PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION 
OF THE 
gwmm OF THE POOR 
OF THE 
STATE OF NEW YORK, 
HELD AT 
BUFFALO, JUNE 14th, 15th and 16th, 1881. 
ALBANY: 
MUNSELL, PRINTER. 
1881. PROCEEDINGS OF THE CONVENTION 
OF THE 
MOmom Of THE POOK 
OF THE 
STATE OF NEW YORK, 
HELD AT 
BUFFALO, JUNE 14th, 15th and 16th, 1881. 
ALBANY: 
MUNSELL, PRINTER. 
1881. PROCEEDINGS. 
The Eleventh Annual Convention of the County Superin- 
tendents of the Poor of the State of New York was held at 
Buffalo on the 14th, 15th and 16th of June, 1881. 
The Convention meet at 11 a. m., in the Supervisors' Room 
of the New City Hall, where special preparations had been 
made for its comfort and convenience. On either side of the 
Chairman's desk was placed a bouquet of fragrant flowers, 
while in front was a massive floral tablet composed of pinks 
and geraniums, and having on a white background the words, 
" Superintendents, Welcome to Erie County," wrought in blue, 
pink, and scarlet blossoms. 
The session was called to order by George E. McGonegal, 
of Monroe, the Chairman of the last Convention, who spoke as 
follows: 
Gentlemen : The time to which this Convention adjourned 
last year, having arrived, it is my pleasing duty to call it to 
order. We parted from each other twelve months ago under 
the grassy knolls and dense foliage of Blackwells island, having 
seen sights of systems of poor-management, and been accorded 
from the Commissioners of Emigration and the Commissioners 
of Charities and Correction, a hospitality not soon to be for- 
gotten ; to-day this auspicious opening, in this beautiful room, 
with this lovely floral tribute of welcome filling every part 
with its delicious fragrance, portends, if I read the prophecy 
aright, a very successful and memorable session. What is the 
pleasure of the Convention ? 
On motion, the roll of the counties was called, and the fol- 
lowing responded : 
SUPERINTENDENTS AND KEEPERS. 
Allegany - Edson D. Barnum, Superintendent; Wm. Weaver, Keeper. 
Willard Wood, Keeper; Mr. Prince. 
Chautauqua - Henry Rappole and Darius Schofield, Superintendents; Mr. 
Cattaraugus - F. Trueby. 
Cayuga - Morris M. Olmsted. 
Columbia - Philip Niver, Superintendent. 
Dutchess - Lawrence W. Dutcher, Superintendent of the Poor of Pough- 
keepsie. 4 
Erie - Charles W. Fuller, Superintendent; H. T. Kraft, Overseer. 
Genesee-Cortland Crossman, Superintendent; D. R. Strong, Overseer of the 
Poor of Le Roy. 
Monroe - George E. McGonegal, Superintendent; Porter W. Taylor, Overseer 
of the Poor of Rochester. 
Madison - Allen Curtis, Newel M. Chaffee, George W. Robie, Superintendents. 
Onondaga- Henry H. Loomis, Superintendent; Ambrose Sadler, Keeper. 
Ontario - Warren B. Witter, Simon R. Wheeler, Lemuel Herendeen, Super- 
intendents. 
Orange - James H. Goodale, Superintendent. 
Orleans - John Gates, Superintendent. 
Saratoga - Geo. W. King, Superintendent. 
Schuyler- John H. Hall, Superintendent. 
Steuben - George Holland, Hiram D. Brundage, Superintendents 
Suffolk - Wm. T. Hulse, S. R. Williams, Superintendents. 
Tioga-S. O. Sabin, Superintendent. 
Tompkins - Elias Smith, Superintendent. 
Wayne- John G. Mead, James B. Wiley, Superintendents. 
Warren- A. T. Pasko, Superintendent. 
Wyoming - B. F. Bristol, John S. Rogers, Isaac G. Hammond, Superintendents. 
Tates - Albert McIntyre. 
Queens-Denis Sullivan, Superintendent. 
Chemung - Elliot Griggs, Superintendent. 
OTHER OFFICERS PRESENT. 
Hon. Darius N. Ogden, representing the Board of Trustees of the Willard 
Asylum. 
Hon. Wm. P. Letchworth, President of the State Board of Charities. 
Hon. Charles S. Hoyt, M.D., Secretary. 
Dr. David Rogers, Superintendent Insane Asylum. 
Dr. C. H. Warner, Superintendent Costodial Branch of Idiot Asylum, Syracuse. 
Dr. Armstrong, Superintendent of the Binghamton Insane Asylum. 
Mr. Lamont, Superintendent of the Susquehanna Valley Home, Binghamton. 
Rev. Dr. Richmond Fish, representing the Bureau of Labor and Charities of 
Syracuse. 
Rev. Dr. Strong, representing the Western N. Y. Home at Randolph, Cat- 
taraugus Co. 
Henry J. Jackson, representing the Commissioners of Emigration, New York. 
William Blake, representing the Commissioners of Charities and Correction, 
New York. 
Mrs. Robert McPerson of Buffalo. 
The following letter was read and ordered printed. 
Troy, N. Y., June 11, 1881. 
C. W. Fuller, Esq., 
Chairman Committee Arrangements ; 
Dear Sir :-Your circular of the 4th inst. duly received. In reply would say : 
That being unable to attend the Annual Convention of Superintendents last 
year, I then promised myself the pleasure of meeting with you at your next 
meeting to be held in the present month. This pleasure I am now compelled 
to forego. Unfortunately the Keeper at the House of Industry is seriously in- 
disposed, while my principal clerk is off for a two weeks vacation. This will 
prevent me from taking part in your deliberations which I deeply regret. Truly 
believing in the advantages which result from these conventions, that they are 
certainly pleasant, instructive and profitable I can only send my regrets at my 
inability to be with you at the time mentioned. Please advise me as to the 5 
amount of my assessment and I will promptly remit. With best wishes for 
your success, believe me. 
Sincerely yours, 
JOHN J. CASSIN, 
Act. Superintendent Poor, 
Rensselaer Co. 
On motion of Mr. Lawrence W. Dutcher, of Poughkeepsie, 
Mr. Frederick Carman, of Albany, was appointed Stenog- 
rapher of the Convention. 
Mr. George W. King, of Saratoga, moved that a committee 
of four be appointed by the Chairman on permanent organiza- 
tion. Carried. 
The Chair appointed as such committee, Messrs. King of 
Saratoga, Williams of Suffolk, Ki ver of Columbia and Fuller 
of Erie. 
On motion of Mr. Goodale, of Orange, the Chairman was 
added to the committee. 
Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe: Before retiring with the Com- 
mittee'on Permanent Organization, it will be necessary for some 
one to occupy the chair in the interim, I therefore appoint as 
temporary chairman Mr. Lawrence W. Dutcher, of Pough- 
keepsie. 
Mr. Dutcher, on taking the chair, said : They had met as 
a Convention to discuss the important interests of the poor, 
interests affecting directly the pecuniary burdens of the tax- 
payers. It was becoming to incur no unnecessary expenditure 
of time, but to proceed at once to the business before them. 
While the committee were perfecting the organization the 
time should be suitably utilized. 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange : We have with us to-day an honored 
guest, in the person of the Hon. Darius A. Ogden, a delegate 
from the Board of Trustees of Willard Asylum. He has but 
one day to spend with the Convention, and as he has probably 
some important facts to relate, or if not, he doubtless has some- 
thing of interest to communicate in reference to that institution 
in which most of the chronic insane poor of the State are 
cared for. I move you, sir, that he be accorded a hearino' 
now. Carried. 
Mr. Ogden : I have no idea of making an address to this 
Convention at this time or at any other time during the 
session. I came here in response to a resolution from the 
Board of Trustees, to meet the Superintendents of the Poor 
of the State. They are gentlemen with whom we (Trustees) 6 
come in contact very frequently, and have learned to love and 
respect. Our institution (Willard) is so intimately connected 
with them that we always like to hear and learn their feelings, 
their policy, their general course and any suggestions that they 
may make in regard to the great question of providing for the 
poor and particularly for the chronic insane poor, the most un- 
fortunate class of our people. With regard to the Willard 
Asylum, it is now substantially a complete institution. We 
regard it as a successful undertaking, and as a charity for 
which the State of Now York may well be proud. 
It has accomplished, in our judgment, a great thing not alone 
for this State, but for the whole country and for the poor of all 
countries. I think the superintendents will understand what 
I mean when I say we are a completed institution ; for there 
will probably be no further extension at Willard. That is 
my own idea, and I have given this question a good deal ol 
thought and a good deal of investigation. I see before me the 
honored Secretary of the Board of State Charities. I have 
been frequently in communication and conversation with him 
in regard to this great subject. My opinion is that with the 
institution that is to come under the care of Dr. Armstrong in 
a short time, with that institution prepared for the reception 
of patients, the chronic pauper insane of the State of New 
York 'will be cared for and cared for efficiently. Many of the 
large counties, and Orange is among those counties, have in- 
stitutions that are honorable to them and successful in every 
sense, and with these large counties and their county institu- 
tions or county asylums ; with Willard, and with the Bingham- 
ton Asylum, I believe the chronic pauper insane of the State 
of New York will have homes for all time to come. This has 
been the great aim in establishing the Willard Asylum. It 
was to take a class of people that are in every respect outcasts, 
in every respect in the most pitiful condition of all our people 
and give them, as a tribute to common humanity, a home, and 
a home for all time and for all the purposes of a home under 
the care of the great State of New York, making this class of 
our people their wards and providing for them. I regard the 
work as substantially accomplished now, and it is to my mind 
a very gratifying fact that we may say to-day, and say to this 
body of Superintendents of the Poor of the State of New York, 
that the great object for which the Willard Asylum has been 
established has been successfully carried to completion and 
that you will have but little trouble hereafter in regard to your 
pauper and chronic insane. I say it is a proud fact connected 
with the charities of this great State. 7 
Now there is one other point I desire this Convention to 
understand. During the present session of the Legislature a 
law has been passed authorizing the Board of Trustees of the 
Willard Asylum to appoint a committee to discharge patients. 
Many of you Superintendents have had trouble in getting 
a discharge for patients from the Willard Asylum, owing to 
the fact that under the law as it hitherto existed, only the Board 
of Trustees had the power to grant discharges, and as the 
Board met only every three months, it required time and a 
great deel of inconvenience to got people away from Willard. 
We want it distinctly understood that we have no desire to 
keep any one in Willard Asylum that can be removed with 
safety. We have no object in keeping them there, and no 
desire to do so, and I am glad to say to you, gentlemen, 
that patients are discharged from that institution in quite 
large numbers. They are being discharged improved, and 
in a condition to be taken care of by their friends, and 
many - not many perhaps, but some-permanently restored 
to reason and self-control. We have now a committee in- 
vested by law with the full power of the Board of Trustees so 
far as it relates to the discharge of patients. You can at any 
time, by complying with the forms of law, get patients discharged 
without waiting for a meeting of the full Board of Trustees. 
The committee have full power to grant discharges; for by the 
act passed in the present Legislature, the trustees were autho- 
rized to appoint a committee with the same power that the 
board itself has in the matter of discharging. So, gentlemen, 
you may now get a patient away from the Willard Asylum 
when it is proper and when you desire it, without convening 
the Board of Trustees. There are to-day in the Willard Asy- 
lum about seventeen hundred and fifty patients. They are 
chronic insane - those that are considered hopeless, but one 
fact is true beyond all question, that at Willard there is 
generally, almost universally, an improvement in the patients, 
as they come under the discipline of the institution, and when 
their friends then desire to take them away, we desired to have 
this law enacted in order that you might be able to come at 
any time, and, by the action of the committee, take patients 
away to their friends whenever it was proper that they should 
go. I repeat, the great object of the Willard Asylum has been 
accomplished. The chronic pauper insane in the State of New 
York are now really the wards of the great State, under its 
care and protection. They have homes to live in which are com- 
fortable for them, and they will endure as long as they live." 8 
The Committee on Permanent Organization made the follow- 
ing report: 
President-M. M. Olmsted, of Cayuga County. 
Vice-Presidents-H. H. Loomis, Onondaga ; A. B. Lewis, Niagara; Philip 
Niver, Columbia. 
Secretary-L. W. Dutcher, Dutchess. 
Treasurer-George W. King, Saratoga. 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange, .moved that the report of the Com- 
mittee be adopted by the Convention. 
Mr. Olmsted of Cayuga: I am very much obliged for the 
compliment paid to me by the committee, but I most respect- 
fully decline the honor. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens: I hope the gentleman will withdraw 
his declination; he is the oldest member of the Convention, 
and we earnestly wish him to be the presiding officer of its 
present session. 
The motion of Mr. Goodale was seconded and carried by 
acclamation. 
Mr. Dutcher (Chairman) appointed Mr. Goodale, of Orange, 
and Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe, as a committee to escort Mr. 
Olmstead to the chair. 
Mr. Goodale, on arriving at the platform, said : Gentlemen 
of the Convention-I have the honor to introduce to you Mr. M. 
M. Olmsted of Cayuga, as the choice of this Convention to pre- 
side over its present session, and I further say that this is his 
twenty-seventh year of public service as Superintendent of the 
Poor. 
Mr. Olmsted, on taking the chair, said : Gentlemen-This 
is an unexpected honor to me I had no aspiration toward the 
position and do not feel myself competent to preside over this 
Convention ; but since you have been good enough to call me 
to this duty, I will with your assistance and indulgence en- 
deavor to meet the responsibility. What is the pleasure of the 
Convention ? 
Prevention of Pauperism. 
Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe: I understand that Dr. Hoyt, 
Secretary of the State Board of Charities, has prepared some 
points to present to this Convention in regard to measures to 
prevent the increase of paupers. I think it would be well that 
Dr. Hoyt should be accorded the privilege of presenting his 
views on this most important subject at the opening of this 
Convention. His paper will undoubtedly create discussion 9 
which will be profitable and eminently in keeping with the 
purposes of our annual gatherings. If therefore the Committee 
on Topics have not as yet presented its report, I move that 
Dr. Hoyt be accorded a hearing now. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens, seconded the motion, which was 
carried. 
Dr. Hoyt then addressed the Convention on the subject of 
pauperism and its prevention. A great deal, he believed, might 
be prevented by the adoption of appropriate remedies. The 
statute provided two modes for the relief of the poor, to-wit, 
out-of-door relief, and that given in the alms-house. Both 
were liable to abuse, in which case, they practically became 
agents for perpetuating the evil they were designed to cure. 
Out-door relief should, in his opinion, be granted only under 
the following circumstances: 
1. In cases of sickness, or accident, when the person may 
not be in condition to be removed to the alms-house or hospital. 
2. In cases of aged and infirm persons dependent upon re- 
latives able and willing to nurse and care for them, but with- 
out the pecuniary ability to meet the whole expense of their 
support. 
3. In cases of pestilence, failure of crops, producing tempo- 
rary distress, or commercial revulsions throwing large numbers 
of persons, for the time being, out of employment. 
4. In cases where the head of a family is removed by death, 
or prostrated by sickness, and there is good reason to believe 
that the family, by being thus held together, may ultimately 
become self-supporting. 
In order to check abuses in this form of public relief, every 
possible safe-guard should be thrown around its administra- 
tion. 
All officials charged with its distribution should be ex- 
perienced and intelligent, and the work, so far as possible, 
should be removed from the domain of party politics. 
It should be administered only to those who will be really 
benefitted thereby, and the greatest care should be exercised 
that it be not given so as to furnish the means of vicious in- 
dulgence or encourage improvidence and idleness. 
The circumstances of the recipient should frequently be 
re-examined, as those who may be proper subjects for aid one 
week may not be so the next. 
In the case of families in which children are concerned, 10 
the welfare of the latter should be the primary consideration. 
