropic motives, have you any book-keeper who gives his whole time? A. No. Q. There is no one who gives his whole time to the work? A. No; they do it between them in that way. She posts off from the day book into the journal and then he posts from the journal into the ledger He makes out an account from the ledger, and of course she credits it up in the cash book. Then my wife usually the gray mare is the better horse of the two, and it is so in this case, anyway. She is there and looks after the cash receipts, money. I had forgotten all about her. Q. Is there anything done in the way of instruction like a school connected with your institution? anything You cannot A. Yes, sir; that is the school I had reference to. call it a kindergarten exactly, but it is pretty much on that principle. The children are taught in that way, and of course the men have lectures upon hygiene, and once the doctor lectures on anatomy, etc., the circulation of the blood, giving certain precautions to young men, and so on, a week. Then we have entertainments once a week from a literary standpoint. Q. Now, how many attend this school? A. Oh, the men are very much interested in physical culture that is to say, when I say physical culture, I mean the enlightenment that is given to them by the lectures. They are very much interested, takes notes even, and some of them ask questions. Q. Well, how many attend this kindergarten school many of the children? how A. Well, we have probably about eighty. At Christmas-time we have a great many more, because they all get presents. Q. Well, those are children who come from outside? A. Yes. The children in the Home, of course, are sent to school. We have some of these mothers with children, as I have told you, and the children are educated somewhat in the Home, and when they come of age we send them to school. The next one who will be going to school after a while is now but four years of age. Q. How young are the children in the Home? A. Oh, we have children born there sometimes. We don't want that to happen, but sometimes it does happen in cases of emegerncy twice last year. Q. How many times? A. Twice two births last year. Q. And how many young children are there apt to be there? 4. Well, we don't have a great many, because we try to avoid that if possible. These women are working women in the Industrial Home, and we don't think it is a proper place for a nursery. We don't like to keep a woman out from the fact that she has a child two months or three years old, for instance, but we try as far as possible to have the Home entirely for adults. We do make exceptions, however, and at present there are one or two mothers who bring children with them who have no other place to go. Q. Do these children get out of the Home at all? A. Every day. We have a nurse sent out with them, you know somebody to watch them. Q. You say the little children get out every day? A. Every day. Q. Also in the fall and winter? A. Yes, sir; every day. I believe firmly in having children go out every day. Q. Where do you have them go? A. Right in front, on the sidewalk. Then I have a carriage, I might say a surrey, in which we take out invalid mothers and women. My daughter has just taken out an invalid woman this afternoon, a woman who has not been out much, who broke her hip. Q. Don't you think it is a luxury for these children to go out every day? A. No, sir; I think it is right and proper that they should, for the sake of good health. Q. You feel that even in the winter they should get out, don't you? A. Well, I guess you would think they got out if you heard the noise there sometimes. There are times when I almost wish they were not out. Q. That is, you wish they were not out for purposes of personal convenience? A. Yes, sir. Q. But you insist on their going out, because you believe it is essential to their health and development? A. Yes, sir. Q. Is this man who does the work, with your wife and daughter, in connection with the book-keeping, paid, too? A. Yes, sir; he gets $15 a week. Q. $15 a week? A. Yes, sir. Q. A. Besides his board? If he chooses he has his dinners, but he is married, as I say, and goes home now. Q. Well, now, has it happened that there are any deaths, any persons who have died at the institution? A. One death last year in the institution a child died, I believe. That is the only death we had. We have a great many deaths reported to us, of course, where the parties would fill nameless graves if we did not bury them. The girl who fell out of the window on Davis street recently we buried, as Ald. Barry knows. Q. When there is a death there you have funeral services? A. Always. I get some pastor-a priest or somebody. We buried one at St. Elizabeth's Hospital last year and we paid the expense of Barry, the undertaker on the avenue there, thirty-five dollars. We had her in the Home, and her daughter we brought up and finally sent her out and she is married now married a young man in the institution, well connected in the city. Q. You think that having burial services in the institution is a part of the general education of the people, bringing them up to a higher standard? |