Imprudent and indolent parents often make their large family 
the pretext for out-door aid. When such parents fail to dis- 
charge their duty to their children, their right of possession 
terminates, and the children become the wards of society. It 
is the duty of society, therefore, to properly protect such 
children and make the burden of their support, present and 
prospective, as light as possible. To this end it is generally 
wise hnd beneficent to break up such families and place the 
children in asylums or good permanent homes. A large pro- 
portion of the inmates of our poor-houses and alms-houses 
have first been recipients of public aid at their homes, often in 
family groups, in which the children were systematically trained 
to pauperism, vice, and crime. 
The relief should, as far as possible, be temporary in its 
character, and stopped in all cases as soon as it ceases to be 
absolutely necessary. 
In-door relief should be granted in buildings suitably ar- 
ranged for discipline, labor, order, decorum and economy of 
administration. No encouragement should be afforded to 
pauperize by the ease with which entrance to poor-houses could 
be obtained, and no encouragement should be offered to those 
already inmates to remain so. Careful records should be kept 
of all coming upon the public for support with the view of ascer- 
taining the cause of their dependence. Where physical infirmity 
is the cause, suitable medical aid should be supplied, with the 
view ofspeedily restoring the person to bodily soundness and self- 
support. The doctor dwelt at length on the importance of 
taking hold of the children, the rising generation, educating 
and training them properly, and removing them from all de- 
basing and pauperizing influences. Interesting statistics were 
also presented fortifying the positions taken, and a forceful ar- 
raignment of intemperance as the most potent factor of all in 
the perpetuation of pauperism closed the doctor's able address. 
The remarks of Dr. Hoyt were listened to with great interest 
and regarded as voicing the sentiments of the Convention on 
the topic treated. 
Recess till 2 p. m. 
AFTERNOOK SESSION. 
Convention re-assembled at half past two. 11 
The Chairman presented the following invitation to visit 
the Erie County Jail which was accepted. 
M. M. Olmsted, Esq., 
Chairman, etc., 
Dear Sir.-An invitation is hereby most cordially extended to members of 
your honorable body to visit the Erie County Jail at their convenience. 
Very respectfully yours, 
WM. W. LAWSON, 
Sheriff. 
Reports. 
Reports from Standing Committee on Topics being called 
for, Mr. Goodale, of Orange, presented the following: 
To what extent is it necessary, in the interests of humanity 
and economy, for the State, the county, the city, or the town 
to provide remunerative labor to the able-bodied indigent 
classes at times when they apply for temporary relief? How 
should it be done ? 
What, if any, would be the result upon pauperism and in- 
sanity of the extension of full suffrage to women? Should they 
vote for Overseers and Superintendents of the Poor as for 
school officers ? 
Should State, county, or other public charities, supported 
by taxation, be administered wholly by public officials, and 
thus become secularized; or should they, as at present, be 
administered partly through religious denominations and cor- 
porations ? 
Massing of indigents and insane: Its policy, and how far 
consistent with the welfare of the public and the inmates. 
What advantages, if any, have been gained through exempt- 
ing certain counties from the Willard Asylum Act ? 
On motion the report of the committee was adopted. 
Mr. Lawrence W. Dutcher, of Poughkeepsie, presented, on 
behalf of the Treasurer, the following report : 
Receipts (various counties specified) $205.00 
For reporting, printing, etc. etc \ 175.00 
Balance in the Treasury $30.00 
On motion the report of the committee was adopted. 
Immigration Burdens. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens, presented the following preamble 
and resolutions : 
Whereas, The city of New York is the national depot of 12 
immigration; and it is a well known fact that paupers, and 
criminals, sent here from various nations of Europe, by their 
friends and by organizations, for the purpose of freeing them- 
selves from the burden of their support; which class on 
their arrival in this State enter immediately our charitable 
institutions and become a great burden to the tax-payers of 
the State; and 
Whereas, The decision of the Supreme Court of the United 
States declaring State laws on immigration to be unconsti- 
tutional, debars the State of New York from enacting such 
laws as will secure for it just protection against being turned 
into a prison, a hospital and a lunatic asylum for foreign 
paupers and criminals ; 
Resolved, That the Immigration Question is one of great 
magnitude, fraught with important results both economic and 
philanthropic, and demands our most urgent consideration. 
Resolved, That it is unjust to the State of New York to 
longer tolerate such a burden of taxation, and that the Com- 
missioners of Emigration must, and should, have financial 
support from the General Government, the immigrant becoming 
a subject of National legislation. 
Resolved, That it is, therefore, the duty of Congress to enact 
a national law that shall be just both to the immigrant and to 
the State. 
Resolved, That while we would not restrict immigration, 
and while cheerfully welcoming the industrious able-bodied 
classes to the country, we believe that all nations have a legiti- 
mate right to forbid the immigration of criminals and paupers. 
Resolved, That it is our duty to press this important 
question of immigration upon the attention of members of 
Congress, and that a copy of this set of resolutions be sent to 
each member of Congress from this State, and. also a copy of 
the same to the National Conference of Charities which meet 
at Boston, July 25th, praying their cooperation to secure 
National legislation on immigration. 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange, seconded the resolutions. 
Honorable Wm. P. Letchworth, of Buffalo: Before pro- 
ceeding further, if the Chair will consider it in order, I desire 
to say a few words in reference to the resolution which has 
just been offered. I think that this Convention should fully re- 
cognize, as I hope it does, its importance. Action should not 
only be taken by the Convention, but its individual members 13 
by means of correspondence should direct the attention of our 
representatives in Congress to the subject. We have been 
trying for years to secure Congressional action to meet 
the necessities of the case. Its importance has become more 
urgent since the decision of the Supreme Court declaring the cqI- 
lection of " head money " unconstitutional. The means of the 
Commissioners of Emigration are inadequate to meet their obli- 
gations, and at present a large sum is due from them to 
various counties in the State for the support of pauper immi- 
grants in county poor-houses. The railroads of the country 
favor immigration irrespective of class, as do also the great steam- 
ship companies. It makes no difference to them whether they 
carry paupers or self-sustaining citizens. The extending of a 
welcome to the distressed of every land is broadly benevolent 
in principle; but in-its practical operation some discrimination 
should be made as against the criminal classes and those 
who are thrust upon us simply to relieve other localities from 
the burden of their support. New York suffers largely to-day 
because of its being a port of indiscriminate entry. The healthy 
able-bodied immigrants pass on to the west, and the infirm and 
and helpless are left in New York. Last year while making 
an examination of this subject, I found that of the insane in 
charge ofthe public authorities of New York city, out of twenty- 
three hundred and fifty-four patients, eighteen hundred and 
twenty-three were of foreign birth. The percentage was 
much greater in New York city than in the country institu- 
tions. This class of dependents floats in from the old world, 
and New York bears a disproportionate burden from this 
source. 
Last year while abroad, I made it a point to inquire into 
the exportation of criminals and defectives from Europe to 
this country. I called on our consuls in almost all the 
countries with special reference to this subject. In Ireland, 
Scotland, England, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Switzerland, 
France, Holland and Belgium, I Lund exportation of these 
classes carried on to a greater extent than I had supposed. 
They are sent out sometimes by the public authorities, some- 
times through benevolent associations. 
I had a conversation in Switzerland with an official con- 
nected with a prison in one of the Cantons. I inquired of him 
what they regarded as the best disposition to make of crimi- 
nals after their discharge. He replied " we send them largely 
put of the country." 1 asked if many were sent to America? 
" Yes, he said, America is one of the best points that we send 14 
to/' I asked if he thought they were better off there than at 
home? He said "the change was highly beneficial to the 
criminal by removing him from old associates." Upon my in- 
timation that such a course unjustly burdened us, he said, "we 
would like to exchange with you. If you will send over to 
us as many as we send to you, that would adjust the matter. 
I have always advocated the transplanting of them, and an 
equalization of the burden by exchange, believing it to be one 
of the most efficient means of reforming criminals." The 
State Board of Charities has been in correspondence with Mr. 
Fish, our Minister at Berne, in regard to the exportation of 
paupers. He has given much attention to the subject, and 
through his watchful intervention and protests the abuse in 
Switzerland has been greatly restricted. He has furnished the 
State Board with valuable information and statistics, which 
throw much light on this important question. I found many 
good people in the countries named, especially in Switzerland 
who do not hesitate to denounce the practice as wrong; and 
they would gladly see some emphatic protest I y the American 
people against it, therefore I think the resolution passed by 
this Convention is eminently wise, but we ought not stop here. 
The individual efforts of Superintendents of the Poor should 
be exerted to obtain Congressional action to restrict and 
effectually protect the State against this evil. A few of 
this class have been taken from the poor-houses by Secretary 
Hoyt and returned to the countries from w7hence they came, 
this has been done out of a small appropriation made by the 
Legislature, about a year ago for this purpose. These, however, 
are but a very small portion of the great tide of paupers flood- 
ing our State. Pauperism is not rooted in this country as it is 
in the old world, and the time to control it is now, by the 
adoption of preventive measures, and before it becomes an in- 
tolerable burden. 
Ur. Rogers : No one is more thankful than I am to hear 
the remarks made by the President of the State Board of 
Charities. The question ot immigration has been in my mind 
for a number of years. It is a question of great magnitude. 
As a nation and as a people we have not yet entered into its 
study. The hour the immigrants land on the shores of America 
is but the opening of the door to the prison, the poor-house 
and the insane assylum. The people of this philanthropic 
country or State have to be burdened with this tax for their 
support, this unjustifible tax w7hich the nations of Europe have 
thrust upon us. As a case in point illustrative of the class that we 15 
have to^take care of, I shall speak of one: On the eleventh of 
last May there was shipped from France a female who, on the 
18th of June following, was admitted into the Queens County 
Asylum, Her mother had been insane and had died in an in- 
sane asylum in France; her brother had been twice an inmate of 
the French Insane Asylum and she w7as sent to this country, 
it would seem, because w7e have better institutions here for the 
care of this class. There should be a rigid law passed ; not to 
restrict honorable immigrants, be they never so poor, not to 
restrict the honest laborer, I would not do anything to pre- 
vent the free entrance of such a class of industrious people - 
but I would say to the countries of Europe : "thus far canst 
thou go and no farther with reference to shipping your crimi- 
nals, you»* paupers and your lunatics to the shores of America." 
Newr York has in her great philanthropic heart erred; but, 
thank God! Mr. Chairman, she erred on the side of mercy. 
Had New York instead of building her hospitals and institu- 
tions of charity to take in the immigrants landing upon her 
shores, used the money so expended in shipping them off to 
the various States of the Union and letting each State bear a 
proportion of the burden, wTe should not have had long to wait 
for the national law w7hich we now seek. Why is this law re- 
sisted by Congress ? It is because New7 York has always stood 
ready to pay the expenses of this class. It is time to move 
in this matter, and nobody should move earlier than the Super- 
intendents of the Poor of the State of New York; for,gentle- 
men, you have to deal with them, you have to make provision 
for these people, and you have been making provision for them 
and burdening your own constituents with taxation. It is un- 
just in every sense of the word. I have had occasion during 
the last year to spend much time in Castle Garden studying 
this question, I have followed the immigrants into the immi- 
grant boarding houses, and such a condition for human beings 
to exist in I never imagined could exist. No wonder we have 
pestilence ; no wonder we are subject to disease and even anni- 
hilation. The immigrants here in these dens are sought out by 
sharpers; educated in the schools of criminality, and then 
sent broadcast as tramps all over this country to destroy the 
happiness and peace of our people. 
The resolutions were adopted. 
On motion of Dr. Rogers, Henry J. Jackson, Secretary of 
the Commissioners of Emigration, w7as invited to address the 
Convention. 16 
Secretary Jackson : The resolution looking for National 
legislation in the matter of immigration which has been so ably 
presented by Dr. Rogers, and clearly explained by Mr. Letch- 
worth, meets the fullest approbation of the Commissioners of 
of Emigration. The commissioners have sought to obtain Na- 
tional legislation from the past two sessions of Congress. They 
have also sought to have re-enacted the laws that worked so 
well from 1847 to 1876 in the interest of this State and of the 
immigrants. In Congress we are always met with opposition 
from the Western States. While they want immigration there, 
and get the best of it, they are indifferent to the burden they 
are throwing upon the State of New York. They do not want 
the slightest hindrance thrown in the way of the free coming 
of immigrants. The State of New York joins them in that, 
but we want to be protected as much as possible from the large 
numbers left to be cared for at different parts of the State. 
The immigration this year will probably reach half a million. 
Three-fourths of them go directly to the west, only about seven 
per cent remain in the State of New York and about three per 
cent in the city. The action of Congress that is sought is two- 
fold. 
First, To provide for the necessary expenses of caring for 
the poor and the sick. 
Second, To authorize the authorities of the State to return 
people who are shown to be paupers and lunatics. 
There is at present no law to authorize the State authorities 
to compel a man, or a person, to go back unless he is willing. 
There is no law of the United States to compel him to go back. 
All we can do is to bond the ships that brought him over for 
his expenses, if he becomes a public charge. 
There was a law presented to Congress and, although reported 
favorably by the committee having it in charge, was not enacted 
at the last session. We hope with the aid of such resolutions, 
as this Convention has adopted to awaken further public opinion 
upon this subject; a law has been enacted by our present Legis- 
lature, which will go into operation on the 20th of this month. 
It is an extension of the Inspection Laws, and will meet in a 
great .measure this question, if we can carry it into effect. 
It provides that the Commissioners may inspect all the passen- 
gers arrivino;, as now, but gives them more extensive powers in 
this respect; providing that the steamship companies shall pay 
to the Commissioners of Emigration, one dollar per head for 
carrying out the inspection laws founded upon the Constitution 17 
of the United States. Th? money used could only be expended 
for the care of those who are immediately taken off ship-board 
or within a day or two, and for the return of all persons, and 
the expense of all persons wrho come in under this law who 
were afterwards found to be lunatic or unable to maintain 
themselves. The steamship companies threaten to litigate it. 
They say it is unconstitutional, and if they do, it will take four 
years to reach any final conclusion. Meanwhile there is no 
aid to come from any source except from Congress. We hope 
this law just signed by the Governor, will not be litigated, for 
it will very much aid the State in taking care of the immigrants. 
Mr. Bristol, of Wyoming: The increase of immigration 
into our country is alarming. The State of New York is a 
great sufferer from this source. The able-bodied and thrifty 
pass on west, but the weak and defective remain ; and those 
who are not able to make a success of it out west, by reason of 
physical or mental infirmity, are sent back to New York to 
burden our State with their support. All interested in the 
care of the poor should take concerted action in memorializing 
Congress to pass appropriate laws for the relief of our State 
in this respect. 
Mr. E. D. Barnum, of Allegany: The question of the immi- 
gration of paupersis of great importance and of general interest 
to the whole State. I wish to make a few suggestions. No one 
can visit our different asylums and alms-houses without noticing 
the large per centage oi foreign-born inmates. I think all will 
concede that measures should immediately be taken to protect 
the State of New York against this heavy burden. Of all the 
immigrants who land in the city of New York, but a small pro- 
portion of the thrifty and industrious class remain. They 
pass directly through on their way to the far west, there to 
make homes for themselves and families ; while the sick stay 
to fill up our hospitals and asylums. The shiftless, indolent 
class remain also to crowd our alms-houses, or tramp at large 
throughout the State. I would not discourage immigration, 
but I think we should urge upon the National Government 
the passage of some measure for our protection against this 
flood of impotence and mendicancy so unjustly drafted upon 
us, and feeling that by joining hands in a united effort, we 
may succeed.' I would make the following suggestion : That 
the Commissioners of Emigration prepare such a bill as will in 
their judgment at once remedy the evil, and be just to all con- 
cerned, and that they also prepare an appeal in the form of a 
2 18 
printed letter addressed to the senators and members Congress 
from this State urging them to secure its passage, that the 
appeal be sent to the members of the State Board of Charities, 
Superintendents of Lunatic Asylums, Superintendents of the 
Poor and Alms-house Keepers, with the request that they sign 
it and return before being presented to our senators and 
members of Congress with the bill. 
Charity Bureaus. 
Mr. Loomis, of Onondaga, said: The Kev. Dr. Fisk, from 
Syracuse, representing a charitable organization there, was 
present. He thought it w'ould be profitable for the Conven- 
tion to hear an account of the workings of the organization he 
represented, as an important agency in not only reducing 
pauperism but stimulating those who are ready to swell its 
ranks into making personal, manly and successful endeavors 
towards independent self-support. He moved the Rev. Dr. 
Fisk be accorded a hearing. The motion was carried. 
Rev. Dr. Fisk, than addressed the Convention. He was 
very much gratified that an opportunity had been given him 
to participate in the proceedings. He represented an organi- 
zation known as the Bureau of Labor and Charities, in Syra- 
cuse. There was a good model of the work already flourishing 
in the city of Buffalo. It covered substantially the same 
ground as the organization in Syracuse. The Bureau of 
Labor and Charities, in Syracuse, put emphasis upon the em- 
ployment of the most intelligent ladies of the city. There 
were one hundred and seventy-five lady visitors in connection 
with the organization and twenty or thirty gentlemen who 
gave more or less of their time to its interests. The city was 
divided into five districts each having a separate organization, 
but all culminating in one central committee that employs a 
general secretary, clerk and office boy. With this machinery 
the work is conducted. The general secretary collects the 
poor lists of the county and city, and obtains the names of the 
applicants for relief, with the amount afforded month by 
month. With this list as a basis a thorough investigation and 
registration of all the particulars of each case is made and 
proper action taken in reference to them. The organization 
goes still further, and takes in a large class who are entirely out- 
side of the poor list of the city or county, families unfortunate, 
brought into a state of semi-destitution by an accident perhaps 
to the husband or father of the family. One of the best works 
of the Bureau was in looking after and tiding over difficulties, 19 
families that would otherwise be compelled either to seek 
charity from door to door, from their neighbors, or be driven 
to apply for it to the city or county Superintendent of the 
Poor. As a result of six months working of this Bureau the 
doctor gave the following synopsis: There were two hundred 
and ninety families recorded, representing four hundred and 
fifty adults, six hundred and seventy-seven children. 
These cases were of a very varied character and a few 
samples selected will fairly illustrate the whole. 
1. Mother found in a dying condition ; on every side signs 
of want; also three children sick. Neither sick mother nor 
sick children with clothing enough to keep them from the cold 
of January. Visitor obtained clothing and bedding, and a 
nurse was sent from the House of Good Shepherd. 
2. Family destitute; husband intemperate; daughter, 14 
years of age, sick. Visitor saw the husband's employer ; had 
money due him paid to the wife, and sent sick girl to House 
of Good Shepherd. 
8. Wife sick; husband drunk, who turned his wife into the 
street, sold the furniture and left the city. 
4. Father dead; mother disreputable; three children out 
begging. Through the Bureau one child was sent West, one 
placed in the Orphan Asylum and the third in a comfortable 
home. 
5. Shoes obtained for children. 
6. Mother in the penitentiary. Children taken charge of 
and placed in Orphan Asylum. 
7. Husband poor, wife very sick. The latter sent to the 
hospital. 
8. Woman in need of shoes. Referred to St. Vincent de 
Paul's. 
9. Five boys in one family, from 9 to 15 years of age, out of 
school all winter, their home is disreputable. What can be 
done for the boys to save them from the vice and pollution of 
their homes ? 
10. Mother very intemperate, father very abusive and an 
idler. Six children at home, out of school, ragged, dirty. 
What can be done to save the children ? 
11. Wife industrious with three children and a drunken 
husband. A sewing-machine provided for her and coal secured 
from the poor-master. 20 
12. A child in the care of a prostitute. Measures taken to 
remove him to the Orphan Asylum. 
13. Two children reported begging. Referred to General 
Secretary. 
14. Dr. Pease requested to visit a sick woman. 
15. A young man out of work because of serious disease of 
the eyes. Medical treatment secured, eyes cured. Youngman 
at work. 
16. Husband sent to penitentiary for abusing his wife. Wife 
very sick and cannot recover. Two daughters at work whose 
wages support mother, two small children and themselves. 
One daughter obliged to quit working ouf and take care of the 
dying mother, a brief time brings them to necessities for the 
mother and the home. This is a case for a time till the mother 
dies and the wages of the daughters can support the family. 
A loan was made, the mother recently died, the daughter at 
home carries on the business of tailoring, the other makes 
good wages, and we doubt not the loan of $10 will be promptly 
returned. 
17. Wife deserted, left with four children, in destitution, one 
child is adopted by a family in the city, the baby is placed in 
care of a friend, and two are placed in Orphan Asylum, and 
the mother has secured a position where her wages pay for 
her baby's care and for the expense of keeping the two who 
are in the asylum. 
18. Husband in penitentiary, wife and two children in desti- 
tution, wife soon to be confined. Her girl is placed in St. 
Vincent de Paul's, her boy at House of Providence, and herself 
provided for till after confinement, her few household goods 
stored and the expenses provided for. 
This thorough system of investigation, in the course of a few 
years, can be made of very great importance in the study and 
better understanding of sources of destitution, want and misery. 
Dr. Warner, of Wayne: The work of the Bureau of Labor 
and Charity, as my friend, the Rev. Dr. Fish, has told you, has 
been a success. The year I was Superintendent of the Poor 
for Onondaga, the tax-payers were paying $122,000 for out- 
door relief in Syracuse. They saw it was enormous, and, by 
way of correcting the evil, they associated a man with me in 
the office, paid him one thousand dollars a year. The out- 
door relief was largely reduced by his vigilance; but still there 
were abuses, and never did they fully correct it till the establish- 21 
ment of this Bureau of Labor and Charities. Personal visita- 
tion of the homes and circumstances of the applicants, soon 
disclosed the real condition of things, and opportunity for in- 
telligent aiding was at once afforded. To the energy and 
intelligence of woman much of the good results must be at- 
tributed. 
Dr. Rogers spoke of his experience as a delegate to the 
National Conference of Charities at Cleveland, and referred to 
the value of the report of the proceedings there, particularly 
the discussion of the subject of out-door relief. A copy of 
the report, he thought, ought to be in the hands of every 
Superintendent of the Poor. He was in sympathy with the 
work of his noble friend from Syracuse ; it was a work which 
if well carried on would be more effective of good in the di- 
rection of real charity than all the efforts of the Protestant 
churches of the land. These organizations sought to elevate 
its beneficiaries, to inject new .life into the burdened hearts of 
the sufferers. They sought to render help without leaving 
behind it the depressing effect of " charity giving ; " they sought 
to make the subjects of their benefactions feel they were yet 
human and that there was a warm stream and a ray of sun- 
shine coming into their natures. Dr. Rogers then moved 
that this Convention send a delegation to represent it at the 
National Convention of Charities to be held in Boston in July, 
1881, and that the Chair make the appointments. 
Mr. Goodale, of. Orange, seconded the motion which was 
carried. 
The Chair made the following appointments: 
Dr. David Rogers, of Queens. 
Hon. George E. McGonegal, of Monroe. 
H. H. Loomis, of Onondaga. 
Henry J. Jackson, of the Commissioners of Immigration, New York, and, 
Wii,i jam Blake, Superintendent of Out-door Poor, Neu York. 
The Chairman was also added. 
County Care for the Insane. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens, offered the following preamble and 
resolutions for the consideration of the Convention next year : 
Whereas, The query is being urged by philanthropic minds, 
and theories are presented by eminent medical experts, as well 
as plans suggested, accompanied with the deep interest of the 
human heart, intended to bring into action the best methods 
in the care and treatment of the insane by State and local 
charities; therefore, 22 
Resolved, As a method of reform in the interest of the insane, 
there is none greater than the building of county asylums, 
adopting the family system of home influences, enacting laws 
that will compel the adoption and maintenance of the same 
methods of accommodations and government, as well as the 
same superintendental abilities and medical treatment as there 
is in the State asylums. 
Resolved, That such county asylums (the insane being kept 
in their native atmosphere) will be less expensive to tax-payers 
than the present State institutions, and equally productive of 
cures. 
Dr. Rogers : In presenting this I do not desire that at this 
Convention decided action should be taken upon it. This is 
indeed a question of great importance; and I desire that it should 
go over for atopic to be considered next year. There is much 
that can be said for and against county asylums, not county 
asylums kept on the grade that has existed heretofore. 
But while I do not propose to make a speech in reference to 
this subject at the present time, preferring to wait until the 
question has been more fully agitated, I do not feel that it is 
proper to avoid making some remarks upon it now. It is a 
question of great importance, one which should not be hastily 
acted upon, which should be turned over and examined on 
every side. It is a question that a great deal can be said 
against - and I do not know but that more can be urged 
against it than in its favor at the present stage of our 
education in reference to county asylums - but I verily 
believe that the time will come when county asylums will 
become one of the greatest methods of reform in the care 
of the unfortunate insane. There is no class that so de- 
mand the sympathy of the human heart as the man bereft 
of reason. It should never be a question of expense if our 
fellowmen can be restored. The question of economy should 
not come into the calculation, only when it comes.in justly. 
County asylums, organized under the system of our State 
asylums, operated, not as in the past, but as in the future of 
philanthropic elevation, will, 1 believe, bea method of vast and 
great importance. I claim one feature in favor of county 
asylums, admitting all that can be advanced in support of 
State institutions, and that is, that here there is no massive expen- 
sive structures, intended more for ornamentation than for the 
curative and saving process of disordered reason. These State 
institutions are certainly beautiful and grand to behold, but we 23 
are a people of charity, whose garb is simplicity, and we need not 
such costly edifices. We want for county asylums every appli- 
ance for the amelioration and comfort of the inmates. Give the 
county asylums the same government, the same medical talents 
and abilities as the State institutions, and you will see greater 
results in the treatment of the insane than you now find. 
Greater results - and I state it '^ith all the impression and con- 
sciousness of the importance of the utterance - will I believe 
be brought about in cures of the unfortunate insane. I am 
not speaking against our State asylums, I would not be so 
understood ; but we in our State iusitutions have too large a 
number for any one superintendent to care for and permit him 
to administer properly his duties to each individual. Our county 
asylums would not be so large, and the superintendent, who 
should be an expert in the treatment of the disease, could bring 
every day under his fingers, his eye, his hand every individual 
patient he has in his institution ; whereas months and months 
may elapse in those large State asylums during which the 
superintendent may not have seen A, B or C, patients for 
treatment in his institution. I speak this knowing that I am 
speaking facts. I have lived in State institutions I have 
watched their operation, and with this full knowledge I am in 
favor of county asylums, built in a plain, simple, effective man- 
ner, not equipped with labor-saving machinery, but leading 
all the work to be done in the natural homelike way, that the 
patients have been in habit of doing it. The nearer the insane 
person can bebrought home in his treatment, the more speadily 
will he be cured : that is my experience. I know there is 
a vast opposition to this. There is a prejudice against county 
asylums, but I wish to be understood when I defend county 
asylums, that I am by no means defending alms-houses, not in 
the least, I would not have an insane person committed to an 
alms-house under any circumstances. 
The secret of failures in the past in counties treating their 
own insane, has come by the inexperience and the w^nt of 
energy on the part of superintendents of the counties. Pardon 
me, gentlemen, at this era we have a more intelligent body of 
Superintendents ot the Poor, who are drawing the line of dis- 
tinction between tl<e requirements of the insane, and the re- 
quirements of the pauper in the alms-house. In our own 
county, and I speak it with pleasure, we are not operating 
our asylum as an alms-house, but' as near as possible, though 
laboring under great disadvantages, conforming in the stan- 
dards of care fully up to the requirements of the State institu- 
tions. 24 
We deal with the patients individually, and prescribe for 
each according to the necessities of the case, not guided by a 
parsimonious economy, but by a true regard and desire for the 
restoration of the patient, in the interest and good name of our 
county. Since we have taken our insane home to our county 
we have been able to dispose of fourteen chronic cases which 
did not belong to us, which ought never to have been charged 
to the county of Queens. One of these had been in Utica six 
years, working all the time in the shop, fully competent to take 
care of himself. He belonged to another part of the State, had 
relatives there ; I could detect nothing wrong in him ; I sent him 
to his friends, and he is now earning his own living ; I cautioned 
him not to mention the fact of his having been in the Utica 
Asylum, and nobody among his friends is aware of the fact. 
There are many phases of this question of great profit and in- 
terest and I hope at the next convention it will be fully dis- 
cussed in all the bearings that its importance demands. 
Mr. Gates, of Orleans: I apprehend it would be very diffi- 
cult to establish in the county of Orleans a small insane asylum 
that would be satisfactory to the tax-payers of the county. 
Such an asylum would require to be provided with compe- 
tent physicians and a large number of attendants. The insane 
could not be allowed to take care of themselves like ordinary 
paupers. A resident physician, besides medical assistants, etc., 
which would entail large expenses upon the county, would be 
an indispensable prerequisite for a county insane asylum. 
That being so, it is my opinion that in small counties the main- 
taining of a separate insane asylum would be attended with 
greater expense than the boarding of the insane at the State 
institutions. But in counties where there are large numbers of 
this class, sufficiently large to warrant the experiment, I believe, 
with the gentleman from Queens, that the plan is entitled to 
consideration and earnest trial. 
Mr. Holland, of Steuben: Our county is anxious to possess 
an asyltini of its own for the care of our chronic insane. We 
have at present between seventy and eighty patients in the 
Willard Asylum, many of whom are perfectly well able to work 
and support themselves. We believe it would be advantageous 
to us to erect a county asylum. Our expenses now for the care 
of our chronic insane at Willard amountto between fourteen and 
and fifteen thousand dollars annually. W e are confident we could 
effect a great saving by erecting a county asylum of our own, 
and we are equally confident that our. patients would get as 25 
good care there as they at present receive in tne Willard 
Asylum. I do not wish to cast any reflections on the Willard 
Asylum, I believe they do the best they can under the circum- 
stances ; but, at the same time, I cannot but see that there are 
too many gathered together there to receive the care they 
ought to have. I believe that patients there are in many in- 
stances allowed to go weeks without seeing a physician or 
getting any medical relief, while if we had them at home we 
could have a physcian employed for that special purpose who 
would look over the whole institution every day. 
But, further, it does not require the employment of many 
physcians; for we understand that the chronic insane have not 
much need of medicine. We could take care of them on our 
farm and our county would be saved the expense of transportation 
to Willard, which item has been a very heavy one to our county 
in particular, inasmuch as the Willard Asylum is a very incon- 
venient point for us to reach. Of course this inconvenience 
will be greatly obviated when the Binghamton Asylum is 
opened. But our people are really in earnest on the subject 
of county care for our chronic insane. At the last session 
of our Board of Supervisors a committee was appointed to 
make investigation in regard to this whole question. I expec- 
ted them to be present to-day. They hope to succeed in secur- 
ing a county asylum for Steuben. They have an idea that we 
will have to obtain legislation to permit the erection of our 
asylum, they are investigating that point. We feel we are en- 
titled to act our own pleasure in regard to our own insane. 
We pay the tax ; we want to control what we pay for, and, I 
believe, it is right that we should. Another advantage our 
county asylum would have is that the patients would be near 
their friends where they could be visited. We have a great 
deal of trouble in that respect. The friends of the insane 
are naturally very persistent in asking us questions, and getting 
us to write to the superintendent for information about their 
friends. If there is delay in reply, as is apt to be the case, we 
are found fault with and blamed for not doing our duty. The 
Superintendents of these State asylums do not write to us as 
often as they should. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens, said that the law directed how the 
insane should be cared for. The Superintendents of the Poor in 
this matter were under the State Board of Charities. He could 
assure them that that Board held the counties pretty rigidly to 
the requirements of the statute and it is well that it is so. He 26 
advocated county asylums on enlightened principles ; he was not 
advocating the principle of requiring every county in the State, 
great and small, to build an asylum. It should be optional, 
small counties could not afford to do it, they could keep their 
patients in State insiitutions and thus give these latter enough 
to do. 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange, said that Orange county was one 
of the first counties in the State to claim exemption from the 
Willard Asylum Act, and to be permitted to care for its own 
county insane in a county institution. He had not any disposi- 
tion to claim that the State Board of Charities were rigid in 
holding him up to the strict requirements of the law, he was 
rather disposed to find fault with them, for not visiting the 
Orange County Insane Asylum as often as he could wish. The 
lamented Hon. John V. L. Pruyn was President of the State 
Board when Orange county received exemption, and opened its 
asylum for the care of her own insane. He well remembered 
the complimentary terms then used by that distinguished 
gentleman, after he with other members of the State Board 
had inspected all the appointments of the new edifice and fully 
satisfied themselves of its character, adaptation for the work, 
and the willingness of the people of the county of Orange to 
stand second to none in their provision for the humane and 
Christian care of those of her unfortunate wards. The Presi- 
dential chair in that Board is now filled by the distinguished 
philanthrophist, the Honorable Wm. P. Letchworth, and not- 
withstanding his keen and vigilant administration of the law 
regarding the care of the insane, he had never heard from his 
lips a word spoken that was not in commendation of the 
efficiency and intelligence of the treatment given by Orange 
county to her untortunate wards. He did not understand 
what additional legislation any county needed in order to be 
exempted from the provisions of the Willard Asylum Act. 
Let them go to work as Orange county had done; put up 
their buildings, make suitable provision for their care, and then 
go and ask Dr. Hojt, the Secretary of the State Board of 
Charities, to allow them to take care of their own insane; and 
if that Board, having no other interest than to secure the proper 
treatment of this unfortunate class, felt sure that this would be 
attained, the exemption would be granted without any delay, 
and no further legislation would be needed. He never knew 
the State Board of Charities refuse to grant this exemption 
except to two counties. The State Board of Charities under 
the statute have full power in the matter. 27 
Mr. Holland said he was misunderstood in his remarks. 
They did not propose to ask for additional legislation unless 
it was necessary, but they were law-abiding citizens in his 
county and wished to do everything in a legal way. He had 
no doubt but that the State Board of Charities would do pre- 
cisely as the gentleman from Orange had stated. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens: The Supervisors ot the county are 
authorized by law to expend a limited sum of money for the 
erection of an insane asylum, beyond that they cannot go. 
That is one question. After they have got thus far and built 
the asylum; they have got to go the State Board of charities 
explain their action and ask for exemption from the Willard 
Asylum Act. The Supervisors can only spend a definite sum 
and if that is sufficient to build a county asylum, why they 
can go on and build it; but if it is not sufficient the question 
of further taxing the county in o^der to complete it has got to 
be submitted to the people. 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange, said the Supervisors could raise 
five thousand dollars to erect any building they had a mind to. 
The Legislature had given them that power. In Orange 
county they raised five thousand dollars and then bonded the 
county for fifteen thousand more. They could bond it for 
whatever additional amount was necessary. 
Dr. Rogers thought it an alarming statement to make that 
the Supervisors could go on and bond the county without any 
limit. He thought no board had a right to do it unless by an 
act of the Legislature. 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange, said that the Board of Supervisors 
had the power to bond the county to build bridges, etc. 
Mr. Holland, of Steuben, asked the following question to Dr. 
Rogers : What does it cost to keep your insane at home ? 
Dr. Rogers : We have about twenty or twenty-five boarders, 
we could carry the number up to seventy-five or one hundred 
if we bad the accommodation. We kept our insane last year 
for one dollar and a half per week. I suppose it would cost 
nothing short of three and a half dollars each to defray their 
actual expenses, but by means of the profit realized on our 
private boarders the cost to Queens county is reduced to one 
dollar and a half a week ; but t never entered the asylum with 
a view of seeing how much I could save. 
Mr. Witter, of Ontario: What do you include in this one 
dollar and a half a week ? 28 
Dr. Rogers : It includes everything. It covers the entire 
expenses, salaries, etc. Permanent improvements is taken out 
of our asylum fund : 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange: It cost us at Orange County one 
dollar and seventy-two cents and some fraction. Wehaveninety- 
one or ninety-two patients in the asylum and some thirty-four 
in the Middleton Asylum under the charge of Dr. Talcott, for 
whom I have not room. Some sixteen of them are considered 
chronic. I paid nineteen hundred and seventy-three dollars 
and seventy-nine cents for three months. 
Dr. Rogers : Does that estimate of yours include your own 
salary. 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange: Yes, sir, it includes everything. 
Mr. Letchworth drew attention to the fact that inasmuch 
as bonds had to be issued to pay for the original expenses of 
the asylum edifice, the interest on those bonds might properly 
be considered in tlie estimate. 
Dr. Rogers : I did not come here to represent the cost of 
keeping insane persons at a small insignificant figure which, 
in the mind of the just administrator, evidently cannot be 
done. I simply presented the figure of cost under certain 
favorable circumstances. I would not stay in the insane asylum 
of the county of Queens, it I had to pinch those poor creatures 
that are there by not giving them the comforts they ought to 
have. In my examination of the insane class 1 do not believe 
there is more than twenty per cent of them that ever have 
become paupers. I believe that a law that comes to my fireside 
and compels me to put away in my sorrow the one I most dearly 
love, the law that comes in on the ground of safety to life and 
property and takes him away from me, that same law gives me 
the right to say, you shall give him the care that his case requires, 
not alms-house charities, but such remedies and treatment as 
shall, if possible, cure his disease. There is a vast difference 
between the insane and the pauper. I have yet to learn that 
the law can make a pauper out of any man. It is enough to 
see - it is enough to have a human being suffering from a 
dethronement of reason, without stamping him with the offen- 
sive epithet of pauper. These creatures are not paupers. 
They are the suffering of our fallen humanity, and, sir, I 
would not keep them on one dollar and fifty cents a w.eek in 
Queens county, fori could not do it, if I was not making an 
earning outside in order to give them the comforts they ought 
to have. 29 
Mr. Goodale ably defended the care which the people of 
Oange county give to this class of unfortunates and, while 
advocating county care for their treatment, did not by any 
means wish -to have that care any less generous and humane 
than the gentleman from Queens who had last spoken. 
Mr. Witter, of Ontario : The question is whether county 
asylums are desirable or not. If they are desirable we will 
find a way to build them. That is the first point to be con- 
sidered. The next question is how much would it cost for a 
week to keep them in county asylums and preserve the 
standard of care up to that of the State institution. Orange 
county has made its statement, and we want all the facts from 
Orange that we can get in regard to this matter. Queens has 
also spoken. We have visited Wayne county. We had heard 
very good report from them, but we want full information on 
these points. 
Dr. Warner, of Wayne, after alluding pleasantly to his 
connection with the Onondaga county house, and the close 
criticism received from the State Board of Charities, and the 
State Commissioner of Lunacy, said : The fact is, gentlemen, 
a farmer must be interested in his farm if he is to be successful. 
Precisely so is it with a person who takes charge of an asylum. 
He must be interested in the recovery of the patients, or he 
has no business there. 
Asylums should be built like homes. It should be said they 
were going to homes for treatment, rather than have it appear 
as though they were criminals to be shut up in prisons. There 
are very few patients but have lucid moments, and as fine 
feelings as anybody. I remember a lady saying to me a great 
many times " I would rather be in the penitentiary than here." 
I said "why?" "Because," she replied, "if I was in the 
penitentiary, 1 should know when my time expired. Here I 
do not." Another gentleman said " Here I am, in this asylum. 
I committed no crime. Jefferson Davis who was guilty of 
treason against the United States is at liberty, while I am shut 
up in your asylum." I think there are hundreds in asylums 
to-day who ought not to be there. Quiet, harmless persons, 
who do nobody any harm. They could go with their friends: 
But such is the tendency to push them into asylums that if 
there was a new asylum built to-day, before the year ex- 
pired, it would be filled. There is a disposition to get rid of 
these people. Some are too proud, some are too selfish to have 
them around. There should be some authority to look after 
this. 30 
Dr Hoyt : The question of the care of the chronic insane by 
counties or by the State, has two sides on which good arguments 
may be founded. The necessities of State care arose from a 
condition of things which crept upon us, as it has now upon the 
Western States, with the increase of the population. The 
chronic insane formerly were looked upon as dangerous per- 
sons and subjected to close restraint. The value of their labor 
was unknown, and abuses in their treatment crept in, discredi- 
table to our civilization. The principle of State care grew out 
of this condition of the chronic insane. This neglect had been 
repeatedly portrayed ; and lead to the establishment of the 
principle that the chronic insane should receive the same su- 
pervision, oversight and care as the acute; that they should 
have the advantages of medical supervision, proper diet and 
amusement, exercise, wholesome restraint given to the acute. 
This asylum not being able to meet the entire demand of the 
State we have had some cared for in county asylums. 
The principle of the Willard institution is kept up in these 
asylums. It is not necessary in order to make the care of this 
class proper and adequate that all should be placed in Will- 
ard ; that they should be forcibly removed from the counties 
when the county proposes to make preparation. The question 
is how to care for them in the best and cheapest manner 
whether in county or State institutions. I propose to give 
you both sides of the question as it impresses itself upon 
me. The argument in favor of the county asylum is this: 
The insane of the county are supported by taxation. In the 
event of erecting a county asylum, the expenses are made 
within the county. That is the money argument. The people 
who are taxed to support them, receive the benefit of the pur- 
chases within the county. Again, the insane are in the imme- 
diate vicinity of their friends. I do not lay so much stress 
upon that as some gentlemen. Very few of the friends of the 
insane manifest great interest in them ; they give them up 
very readily. But a portion of the chronic insane have periods 
of quietness. During these periods they might temporally be 
put back among their families. The families might provide 
for them during those periods. The law should force the 
maintenance of such upon their friends, for it is a tie very 
easily snapped. Again the insane are good laborers. You 
have learned that very recently. Instead of regarding them 
as dangerous persons to be confined and shut up, you have 
been educated to the point of understanding that they are good 
laborers, and that labor is one of the best agencies for managing 31 
them You utilize labor under intelligent guidance better in a 
small than large asylum. Those are the strong points in favor 
of a county asylum. I know of no others. 
I believe a certain portion of the insane would be well cared 
for in the counties, while the disturbed cases could be as cheaply, 
and cheaper, kept under the same standard of care in larger 
numbers in the State institutions then they can in the counties. 
Dr. Rogers : You put stress upon numbers. 
Dr. Hoyt : Yes, sir; The question of dollars and cents 
must enter into the care of this class. It is simply a question 
of practical charity as well as public economy. In Willard the 
most difficult cases have been received since its organization* 
I believe they have been cared for cheaper tban they could be 
in a county asylum, notwithstanding you get the benefit of 
their labor in the county. Buildings can be erected for larger 
numbers cheaper than for smaller ; the administration build- 
ings are the most expensive. The first expense in Willard 
was for the administration building. The additonal buildings 
were purely custodial and were constructed very cheaply. By 
this means a cheaper per capita of shelter is afforded than by 
constructing buildings for smaller numbers, each with its inde- 
pendent administration building. Willard has made additional 
shelter at the rate of $200, per capita, that is a very much cheaper 
per capita, shelter than you can attain by erecting county asylums 
capable of accommodating from two hundred to two hundred 
and fifty. Another advantage of a State asylum is that the 
supplies, the medical supervision and oversight can be obtained 
for larger numbers, cheaper than in the case of smaller num- 
bers. Take a county asylum like Erie, giving shelter to 400 
patients. They require a resident medical officer, visiting 
medical officer, warden, a central administration which would 
be sufficient for 500 or 600. I do not attach much force to the 
medical idea, that the doctor will have to do a good deal. But 
there is a liablity to accident, and these people should be placed 
in the hands of a responsible person. You are liable to homi- 
cidal and suicidal cases, and a superintendent is not safe unless 
he is either a physician himself or has one residing in the place. 
There is never,*however, enough for one medical man to do. 
Dr. Rogers: Would you feel justified in entrusting 500 
cases of the chronic insane to the care of one man. 
Dr. Hoyt : No, sir, I would not. 
Dr. Rogers : That does away with the argument 32 
Dr. Hoyt : No, sir : the head medical man costs more than 
the subordinates. You pay your chief officers $2,000 a year, 
and you will get assistants for $500. 
Another difficulty coming into the management of the insane 
is the cost of maintenance. It is a mistake to present the 
public with the idea that there is a great saving in county 
asylums. If counties choose to keep their own insane, they 
should just as well understand what the cost will be. It is ex- 
pensive. You cannot take the average of the people of the 
county and feed them from your table, off the products of your 
farm, for less than $2.50 per week. Then you have two classes. 
The strong require large amounts of foodthe delicate and 
infirm need expensive kinds of diet. I know what it costs to 
buy food, and I don't believe it can be done. Lay this item of 
expense right before your tax-payers when you speak about 
building a county asy'um ; but do not build with a promise to 
the public that you can take care of these people for $1.50 per 
week. If you do, the public will be disappointed and you will 
be subject to mortification. 
Mb. Witter, of Ontario : Your point is-many things are 
good in theory, that do not hold in practice. 
Dr. Hoyt : Can it hold good in practice that you can pro- 
perly feed and care for these people for anything less than 
$2.50 per week ? 
By a Superintendent : In the case of counties having their 
asylums already built, one-third of the inmates being producers, 
why can't they live as cheap at home as in a State institution, 
where they buy all the supplies and have them transferred ? 
Dr. Hoyt : I did not take that position. I took the position 
that probably with such advantages you would not lose any- 
thing; but 1 don't think you could make money out of it. 
You will find most of the county asylums who maintain their 
insane at home, have patients in the State asylum at State 
expense. Onondaga has some at the State asylum at the expense 
of the State, which if at the Onondaga county asylum would 
increase the per capita cost there. It is the management of these 
cases that will cost money. That is what adds to the expenses 
of the Willard Asylum. You do not get the exact expenses of 
keeping the insane in your county asylums. The expenses of 
the insane and pauper department are mixed and no fair esti- 
mate of the actual cost in keeping the insane is made. I do 
not know but one asylum in this State where the expenses of 
keeping the insane are acurately recorded. That is detached, 33 
and every thing is separate. I visited that asylum. It is as 
good as the Willard Asylum, but no better. 
Dr. Rogers says he charges the county one dollar and a half 
per week per capita, yet the actual expenses is three dollars and 
a half, the difference being made up by boarders who pay a 
large rate. Now another argument for the county to con- 
sider in building an asylum. A county asylum has no security 
for a permanent policy of care. It makes no matter hnw good 
your intentions are. You do not know who will succeed you; 
you erect a county asylum ; you say you will put it on the 
plane of the State asylum ; yon take your disturbed cases and 
by an intelligent supervision and a good generous diet, they 
become quite well behaved. But your Board of Supervisors 
assemble in their annual meeting and then comes up the 
question of expense. Your bills become too large. They see 
strong men around and the question comes up can't you dis- 
charge those men. Then comes in retrenchment, and when this 
takes place and the oversight is lessened the attendants become 
discouraged, and you have discord and anarchy. You are de- 
pendent upon organization for the funds to carry out true human- 
itarian methods of care for these people. Then if your asylum is 
in connection with the county house, its efficient character will 
depend altogether upon 'who has charge of the poor. If a 
large hearted man, who furnishes things generously, no doubt 
they would be well cared for; but there has got to be pinching 
criticism to meet the views of the tax payers. There is a change 
of officers. The generous, benevolent, public spirited man, 
who has had charge of tl^ asylum this year, with his expenses 
at two twenty-five a week per capita, is superseded by an 
entirely different man, who has an economic idea only ; he may, 
perhaps, be ambitious to make a reputation for economic 
management in order to go to the Legislature or to Congress, 
and he will put the exepnses of the county down, by pinching, 
to about one dollar seventy-five cents per week for the first 
year, and to one dollar and fifty cents for the next. 
He may succeed in his aspirations but the benevolent, gene- 
rous impulses of the county will be destroyed. Now in the 
management of the State you have a continual policy; you 
have a Board of Trustees holding office through life, medical 
attendants holding office through life, scarcely ever changed. 
If we could organize a county system which should place the 
county asylums under a similar organization that would be 
3 34 
perpetual, and if the office of Superintendent of the Poor was 
different, why the county asylum might expect to prosper. 
Dr. Rogers: Is it not fair to assume that the next Superin- 
tendent of the Poor will be as intelligent as the former? 
Dr. Hoyt: Yes, sir. But from the organization of our 
government you are liable to change, and the very best man 
for the office may be crowded out by a man who has no quali- 
cations for it, whatever. The danger lies in these frequent 
interruptions of policy. 
Mr. Goodale, of Orange: The great trouble with these State 
institutions, heretofore, has been the cost. The per capita 
figure talked about does not cover it all. There are extras 
which have always been more or less unsatisfactory. For 
instance when you come to be charged ten cents for a bowl 
that you could purchase for three, you are not likely to pay 
it graciously, and yet is it not in just such charges as these 
that the real cost comes in? 
Dr. Hoyt : At the Willard asylum very disturbed cases are 
received. They are liable to break things, and the breakages 
have been charged upon the counties to which they belong. 
That plan was continued for some time. But for the last three 
years no bill for breakage has been presented. Nothing but 
clothing is charged for. Things are so well managed now, 
that the breakage is small compared with what it was formerly. 
But even if it was still charged, the cost would be no more than 
it would be under your own care. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens: I deeply regret that Dr. Hoyt 
touched upon the last point, and if I ^id not respond briefly, it 
would place me in a bad position. I advocated county asylums 
upon the basis of legislation adopted for the elevation of such 
institutions. There is much in the sentiment I presented 
which I have not thought proper to present. This is my posi- 
tion : To have a law' passed enabling the State Board of Chari- 
ties to supervise and direct county asylums with improved 
accommodations just as advanced as in the State asylums. It 
is a reform in the laws governing these county asylums that is 
needed. 
Hon. Wm. P. Letchworth : For a number of years I have 
been visiting asylums for the insane, far and near, at home and 
abroad, generally accom panied by a stenographer, with a view to 
forming some correct opinions regarding the care and treatment 
of the insane. I have endeavored to obtain the opinions of practi- 
cal men of long experience, rather than those who simply theo- 35 
rize; men who work while others write. My attention has been 
mainly directed to the pauper insane. I have collected a good 
deal of materia], from which I am trying to reach conclusions. 
When I do, I hope to have the honor of presenting them to some 
future State Convention of Superintendents. The discussion 
of this subject here seems to be drifting in the right direction, 
that is, as to what is most reasonable, proper and humane. I 
think Superintendents of the Poor should stand before the 
people in the attitude of protecting the unfortunate insane and 
educating public sentiment to a full appreciation of their needs. 
I think you are justified in taking this position. There was a 
time when we kept our dependent children in the poor-houses. 
There was a difference of opinion then as to whether this was 
best. It is gratifying for me now to recall the fact that when 
I appeared before the State Convention of Superintendents of 
the Poor, held at Rochester in 1874, and presentee] the claims 
of this unfortunate class of children, I found a majority of the 
members opposed to the system and in favor of removing 
pauper children from the degrading influences of the poor- 
houses. This was in advance of public opinion, but it has now 
become the policy of our State and embodied in our statutes. 
I hope that Superintendents will advocate advanced views in 
regard to the care of the pauper insane, as they did in the case 
of pauper children. It is evident that public sentiment demands 
better provisions for the insane than it did at the organization 
of the State Convention of the Superintendents of the Poor and 
the establishment of the State Board of Charities. There has 
been for many years a steady advance in this direction. This 
is illustrated in the treatment of the acute insane. Formerly, 
it was not thought improper to retain them in the poor-houses; 
now, that is seen to be false economy. It is admitted on all 
sides to be best, that they should be brought promptly under 
State care. Counties pursuing this course show the. greatest 
percentage of cures, and consequently a greater saving. 
This method is accepted now, but there was a time when it 
could not be enforced. There are other principles which we 
should now accept. One of these is, that violent and disturbed 
cases should be brought under special care by the State. In 
a county which keeps its insane, one such patient will destroy 
the comfort of every other and break down an otherwise good 
system. Another principle is that the chronic insane should be 
grouped, in sufficiently large numbers to be brought under the 
care of a resident physician. In some parts of England and 
Scotland, the care of the insane is brought about by a union of 36 
counties, in an institution independent, separate from the 
alms-houses and elsewhere located. The managing officials are 
appointed for long terms and the physicians generally keep 
their positions for a long period. In the care of this class, 
they should have plain, commodious buildings, the best sani- 
tary conditions, medical care, watchful supervision, proper 
classification, employment and entertainment and the lowest 
point of reasonable economy should be attained. 
In both the English and Scotch asylum, its industries are a 
prominent feature; I always found a shoe shop, tailor shop, 
carpenter shop, upholstery room, etc. In each of these de- 
partments competent mechanics were employed, who super- 
vised while working with the men, and great benefits were 
derived from the labor of the inmates. Sometimes the patients 
acquire a trade. I recollect one asylum where thirty-two 
tailors were employed, about half of whom had learned their 
trade within the institution. In one of the asylums in a 
weaving district, there were in the weaving shop about 
forty or more looms. About half of the weavers had learned 
their trade since becoming inmates. I found that by sys- 
tematizing these industries, great economy was reached. A 
large number were invariably employed out of doors, when 
the weather permitted, in farming, gardening and the care of 
the grounds about the institution which are kept with great 
neatness. 
In regard to local care of the chronic insane, Mr. L. said, it 
might reasonably be questioned whether in some counties public 
sentiment was sufficiently enlightened to meet their true needs. 
He alluded to Steuben county as one of these and referred to the 
defective plan and arrangement of its county buildings as 
criticised by the State Board of Charities in 1868, to the several 
fires which had occurred there, in the last of which fifteen 
paupers and insane patients were burned to death; also to 
the lack of hospital accommodations, and to the low salary of 
the county physician, who, in the year 1878, was required to 
visit the sick once a week and furnish his own medicines for 
the sum of forty-five dollars and fifty cents per annum. He 
concluded, when his attention was last directed to the affairs 
of this county, that a false economy was practiced in the in- 
sufficient provision for the sick, and that the separation of the 
sexes was not complete. He did not refer to the officials of 
Steuben county, by way of criticism, for he thought they were 
intelligent and earnest, but simply to a county system to better 
exemplify his idea. 37 
Mr. Holland, of Steuben: Mr. Letchworth has brought out 
a few points that I did not know he would touch upon. In 
some particulars I think he has misconstrued the meaning of 
my remarks, in regard to economy of administration. We 
do not, in our county, wish, by erecting an asylum, to be 
saving to the extent of interfering with the better care of the 
insane. Our desire is to give them, if anything, better care 
than they receive at present under State care. We feel that 
this can be done. We all understand that there is a large 
number of them kept together in one ward. The physician 
does not visit the ward perhaps, the head physician, once in 
three months. I will venture to say, in some asylums of this 
State, the head physician does not see the patients once in 
three months. I know an instance of a man in one for six 
months, who said he had not seen the doctor but twice since 
he had been there, and then not to be examined by him. That 
man was hardly what you would call insane. He was adjudged 
so by the physician, the judge signed the order, and I had 
to take him. We succeeded in getting an order from the 
judge for his release two or three weeks ago. I sent the order 
on ; they would not release him. They are very reluctant 
about releasing patients. I found even that nobody could 
discover the insanity but themselves. That man is able to 
do a good day's work ; he did a day's work before he was taken 
away from the asylum. We can take good care of our insane. 
Mr. Letchworth thinks we can't. As I understand his remarks, 
we propose to get the patients at home so that we can screw 
them down close and thereby save for the tax-payers. That is 
not the desire. No man in this Convention has more sym- 
pathy for insane people than I have. I do not believe they have 
the care they ought to have at these asylums where there are so 
many of them packed together. I do not wish to criticise their 
management, for I believe they do the best they can. I believe 
where we have an asylum at home and but a few there, we 
can give them better and closer attention. They will receive 
better attention at less expense. 
I believe in keeping the disturbed cases in State asylums. 
But there are a certain class of insane, who are not very in- 
sane, who are ableto work,who can be worked toadvantage on 
the farm in our own county. They can be made self-support- 
ing. I. am very sorry the gentleman understood my re- 
marks to mean that we proposed to create a saving by 
not giving them proper care. We were criticised very se- 
verely by the State Board of Charities two or three years ago 38 
We were not to blame for the fire or the burning up of these 
patients. The keeper and Superintendent of the Poor felt as 
bad about it as any one. I do not know that it was ever 
discovered so that you could place the blame on any particular 
individual. The blame was perhaps neglect on the part of 
the Board of Supervisors, more than anything else, for not 
looking after those buildings and tearing them down, and 
building other wards. Now we have buildings that we con- 
sider will compare favorably with any in the State, excepting 
the State institutions. We have our females and males 
separated and every thing in good condition. There is no 
way that I know of that we can keep them separate any more 
than having them in separate buildings. We might build a 
fence 12 feet high and keep them apart; further than that I do 
not see what wTe can do. The females have one building and 
the men another, built six or eight rods from the female de- 
partment. How we can keep them apart any better than that, I 
don't know. We are having no very serious results at present. 
I trust we have started in the right direction. I will admit 
things were not as agreeable to the views of the State Board of 
Charities as they would like to have had them. I think they had 
reason for the criticism they made and for all they made, but 
now I think the case is different and we are entitled to some 
credit for what we have done in the way of improvement. 
Association of Insane with Paupers. 
" Massing of indigents and insane : Its policy, and how for 
consistent with the welfare of the public and the inmates." 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens: The first question that presents 
itself to my mind is what is the meaning of word indigent as 
there used. If it means alm-house, there is a great question 
before us. It brings up the mingling of the insane with the 
alm-house poor. I believe, Mr. Chairman, that this Empire 
State of New York should never allow an insane asylum to be 
in connection with the poor-house. The State Board of Chari- 
ties should never sanction the connection of any asylum in 
the county with its alms-house. The requirements of the insane 
are very different in all their relationships from those of the 
paupers. The insane person is not a pauner. Be it far from 
me, whose sympathies go out day and night for this bereaved 
class of my fellowmen, who live and yet are dead, to recognize 
that such a one is a pauper. The insane should receive the 
greatest amount of sympathy. Gentlemen, as you and I appear 
to-day in this Convention, in the enjoyment of health and man- 39 
hood, who can say that at the next annual gathering you or I 
may not be an inmate of one of these hospitals for the insane. 
None of us has a guaranty against such a terrible calamity. 
In what we do here, God help us to exemplify the teaching " do 
unto others as we would wish to be done by." To care for 
the insane is the pinnacle of nobleness in the human heart. 
Sir, it has no connection with alms-house charity, of which 
we have many thousand cases that by their own acts have been 
reduced to the position of asking for public charity. There- 
fore as the treatment, as well as the cure, are so entirely differ- 
ent the connection of the two institutions has no business to 
exist. It is not a question of county economy; it is not a 
question of saving dollars and cents ; but it is a question that 
takes hold of all that is noble in man and asks him to deal, 
justly with his brother. 
Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe: Some disconnected remarks 
that I made yesterday in regard to the insane, I think perhaps 
may need some qualification. Whatl said was said hurriedly. 
I think I stated that I believed that the insane could be kept 
in counties, where they had a sufficient number of them, pro- 
fitably. I did not mean that the insane should be kept in 
counties upon an economic view. If kept in counties, they 
should receive just as good care, and have as skillful oversight as 
they would in a State institution. IMo not believe in keeping 
them in counties to be shut up in pens and cared for in the 
cheapest way possible. But I ask why a county, having a hun- 
dred or a hundred and fifty insane, cannot make the same 
provision for their care and comfort as a State institution ? 
One reason why I think they would be kept more satisfactorily 
in the county asylum then in the State institution is, that they 
would be near their friends, who could see what kind of care 
they received and know all the time how they were being treated. 
If sent off a long distance to a State institution, their friends 
may write and make inquiries in regard to them and at long 
intervals may visit them; but the distance being so great these 
visits will soon fail and their friends be very apt to neglect and 
forget them entirely. Most of the insane, I think, have lucid 
intervals ; they are at times in the condition when they realize 
where they are and what they are. It seems to me it 
must be deplorable to awaken to a realization that they are 
far away from home; entirely among strangers-neglected 
by their friends; not seeing them from one years' end to an 
other; and that they must be kept in that condition during 
the remainder of their lives. It must be terrible for them to 40 
awaken to a realization of their condition, as many of them do. 
If kept at home in their own counties, that would not be the 
case. They would see their friends ; and would have some 
hope. If a county had a hundred insane people and wished to 
build an asylum, I think it should be built cheaply, but built 
for the use of those who were to be cared for. It should have 
ample grounds surrounding. I don't believe in an asylum with 
a small yard where patients are turned into like cattle. There 
should be a large extent of view; grounds filled with shade 
trees and set out with flowers; everything made attractive in 
order to divert attention from themselves. They should be 
classified, and everything done for them in the county institu- 
tion that is now done in the State institutions. Assuming these 
conditions, I think in the larger counties the insane could be 
kept to better advantage and get more attention from the 
superintendent than where they are massed in large numbers. 
Taking everything into consideration, the county asylum might 
be made as good in its equipments and would be prefera- 
ble to sending them off to State institutions. I think the 
practice has been in county institutions-and that is what has 
created the antipathy to them-they have undertaken to be too 
penurious in their manner of operation. If the people could 
be educated to the idea, that they should take good care of 
their insane at borne, I think this prejudice would be done away 
with. I think they should not be allowed to keep them unless 
they give them good care. In that case the money of the tax- 
payers is expended in their own midst, they can see where it 
goes, what they pay for, and how the patients are treated. 
Under those circumstances the insane can be kept at home 
more economically and just as comfortably as away. 
Mr. Witter, of Ontario: I believe it is conceded by all who 
have to do with the care of the insane that the violent cases 
should be separated from their friends. It is not advisable to 
have them near, where they could be visited frequently. But 
in the case of the milder kind, I think it would be advisable 
to bring them home. We have a case in point, an insane man; 
he was very wild at first but he got more subdued and his 
friends wished me to remove him from there. I brought him 
to Canandaigua, his sister asked to be allowed to keep him 
over night. He remained with her two or three days. She 
requested to be allowed to keep him longer. Well he is there 
to-day. He has earned some five or six hundred dollars work- 
ing for his brother-in-law. He is not entirely right, they 
understand it, but he remains there with them. The first thing 41 
to be considered is the welfare of the insane. The next thing 
is, Can we keep them any cheaper ? 
Mr. Bristol, of Wyoming: In the case of the acute insane, 
we all agree that they should be sent to a proper place 
for treatment, to a State asylum, Utica or Buffalo. I don't 
know of any superintendents in this part of the State who are 
disposed to try the experiment of keeping their own acute 
insane. I have been very much instructed by the speakers 
who have preceded me, but, after all, the real question is what 
is best for these unfortunates. Not whether it costs three or four 
shillings a week more at Willard or a little less at home. My 
sympathies go out for friends and neighbors in my own county 
who are thus afflicted. I think we had better keep our milder 
cases at home. The State Board of Charities know what we 
have done ten years ago in the way of buildings. We have not 
the one hundred or more, that Mr. McGonegal speaks of; we 
have twenty-five and I believe we are doing pretty well by 
them. We have had one or two cases committed to us who had 
tried various asylums. We did not expect to have them cured, 
but nature has restored them. One, a young man who had been 
to Utica is now at home with his family, lie was sent back 
from that State institution and pronounced incurable. There is 
something to be said abotit medical advantages. We cannot 
have quite the same in the country that they have in Utica; 
but in fact, .Mr. President, you do not need so much medicine. 
We have a physician who attends our patients three days in 
the week. He lives within a quarter to a half a mile from the 
asylum and is subject to our call at any time when anything 
unusual happens. Some ten years ago a gentleman who now 
lives in Livingston county, came to us and said " I have a 
brother who is insane. Tie has become chronic insane and 
mother wants him somewhere near where we can hear from 
him, will you take him? " I thought we would. He has been 
there ten years. He has improved, not very much mentally. 
He is quite harmless. He goes to1 work with the keeper. He 
is just as much a man as he ever can be. I believe that that 
individual and his mother, who lives at Portage, and his 
brother are well satisfied with the situation. These are some 
of the cases we have in our county asylums. We have two 
hundred and seventy acres of land. We are acting upon our 
best knowledge and we are always ready to accept kindly 
every suggestion in the way of improvement. 
Adjourned to 9 o'clock to-morrow morning. 42 
Convention re-assembled at 9 a.m. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens, moved that a committee of three 
be appointed to draft rules for the government of this body. 
Committee to report at the next annual convention. 
Motion adopted. 
The Chair appointed as such committee, Dennis Sullivan, of 
Queens, C. W. Fuller, of Erie, and Darius Schofield of Chau- 
tauqua. 
The Convention then took a recess, and proceeded in a body to 
inspect the Erie County Jail. 
Proceeding along the underground passage, or tunnel, the 
Convention entered that county building, were courteously 
received by the sheriff and jailor and escorted through its 
various departments, all of which were found to be scrupulously 
clean, well ventilated and embodying in their construction the 
most modern ideas for buildings of that character. 
After completing the inspection, the Convention returned 
to the Supervisors' Room and resumed the regular order of 
business. 
Dr. Rogers offered the following, which were adopted: 
Resolved, That the printing of the proceedings be left in 
charge of the Stenographer and the Treasurer of the Convention 
Resolved, That the Treasurer notify the counties not repre- 
sented of the amount of the assessment for the present year, and 
that they be requested to remit it to the Treasurer. 
Reports erom Counties. 
t 
On motion of Dr. Rogers, 
Resolved, That the roll of the counties be called by the Secre- 
tary and that each county representative be allowed ten minutes 
to make a report upon points deemed of most importance to his 
county's interests. 
Adopted. 
Mr. Niver, of Columbia: We have an alms-house with 
an asylum attached; our farm contains about two hundred and 
twenty acres. As the subject of the care of the chronic insane 
was discussed yesterday, I will give our own experience in 
the matter. We have tried to ascertain whether it was policy 
for counties to attempt to keep their own insane. As far as 
Columbia county is concerned, we have in all about sixty-four 
SECOND DAY. 43 
insane; thirty-four of these are in the alms-house, about an 
equal number are at Willard, and five or six are at Poughkeepsie. 
We have no further capacity in the asylum for the insane 
which was built three years ago. I think most of the counties 
have inmates at the Willard Asylum who could profitably be 
removed to the alms-house. I would suggest that the law 
be modified so as to give to the Superintendent of the Poor 
power to remove such inmates from the Willard Asylum as 
were able to work to the extent of being wholly or in part self- 
sustaining. I should advise that the superintendent of each 
county urge upon his representatives in the Legislature to bring 
about such an amendment of the law. 
In regard to out-door relief, which has also been alluded to 
yesterday, we have no county system of that kind. The super- 
intendent does not give any outside relief. Each town takes 
care of its own town poor. 
Mr. Witter, of Ontario: You have no county poor in the 
towns ? 
Mr. Niver : No, sir. There is a certain amount raised at 
the town meetings to provide for the poor of each. The county 
only supports those who are removed to the alms-house. The 
poor master of the town has power to furnish ten dollars 
relief. After that is consumed the town board has power to 
make further contributions. There is a town fund for temporary 
relief in each town, voted for at the annual meeting. After 
paupers are removed to the alms-house they become a county 
charge. We are working under the limited county act. 
Mr. Yates, of Orleans: We have in our county about seventy 
inmates, eight or nine of those are chronic insane. They are 
quiet and orderly arid require no more care or watching than 
the other members of the institution. Those of our chronic 
insane that are disorderly or require watching we keep at the 
Willard Asylum. Our accute cases are cared for in the Buffalo 
Asylum at Black Rock. We have quite a number in Utica, 
put in there previous to the completion of the new asylum at 
Buffalo. As regards temporary relief since the first of last 
January, each town in our county supports its own poor. The 
temporary relief afforded in the several towns is given to those 
who have gained a settlement in those towns. But in the case 
of an indigent person who has not gained a settlement in any of 
the towns, when it becomes necessary to afford him relief, the 
Overseer of the Poor renders it and charges it to county. 
When a town sends a pauper who has gained a settlement there 44 
to the alms-house his expensesis charged to that town; but 
all paupers in the county house who have not gained a settle- 
ment in any town are termed county paupers and there expenses 
are borne by the county. That is the new plan. Previous to 
the first of January last our county paid all the expenses. It 
was thought by the Board of Supervisors that the Overseers of 
the Poor in some localities administered more relief than was 
necessary and they proposed this change. We have not been 
able to decide as yet which is the most economic mode. It was 
a source of much litigation between the towns as to where the 
settlement of the individual pauper was. It was quite a source 
of annoyance and trouble; but after they got the first batch of 
them settled, and after the law became better known, there was 
less litigation. 
Mr. Hall, of Schuyler: Our system is perhaps a little unlike 
that of most of the counties of the State. We have no county 
house. Our poor are all outside, scattered over the county. I 
strive to find boarding places for them wherever they may 
happen to be. Children are boarded for a dollar a week or a 
dollar and ten cents. Our county is comparatively young, not 
over twenty-seven years old. The project of building a county 
house was before our people three times and each time it was 
voted down, on the ground that they were expensive luxuries. 
I think we keep our poor as cheap as we could with a county 
house. I am called to every part of the county; have to go 
in all kinds of weather. It is sometimes quite inconvenient, 
but I generally obey all reasonable calls. I would favor having 
a snug little county house, say a farm of fifty or seventy-five 
acres and utilize, as far as possible, pauper labor. I don't con- 
sider pauper labor, as a rule, of much account, but it is better 
to teach the lesson that men must work for their own support, 
as far as possible, than to encourage voluntary pauperism by 
granting relief without some labor being exacted. We have 
twenty-three insane at the Willard. 
Mr. Brundage, of Steuben: Our county has thirty-two towns. 
Our county house contains 125 acres of tillable land. It has 
now 100 inmates. We kept our paupers for about ninety 
cents a day last year, including all expenses. Our out-door 
relief cost us between twelve and fourteen thousand dollars. 
We have a distinction between town and county poor. The 
Overseer of the Poor is allowed to grant relief to any one case 
to the extent of ten dollars, after that is expended he has to 
make application to the Superintendent of the Poor for further 
help. 45 
In 1878 one of our buildings burned down, and in the con- 
flagration eighteen paupers unfortunately perished. The Super- 
visors made an appropriation of $3,000 for the erection of a 
new building and appointed a committee to take the matter in 
charge. You are all aware that $3,000 wTould not go far towards 
building much of a poor-house; but we had an old building. 
We erected a building for the keeper ; put up a brick building 
for the accomodation of 25 or 30 persons. The year before 
last our Supervisors again looked the buildings over and voted 
an additional four thousand dollars for them. Now we have 
very good conveniences for all practical purposes. We think 
our buildings and standard of care for our poor will compare 
favorably with county houses throughout the State. 
Mr. Smith, of Tompkins : We have 100 acres of tillable land, 
worked by the paupers of the county house. We hire a 
keeper to run the farm and county house. What expenses 
are necessary over and above the pauper labor, are allowed. 
We keep our insane at Willard. Our children are kept some at 
Binghamton and some at Canandaigua. We have some diffi- 
culty in the administration of out-door relief through the hands 
of Overseers of the Poor. There are families receiving help 
where, for instance, the mother, though able to support herself, 
is unable to leave her children to go and seek work, and she is 
supported by the town. The children are sent to receive this 
aid by means of orders from the Overseer of the Poor. It 
seems to me this is wrong in principle and pauperizing in its 
effect on the children. It w7ould, in my opinion, be better to 
send these children to orphan homes and thus free the mother 
from the care that stands in the way of her earning her own 
support. There is a question in our county whether the Over- 
seers of the Poor have the right to exceed the sum of ten dollars 
relief, without the sanction of the Superintendent of the Poor. 
Mr. Pasko, of Warren: We have a farm of 190 acres on the 
bank of the Schroon river about six miles from Lake George, 
about 40 acres is under cultivation. At present we have 65 
inmates. In winter they increase to lOO.or 110. We have some 
five or six insane in the county house. Some of them are 
good workers. We have two patients at Poughkeepsie, one at 
Middletown and one at Ovid. We furnish our poor with plain 
food, some tobacco, but liquor is strictly prohibited. 
Mr. Mead, of Wayne: I came here to gain information, 
expecting that if anything was to be stated from Wayne my 
distinguished friend, Dr. Warner, would be the spokesman. 46 
Our county is working under the genera] poor laws of the 
State of New York. We have a farm of 195 acres and a 
county asylum where we have 43 patients. The whole num- 
ber in the county house and asylum is 109. As regards our 
county asylum, I can only say that our Board of Supervisors 
are so interested in its workings that they have determined to 
enlarge it to twice its capacity. We have 13 patients at 
Willard. We have received orders from Willard that there is 
no more room there, and it has become with us, not so much 
a question as to the merits of the respective insane asylums, as 
what to do with our insane. We purpose when the asylum is 
completed, if we get the sanction of the State 'Board of Chari- 
ties, to remove a portion of our patients from Willard. My 
opinion is that the plan most feasible for caring for our insane 
would be one that would permit us caring at home for such 
cases as we could manage, and sending the violent cases under 
State care. 
Dr. Warner of 'Wayne: The institution at Newark is 
designed to care for weak-minded females who prior to its 
establishment were found scattered around the different poor- 
houses of the State, in perilous circumstances, unprotected and 
in danger of reproducing their kind to burden still more the 
onerous responsibilities of the tax-payers. The first lady com- 
missioner of the State Board of Charities went before a legis- 
lative committee, and succeeded in getting an appropriation to 
create a costodial branch of the New 'York State Asylum for 
Idiots. 
The work is comparatively new, and its wisdom must be left 
for future demonstration. I have been there three years. I 
was selected to take charge of it. I feel proud of its workings 
so far. Industry is a prominent feature. Girls who came 
there never having had a needle in their hands, to-day will 
make a dress entire. Their work is very creditable. I regret 
I have not a specimen to exhibit. 
Mr. Bristol of Wyoming: I thought once I had some idea, 
some knowledge of the proper way to deal with the poor; 
but on looking back, I find I had not much. Although I 
have heard a great deal and tried somewhat to inform my- 
self of it, the problem is not exactly solved of what to do 
with all these cases. We have a farm 270 acres. We think we 
are pretty good farmers; we keep 25 cows, keep horses, raise 
our potatoes, our wheat, corn. We have not got what we 
ought to have in the way of buildings. We ought, in my opin- 47 
ion, to tear every thing down and build up a new; but we are 
too poor to do that. 
We think now we are pretty comfortable. We have main- 
tained our chronic insane for the last ten years. We have about 
22. We have a physician employed by the year to visit the 
institution three times a week and when necessary we send for 
him. 
One word in reference to our children. We have been very suc- 
cessful in getting places for them. Sometime ago we heard of an 
institution away up in Cattaraugus, at Randolph. We sent some 
of our children there to Mr. Strong to secure good homes for 
them. They had their institution burnt down. He has pro- 
vided homes for a good number of children. We have been 
successful. I don't know, but so far as we are concerned it 
is better to have the institution burnt down, for we are now 
getting our poor children into families. That is our situation 
with reference to the children. I like it better than the former 
plan, I feel it is a good thing. 
Mr. Wood, of Chautauqua : We have 300 acres of land, mostly 
improved, our institution dates from Jan., 1833, our poor are 
all county poor. We have three Superintendents of the Poor 
and one Superintendent of the Poor-house Institution. We 
have 86 insane kept by themselves in two separate buildings from 
the poor-house. We have in the poor-house proper 101 inmates. 
We have 14 paying patients in the asylum. Our insane depart- 
ment is as separate from the poor-house as though it was a mile 
away. But we do not make any separation in the expense at the 
two houses, neither do they fare alike. The poor-house proper 
has nothing to do with the insane department, only the bread is 
all baked at the poor-house. The insane department does its 
own cooking and is not dictated to by the poor-house in any 
manner. The garden is exclusively worked by the insane and su- 
perintended by the keeper of that department. We make all 
our own butter, raise our vegetables, corn and potatoes. We 
buy all of our flour and groceries and keep our inmates in 
both institutions at about one dollar per week with what we 
can raise on the farm. We value our institution at $100,000. 
Recess to 1:30 p. m. 48 
AFTERNOON SESSION. 
The Convention reassembled at 2 p. m., and on motion the 
remaining topics presented by the committee were taken up 
for discussion. 
Out-door Relief. 
" To what extent is it necessary, in the interests of humanity 
and economy, for the State, the county, the city, or the town, 
to provide remunerative labor to the able-bodied, indigent 
classes at times when they apply for temporary relief? And 
how should it be done ?" 
Mr. Loomis, of Onondaga: It seems to me this is a most im- 
portant subject. It is not confined to the mere work of an 
economic administration of this public duty for the city or 
town ; it also embraces the providing of labor at times when 
applications are made for temporary relief. This is where the 
greatest chance for reform is to be sought. The experience 
all over the State is pretty much the same. Pauperism gene- 
rally originates - when it is not owing to a misfortune or an 
accident - from the lack of employment. The proper way to 
treat it, in my judgment, is not to give relief absolutely but to 
furnish employment, and bestow the relief as compensation for 
the work done. But care should be taken in providing 
this work to fix a rate of compensation so as not to encourage 
men to neglect seeking for outside work and depending solely 
upon it. The work done should not be paid for at its full value, 
and thus a constant stimulus would exist to impel men to 
remain at it only just so long as it was impossible for them 
to get anything better. One-half or about two-thirds at most of 
the value of the labor would be all I would advise paying them 
for it. In 1876, in Syracuse, it was thought best to adopt this 
idea of furnishing work to those who applied for temporary 
relief. Stones were purchased and broken around different 
parts of the city. , A man was employed to look after the work. 
Applicants to the Overseer of the Poor for assistance, if able 
to work or if they had boys able to work, were referred to 
this overseer of the stone breaking, and tasks assigned them. 
The work was not remunerative to those employed; for we 
would not encourage them to neglect seeking other work. 
Something like two thousand cords of stone has been broken 
in Syracuse during the past winter. During the five years this 
system has been in operation, a marked improvement has taken 
place, and now we find that the cost of the stone and the 
money paid for breaking it, together with the amount paid out 49 
by Overseers of the Poor as temporary relief to those who are 
not able to work - the sum total - does not reach one-half of 
what the out-door relief did in 1875. It is fair to suppose, 
therefore, that this system has been very beneficial in its effects. 
The principle is right. It proposes, 
First, To discourage pauperism voluntary assumed by making 
work a condition of obtaining relief. 
Second, It provides a means for preventing families from 
suffering. 
The father is not encouraged to neglect seeking ordinary 
work, and his family is likewise enabled to feel that he is earning 
what is given for their relief. 
Mr. Witter, 0/ Ontario: What do you do with your de- 
pendent children ? 
Mr. Loomis : They are kept in the orphan asylum. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens: This labor referred to in the topic 
should be provided. Our Vice-President has stated that at 
Syracuse they were employed at breaking stone, that is one 
method. How it is to be done must be determined by the 
person's ability. Some discretion must be left to the super- 
intendent. I don't think this Convention is able to lay down 
the line. It may be by cutting wood or by doing something 
else. The real point is, it should be done. 
Mr. Sullivan, from Queens: I am a new member from the 
town of Flushing, Queens county. Each town takes care of its 
own poor. I was elected town Overseer of the Poor three years 
ago last April, and I wish to speak of my experience as a in- 
cumbent of that office. I claim that the Overseers of the Poor 
and the County Superintendents make more paupers than any 
other men by the indiscriminate giving of relief. It was the cus- 
tom in the town of Flushing for the Overseer of the Poor to give 
relief to every man who applied for it, no matter whether he 
spent his money for rum or for the support of his family. 
They had an idea that a certain portion of the community is 
bound to take care of the other portion without any effort 
on their part to help themselves. I had to encounter this 
idea all the time I held the office. When a man came for relief 
whom I knew to be an habitual drunkard I refused to grant 
it, except in extreme cases. I thought it would pay the county 
to send the whole of these families to the county poor-house 
and I adopted that plan. The year before I wits elected 
4 50 
Overseer of the Poor for the town of Flushing it cost that 
town fifteen thousand dollars to take care of its poor. I 
sent several of them to the poor-house and a good many more to 
jail. It didn't hurt them. There is too much public pity for 
these characters. Here is a big, able-bodied man, weighing two 
hundred pounds, lazy, idle and shiftless. Is it right, I ask, that 
honest, hard workingpeople, scarcely able to pay their taxes, are 
to be saddled with his support ? I say do, he oughtto be made to 
suffer if he is too indolent to exert himself for his own support, 
and yet ladies will come forward and say his family is in needy 
circumstances, his wife must not suffer. I prosecuted twenty- 
seven liquor dealers in one day for selling liquors without a 
license and 1 got five thousand dollars for the town that year 
in licenses; after this warning the rest came forward and paid 
their license fees, the result was that instead of costing the 
town that year fifteen thousand dollars, for the care of its poor, 
it cost but four thousand five hundred. The men who formely 
came to the poor master for relief began now to look around 
for work, and we didn't have one out of every ten of the appli- 
cants that we had the previous year. They said " we don't want 
to go to him for relief, he's tc o hard." 
The next year I maintained the poor of Flushing on the 
excise money collected, and the next year I had seven hun- 
dred dollars to the good. Ladies would come and say this 
poor woman wants you to come and give her relief. "Does she 
drink?" "No," "well ] think shegetsfifty cents for washingand 
spends twenty-five cents for beer," and that was generally what 
was the matter. The Overseer of the Poor, gentlemen, who 
sits down in his office and grants indiscriminate relief does 
more harm than the rum seller. After I got the liquor sellers 
prosecuted and established the rule that the poor should not 
live on the town, they drove me out of office, why ? Because 
these men who live on the town vote at the polls for who 
ever will do the best for them, but the man who does his 
duty must take the consequence. The men who receive 
relief and get patronage from the overseer's office, want 
that position for the man who will give away the most 
money. They have no regard for the honorable and just 
administration of that office, and so it happens that the 
Overseer of the Poor is encouraged to continue that perni- 
cious system of out-door relief. I say that where the husband 
is dissipated and the family in consequence reduced to the 
necessity of seeking out-door relief, the county or town will 
save money by sending that family to the poor-house. As a 
specimen of some of these cases that 1 had to deal with, there 51 
was a carpenter, thirty-five years of age, with three children. 
His wife came to my office and said, my " family are starving," 
I replied " I can't give you anything, you have got an able-bodied 
husband, why don't he work for you. I can't give you any out- 
door relief, you have got to go to the poor-house." She could 
not think of that, it would be humiliating, andyetyou could go 
around the village and see her husband standing around rum- 
shops and idling away his time. I said "you have got to 
go to the poor-house." I refused to give her anything. 
Well when her husband came home the wife told him 
what a hard hearted man Mr Sullivan was. The hus- 
band, finding he could no longer have his family supported 
by the town, bestirred himself; borrowed a dollar and offered to 
givein exchange for it three days work. He went to another man 
and said " I will work for anything you have a mind to give me." 
What is the consequence? Why that man to-day has got a house 
and is five hundred dollars ahead, while if the Overseer of the 
Poor had treated him according to the old plan the result would 
have been very different. Last winter I had anothersuch case : a 
man with four children, weighingabout onehundredand seventy- 
five pounds, and thirty-eight years of age, wanted relief. His 
wife used to go out washing, earned seventy-five cents a day and 
paid him twenty-five cents out of it, which he spent on beer. 
The husband sent the wife for relief. I never give it to such, nor 
when they send the children for it; for I regard that as a pau- 
perizing medium. She sent the little girl to me to ask for an 
order. Isaid toher" Sendyourfather around." Hecame; Isaid 
to him, after he had told me that he was dome; nothing, that his 
children were starving and that he would like to have an order. 
" You are a fine man, you are, to expect the tax-payers, who are 
working hard, to pay for your support. You are just as well 
able to work as they are and you will have to go to Barnum 
Island if you want any relief." I said " if your children, are 
hungry, bring them down to my house and I'll feed them." 
Well, gentlemen, that man used to spend his Sundays drinking 
and fishing. While here is a poor man working hard for a 
dollar a day having to pay taxes for the support of men 
like that. I say it is an imposition on the public to give 
any countenance to such loafers. I refused to help him, told 
him to go to work. What is the result ? That man to-day is up 
every morning at four o'clock; he has got a garden planted, 
grows potatoes and other vegetables; he didn't think he could 
do it, but yet he succeeded. 
The Chairman said the gentleman's time was up. 52 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens, moved that, in consideration of the 
importance of the subject, Mr. Sullivan's time be extended. 
Adopted. 
Mr. Sullivan, continued: I was talking with regard to 
temporary relief. I do not mean to cast any reflection upon the 
Overseers of the Poor or the Superintendents of the Poor. I 
am speaking of the principle of the thing. This man whom I 
last named had been on the town, at least his name was on the 
town books, for over ten years. He is now in a fair condition 
to earn his own support, and by next year he will be able to say 
" I don't want any of your assistance." We have a county alms- 
house and asylum. We were infested by New York tramps ; 
but we are now comparatively free from them. In fact, so 
low has the office of Superintendent or Overseer of the Poor 
fallen in the estimation of the people, that it is a matter of very 
little importance whom they vote for to fill that office. They vote 
for candidates, because they are clever fellows; and as a con- 
sequence an unsuitable party is elected. He don't like to 
see any body suffering; he gives relief, to all and as a result 
■'he people who save up all they can from their wages and 
who may need relief in March, have to go without it; for 
there is nothing left for them. The worthy poor, who would 
almost starve before going to the poor master's door, don't get 
the relief. When I was elected Overseer of the Poor there were 
forty inmates in our town poor-house, able-bodied men, who 
worked for farmers during the summer and spend all their 
earnings on beer. In the winter they lived on the poor master, 
spending that season in the town poor-house. I took steps to 
abolish that poor-house ; and the poor who were costing us 
between six and seven dollars a week to keep I cut down to 
two. It cost twelve hundred and sixty dollars doctoring for a 
town of six thousand inhabitants. I abolished the poor-house 
and now instead of going to the town poor-house they go nine- 
teen miles oft* to Barnum Island. We have ten in the poor- 
houses now, three years ago we had forty. I am opposed to town 
poor houses, I consider they encourage this class who live upon 
their neighbors' hard earnings. Some of them won't work for 
a dollar a day ; but, gentlemen, they should work for fifty cents, 
yes, and they should even work for five cents before consenting 
to seek relief from their neighbors. 
Mr. Witter, of Ontario: In many respects I second, fully 
second, the remarks of the gentleman from Queens county, 
that we manufacture paupers by our system of outside relief. 
When I came first into office, eight years ago, it was the prac- 53 
tice of the Overseers of the Poor to bring in their bills, make 
their statements and be allowed their claims. The duty 
of looking into this matter devolved upon me. I very soon 
saw the defects of the system, but being a new member, I did 
not take a very active part in these duties for some two or three 
years. Then after examining ami fully satisfying myself that 
our overseers could not only furnish supplies upon actuul resi- 
dents, but upon fictitious names, I made a statement before our 
Board, and argued that it was our duty as a Board to investi- 
gate and know where the people's money went. We have 
no town poor, all are county poor. One member of the 
Board was very positive that we should not only exceed our 
duties, but get ourselves into trouble by attempting it. It was 
argued that we act in harmony. I afterwards went before the 
Board of Supervisors and tried to get a resolution passed direc- 
ing us to act in this matter. I did not succeed. We sought 
authority to make a personal visitation of all the paupers in the 
county. There was some change in our Board, and two years 
ago, in December, Mr. Wheeler and I had become so alarmed 
at the growth of outside relief that we took it upon ourselves 
to make an investigation. We became satisfied that this investi- 
gation was what was needed, and we finally succeeded in getting 
a resolution passed by the Board of Supervisors asking and re- 
quiring us to make a return. This was in February. We waited 
till March that it might not be said we were making it a poli- 
tical issue. I procured a blank book, and took down every ones 
name, age, whether widower or widow, how many children, ages 
of children, where they were, whether they went to school, or 
were running the street, also the habits ofthe man. Every thing, 
in fact, that we could find out of a personal nature. We made the 
report as full as possible ; and we find it very useful for reference 
now. Where we found there was any money spent for whiskey 
we cut the party off. We commenced cutting down the bills of 
the overseers. The last one we cut down was $900, for supplies, 
which we cut down to $200; and now we hear of no one suffering. 
We hear of no one starving to death. We had curious cases 
to deal with. One was a lady 53 years of age, complained of 
not being strong enough to work; she had one child, a son 23 
years of age; who was earning $35 a month, a permanent posi- 
tion. The other was a case in which a lady and her daughter 
were drawing supplies. We cut them both off, and the girl 
went to work, and now supports herself and her mother. 
You will remember last year, at, our convention, I advanced 
the same idea as the gentleman from Queens, Mr. Sullivan, 
that it was a crime for a man to make himself a burden to 54 
society, that lie was taking from me and the community what 
does not belong to him. With regard to drinkers, the law 
says: the liquor seller shall not sell to a pauper knowing that 
he. is a pauper. I believe it should be the duty of the liquor 
seller to find out whether he is or not. We propose to notify 
every man whom we suspect of selling liquor to paupers that 
we will prosecute him. Now as a result of our new policy we 
have saved $7,000 to the county this year, and yet the tax is 
double what it ought to be. W e encountered great opposition to 
our course, it amounted almost to mobbing, and without this 
backing from the Board of Supervisors we were fearful to 
attempt it. I read the resolution of the Board of Supervisors, 
in every town we visited. We were answered by, "we elected 
an Overseer of the Poor here, what business have you coming 
and interfering?" In regard to our children, we keep them in 
the orphan asylum. But we are now making efforts to find 
homes for them in families. I believe the only safe course is 
in getting them into good homes as soon as possible, I.believe 
the asylum should be only a temporary home. It is not a pro- 
per place to bring up children. Children who remain very 
long in an asylum are not brought up to practical duties, 
to such labor as farmers require, and their training and 
opportunities there are not of a character to fit them for such a 
life when they leave; they are discontented with it. 
In regard to our chronic insane we keep them at our asylum. 
They are harmless. They are good laborers. I have studied 
the subject considerably, and I have settled down to this 
opinion : that if we could have a law to enable us to keep our 
quiet patients, sending the violent ones to State care, it would 
be the best, thing. It is very doubtful whether we could keep 
all, give them proper care, and make it a paying business. 
Dr. Rogers : This may be the last time that I shall meet 
this Convention, but this session, in a philanthropic sense, sur- 
passes anything I have ever experienced in a session of the 
Superintendents of the Poor of the State of New York. I do 
not refer to Queens county, because I come from that county, 
my charity takes the State of New York in, but, sir, I am 
proud of this hour. It is a pleasing hour, that in this Conven- 
tion we have had a Superintendent of the Poor who dare 
strike the key note of pauperism, and demonstrate a remedy. 
The action of Superintendent Sullivan in the county of Queens 
is worthy of admiration and imitation. 
Mr. Holland, of Steuben: This topic requires very little dis- 
cussion. Any one of ordinary intelligence can easily ^com- 55 
prehend the necessity as well as the value of remunerative 
labor, even to people of moderate circumstances, but more 
especially to the indigent class who may become or remain 
self-supporting with this labor. Without it they must neces- 
sarily become paupers. I consider the first duty of a Superin- 
tendent of the Poor or an Overseer of the Poor, upon 
application of an indigent person for relief, to ascertain as to 
his ability to perform manual labor. If he finds he is able, 
then he should ascertain why he is not working for the sus- 
tenance of his family. If the answer comes "I can't get work," 
as it naturally may, then, I say, it is the duty of the Superinten- 
dent of the Poor or of the Overseer of the Poor to endeavor if 
possible to obtain labor for that individual. There is no other 
remedy than this that I know of, unless it be to establish a 
bureau of labor and charity, as was explained very ably yester- 
day, and as are in operation in one or two of the counties. It 
is not very practicable in small villages. I undertook to estab- 
lish something of the kind in Hornellsville last year. I got 
the Ladies' Relief Society together but I did not make a suc- 
cess of it. They called me to one of their meetings for sugges- 
tions. I gave them our report for last year. I thought to get 
them interested enough in it to take hold for themselves but 
they did not feel inclined to work. The religious difficulty 
stood in the way. That is a difficulty, especially in small places, 
where there is not enough wealth in all the denominations so that 
they could spend their money and work together harmoniously. 
A certain per cent of them were opposed to have anything to do 
with the Catholics, I told them that if any Catholic ladies were 
willing to give their time and their means to the work, I 
thought it was essential that they should work together with 
them; for over one-half of the paupers are Catholics and the 
Catholic ladies could be made useful in finding for them 
employment and looking after the children. My experience 
is that we have very few applications for relief from able-bodied 
persons, except women who are left with children on their 
hands, and have all they can do to look after their household 
affairs and to keep their children properly. I think there 
should be very few cases such as the topic refers to. 
There seems to be work enough forthat class, and we should 
make a man believe that he ought to work and encourage him 
in that direction. I think it is especially the duty of Overseers 
of the Poor to find work for such applicants. Make the man 
think you have work for him. Tell him you will send him up 
the hill to cut wood or to do something else, that is laborious, 
and you will soon find out whether he is inclined to work or 56 
not. For instance a man applied to an overseer for work. 
The overseer told him to come to the mill the next morning 
and he would send him up the bill to cut wood and that he 
might have all he wanted of it; he replied he could not cut 
wood. The superintendent soon discovered he did not want 
to work. I gave orders to shut down upon him, give him no 
money to see whether be would work or starve, he was a shoe- 
maker by trade. Hunger soon drove him to work and he went 
around town picking up boots and shoes to mend and in that 
■way soon got quite a little work to do. If you force a man to 
where he has got to work or prove himself to be unable to 
work he would endeavor to do one thing or the other. We 
sometimes make them go before a physcian and bring a certi- 
ficate stating that they are not able to work. It is all in the 
hands of the Overseers and Superintendents of the Poor to see 
that these men have work if they are able to do it. 
Dependent Children. 
Mr. Witter, of Ontario: The Rev. Mr. Strong is present, 
with us. He has been engaged in a work that has been 
referred to by Mr. Bristol, the work of placing children in 
homes in the western part of the State. I would be very glad 
if the Convention would give him an opportunity to n^ike 
some remarks. 
Rev. Mr. Strong: Mr. President, the work thatl have be n 
engaged in is a growth rather than one planned in advance. 
I will take only a moment of your time in referring to one 
feature of it, namely, that of placing childrenin family homes. 
When our institution, the Western New York Home, was 
burned down, I supposed that this work would of necessity be 
suspended until new buildings were erected. I had made some 
effort and had succeeded in placing a large number of chil- 
dren in homes before this, and I soon disposed of the others in 
Buffalo and Rochester asylums. Applications came in for chil- 
dren and I was obliged to say that our children were gone. 
Occasionally the superintendent or poor masters applied to 
us to provide for children from certain counties. This lead 
me to study the question and to ask myself: Is not this providen- 
tial, should not something more be done to place children in 
homes then we are now doing ? I replied to these poor masters: 
"Ihave applications that I cannot meet, and if you will allow 
me some time I will place your children for you." Through the 
little paper we publish, I found it a very easy matter to place 
out a large precentage of these children in homes, by simply 57 
describing them in the paper. The result has been that since 
the fire I have continued to place children in family 
homes and I am continuing to do that work. All the 
children Mr. Bristol has asked me to place out for his county 
I have succeeded in placing. The poor master from Perry 
asked me if I could dispose of any children for him ; I said 
send them to Rochester till I can find homes for them; he did 
so, sent a family of three there, a little boy eight years of age, 
a little girl five years and a little boy three; they came under 
my care about the last of April, and four weeks ago I had 
placed the last of these little children in homes. I took the 
boy along with me to a place, gave an address and had the 
little fellow, three years old, with me in the church, I held him 
up before the congregation and said, " For the Master's sake 
take him in and give him a home, and be a father and a 
mother to him." Three family hearts were touched. A very ex- 
cellent man came and took the little boy with him to talk to his 
wife. He said I feel the responsibility is greater than if I had 
bought a farm. He finally decided to take him home with 
him. When I make such an appeal as this, I secure the ap- 
pointment of a committee, composed of the best people of the 
county, numbering from three to five, more or less, according 
to the size of the place. When an application of this kind 
comes I submit the application to this local committee for ap- 
proval and leave the committee, with a kind of a commission 
to take the oversight of the children placed out in their county. 
By this means we bring into co-operation the best elements of 
the place. I report to the superintendent the result, giving 
the names and address of all parties before indentures are 
made and let them become satisfied. A large percentage of 
them are placed through recommendations that come to us. 
A case from Wyoming county, I described in my paper as 
follows : Four months old, blue eyes, such a complexion, want 
a home for it. A lady from Pennsylvania sent for it, recom- 
mended by her pastor, it was given to her. Sometime after she 
wrote me and sent me its photograph saying, " I am delighted 
with the little one. If you have any more children like that I 
think I can find homes for two or three more." As to our 
policy-we go to those people, we bring the people and the 
children face to face, and rich families who would never go to 
the asylum or to the poor master to apply for these children 
have their hearts touched, their sympathies aroused, and their 
co-operation secured, so that when we have placed out a child 
under these circumstances we bring into activity five hundred 
members of a community. 58 
Mr. Lamont, of the Susquehanna Valley Home : I have only 
to say that in the question of pauperism, the greatest of all 
questions is "what shall we do with the children?" Take a 
chronic pauper and you cannot expect to make much out of 
him. Take a little child, you can educate that child to be a 
pauper as long as it lives, or you can educate it to become a 
good citizen. You remember the fable of the Egyptians. 
They were very much overrun with crocodiles. The sages 
got together to consider ways and means to get rid of the evil. 
While they were consulting about the matter, a stork poked 
its head out from behind the bush and said "do as I do, mash 
the eggs." If you want to get rid of pauperism you've got to 
mash the eggs. If you've got a horse running loose and want 
to sell him, what do you do? Why you take and groom him, 
train him, and get the best price you can for him. 
Do the same with the child. Take it, put it in some good 
training school'where it will have good discipline, good instruc- 
tion and care and get the highest price for it. In the language 
of money, it is cheaper to spend a few dollars each year; it 
is cheaper to pay a dollar and a half a week for a year and 
educate the child to a position, than to help the parents or the 
friends of that child for ten years at fifty cents a week. It 
is merely a question of dollars and cents,-to say nothing of 
the moral question involved,-whether yon. make a pauper ot 
the child or a respectable citizen. In regard to the Susque- 
hanna Valley Home, our average number has been one hundred 
and eleven. During that time we have placed with familes 
one hundred and ninety-six children, besides those who have 
been restored to parents and returned to the Superintendent of 
the Poor. We have become pretty well advertised by training 
our children to sing and go to public exercises, we go from 
town to town, giving public exhibitions. We went to one 
town and left there one or two children before returning. 
We placed eighteen children in that town in most excellent 
homes, and those children are forever off from the charge of 
the counties. They are in the way to become not only respect- 
able citizens but, in many instances, influential members of 
society. I do think that our method of dealing with children 
and placing them under the influence of good respectable 
families strikes at the root of this question of pauperism. The 
Superintendent of the Poor for Broome county has given up 
entirely affording relief to families. When applications are 
made to him be says " if you cannot provide for your family I 
will take it to the Home" and the parents then can take care 
of themselves. It would seem that the soundness of his judg- 59 
ment in this matter is corroborated by the facts. A few 
instancesof our method in dealing with children might be given. 
For instance, a year and a half ago we had intrusted to us a 
boy, a most unpromising character, who had been kicked 
about the lanes and the streets. His mother was no better; 
she had quarrelled with all her neighbors. It was a good while 
before we could make the boy believe that he was anybody. 
We kept at work on him. He ran away once or twice, still we 
persevered. After being with us about a year, a man came 
along, a most excellent farmer, who wanted a boy about his 
age. I said he has improved very much here, has learned to 
read ; but how he will do under your instructions, I do not 
know. The man took him, that boy is growing up and in a 
good wray to become a good citizen. The man will do just as 
well by him as he would by his. own son. 
Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe.: I rise more particularly to give 
my emphatic endorsement to all that has been said by the 
gentleman representing the Susquehanna Valley Home. He 
has struck the key note of pauperism. We must look to the 
children if we would reduce this onerous burden upon the tax- 
payers of our State. In regard to the question of the care of 
the insane, whether they can be provided for more economi- 
cally in county or in State institutions, that is also an important 
matter and one that will bear and ought to have the fullest 
discussion. My own opinion is, and has been for a considerable 
time, that in counties where they have a sufficient number of 
insane to warrant it, their insane can be kept more economically 
at home than in State asylums. In many counties where they 
have attempted to do this, the tendency has been to undertake 
it on too cheap a scale. But humanity should be considered 
as well as economy. Now if can get the counties educated up 
to the idea of keeping this class in a proper manner, employ- 
ing a medical superintendent and a suitable number of assist- 
ants, I do not see why the insane could not be provided for 
just as well in county as in State institutions. It is also a very 
important matter that the proper conduct of a poor-house 
should be studied and due emphasis placed upon arrangements 
for the complete separation of the sexes. In the county of 
Monroe we have a poor-house wnich I submit secures this 
separation and classification as nearly as it is possible to do in 
one institution. We have made every effort to do it and I 
have always considered it of paramount importance. It is also 
of very great importance to provide labor for the inmates. 
Every pauper should be required to perform some kind of 
labor if he is able. It is but just to the tax-payers and for the 60 
best interest of the individual and the discipline of the institu- 
tion. We have endeavored to carry out this policy in the 
county of Mouroe. We furnish employment for the inmates 
in winter as well as in summer. In winter it is not always 
profitable, but wre hold it to be a cardinal principle to keep 
them employed, even though their labor yields no revenue. 
But, Mr. Chairman, I rise to speak more particularly about 
the management of children. The question how to prevent 
pauperism or how to decrease it is one which should ever 
occupy the best and most earnest thought of every Superinten- 
dent of the Poor. There is not much prospect of effecting any 
very great reforms among chronic paupers although we should 
aim to attain all we can in that direction, but when we come 
to look after the children we encounter a field where great 
thingscan be accomplished in the way of preventing pauperism 
in the future generation. I wish to say that the manner of fur- 
nishing out-dobr relief is one of the greatest sources of pauper- 
ism, yet we have had it for a number of years past. 
In every large city of the State there are hundreds of fami- 
lies being assisted at.their homes. Examination will show 
that in the majority of these cases the parents are intemperate 
or in some way debased so as to render them unable to pro- 
vide for their families. I consider it a great wrong where the 
father or the mother is intemperate, or in such a conditon as 
to be unfit to bring up their children to become useful citizens, 
that they should be aidedin their homes and encouraged to keep 
their children in that manner, the recipients of public charity, 
becoming rapidly trained in the pauperizing habits and inclin- 
ations of their parents. I believe that wherever there is a 
family dependent upon such aid, w'here the children are being 
trained under this pernicious influence the relief should be at 
once refused and the children taken away and placed in insti- 
tutions where they will be educated and taught to have some 
self-respect. There they will have a chance to grow up useful 
and respectable citizens. 
Furnishing out-door relief to families at their homes, in my 
opinion, most certainly and inevitably educates the children to 
become paupers. They know their parents are. receiving this 
relief; they look upon it as perfectly legitimate and when they 
grow up, they drift into pauperism as naturally as water will 
run down a hill. 
The use of intoxicating liquors, as Dr. Hoyt has very pro- 
perly stated, is one of the greatest sources of pauperism that 
exists. That, however, is a question with which we are power- 61 
less to grapple; which must be remanded to the Legislature. 
We can do nothing to prevent its use, but we can do a great 
deal in the way of saving the children, of intemperate parents 
by getting them from under their control and placed under 
good influences. By saving the children, although it may be 
expensive now, we ar§ certainly going to reduce pauperism to 
a large extent in the future generation. When I advocate 
placing children in such institutions, I do not advocate keeping 
them there too long. The object should be to train them for 
families and they should be placed in such families to receive 
the benefits of home and family care at the very earliest moment 
possible. 
Mrs. Robert McPherson, of Buffalo: In order to facilitate 
the placing out oT the Erie county dependent children, the 
Board of Supervisors employs an agent for this special work. 
Since the agency commenced, in July, 1879, three hundred and 
thirty-four homes have been found, but only one hundred and 
twenty children have been obtained to place therein. This 
demonstrates the fact that homes are more easily obtained than 
children. There are two obstacles in the way of obtaining 
children. The first is the absurd and unjust law that requires 
the Superintendents of the Poor to commit children to homes 
of the same religious faith as their parents professed. This 
law is absurd as, with few exceptions, the parents of dependent 
children have no religion whatever, unless being devotees to 
the evil agencies can be called a religious faith. The law is 
unjust because it compels tax-payers to pay for the support of 
children in sectarian institutions, who might otherwise be 
better provided for free of expenses to the counties. It seems 
to me that those who favored this bill had in view the extend- 
ing of sectarian institutions and not the good of poor children. 
Institutions, especially the larger ones, are apt to become 
without God's gracious care " hot beds of corruption," and yet 
there seems to be a desire to extend them enormously. In one 
protectory in' this State there were no less than two thousand 
eight hundred and sixty-six inmates during the year. It is 
pitiful to think of little children being immured in institutions, 
with the tiresome rules of its artificial life, when good homes 
can be found for them. But because the home offered is not 
Episcopalian, or Presbyterian, or Roman Catholic, or Baptist, or 
Lutheran, the child is refused. 
Another obstacle in obtaining children for homes is the pre- 
vailing sentiment that it is wrong and cruel to take a child 
away from a parent, that the relations are sacred and should 62 
be preserved and that the reform of immoral parents can only 
be perfected by the possession of their children. Could the 
Superintendents of the Poor follow out the history of children 
restored to or left with dissolute parents they would find that 
the result was not the reform of the father but the ruin of the 
son. Parents who are bringing up their oft'spring to fill our 
reformatories and prisons should be deprived of their custody, 
for "that a child is God's" is of far more consequence than 
that it is born of this or that couple. Of two hundred and 
fifty-two children given to parents by institutions, 90 per cent 
went back to pauperism. I have traced them to the poor-house, 
the workhouse, the brothel; many of them found an early 
grave. 
" Thank God! yet we say it weeping, 
Thank God! for many a grave 
There sleeps the little children 
Whom Christians would not save! " 
These facts should incite Superintendents of the Poor to use 
all means within their power to remove children from immoral 
homes and place them under the wholesome influences of rural 
life. Our streets are filled with aimless boys and idle girls 
while farm labor is in demand and domestic help almost im- 
possible to obtain ; our asylums are crowded with children 
while there are hundreds of childless homes in our midst. If 
a painstaking placing-out system were adopted by all our insti- 
tutions, followed by a constant supervision of the children till 
they reach maturity, hundreds of them could be saved from 
drifting into pauperism and immorality. 
" Why wait till the prison claims them ? 
Why wait, till of hope bereft, 
For that fair young girl, the river 
Be the only refuge left ? " 
Adjourned till to-morrow morning at nine o'clock. 63 
THIRD DAY. 
The Convention reasembled at nine 9 a.m. 
Mr. Dennis Sullivan, of Queens, offered the following reso- 
lution ; which was unanimously adopted : 
Resolved. That this .Convention recommend Superintendents 
and Overseers of the Poor that whenever families of children 
are likely to become pauperized by the dissipated habits of 
their parents, that they use their best endeavors to have the 
children removed from those pernicious influences and placed in 
good, respectable families. 
Mr. Hollands, of Steuben, presented the following resolution, 
which was adopted : 
Whereas, There has been no compilation or revision of the 
poor laws for the use of Superintendents and Overseers since 
1870, and 
Whereas, The present code of laws now in the hands of 
Superintendents and Overseers is entirely inadequate as a guide 
for them, and 
Whereas, Many laws have been enacted by the Legislature 
for the past ten years relative to the poor to which the Super- 
intendents and Overseers have no access, Therefor be it 
Resolved, That the Committee on Legislation be instructed 
to prevail on the Legislature to authorize the compilation of a 
new code of poor laws containing ail the laws on the statute 
books relative to the poor, for the use of the Superintendents 
and Overseers of the Poor throughout the State. 
The superintendents were granted the privilege of sub- 
mitting their views in regard to keeping the chronic insane in 
county asylums to the stenographer in writing. 
The committee appointed to draft resolutions expressive of 
the views of the superintendents with regard to the Erie county 
jail, presented the following, which were unanimously adopted : 
Resolved, That this body of Superintendents of the Poor, 
in Convention assembled, do desire to commend the perfect ar- 
rangements for custodial care, ventilation, and cleanliness, and 
cannot speak too highly of the enlightened and progressive 
spirit of the people of Erie county evinced in the plan and 
equipment of their penal edifice. 
Resolved, That it is the sense of this Convention that other 
counties might profitably make themselves familiar with its 
commendable features. 
DAVID ROGERS, 
GEORGE HOLLAND, 
R. S. WHEELER, 
Committee. 64 
A recess was then taken, and the members entered carriages 
and were driven by way of the park to the Erie county poor- 
house. Before inspecting the institution the president called 
the Convention to order, that the business of the session might 
be completed. 
At the suggestion of Mr. Hollands, the place of holding the 
next Annual Meeting was considered. 
Mr. Hall, of Schuyler, stated that he would be very happy to 
have the meeting at Watkins, but as his time expired this year 
and his re-election was uncertain, he felt delicate about extend- 
ing the invitation, not knowing how his successor would en- 
tertain them. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens, eulogized in graceful language the 
princely and generous reception accorded the Convention in 
Buffalo. The county he represented was small, and while they 
would be glad to entertain the gentlemen next year, he could 
not promise any such hospitality as had been extended this 
year. It had been entirely unexpected and far beyond what 
they had anticipated. 
Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe, stated that he would be pleased 
to have the meeting at Rochester, bnt united with Dr. Rogers 
in acknowledging their inability {to come anywhere near the 
hospitality extended by Mr. Fuller. Rochester, though in the 
western portion of the State, was easy of access from all points 
by rail, and if it was thought best to meet there, he would do 
his utmost to make it pleasant for them. 
The motion of Mr. Bristol, of Wyoming, that the next 
annual Convention meet at Rochester on the second Tuesday 
of June, 1882, was carried. 
Dr. Rogers, of Queens, stated that it was becoming, and he 
had no doubt that it was felt and appreciated by every mem- 
ber of the Convention, that the press of the city of Buffalo 
should receive their heartfelt gratitude and thanks, for the very 
able manner in which their daily proceedings had been re- 
ported. Also that Mr. Fuller, Superintendent of Erie County, 
whose bounteous hospitality, cordial welcome and personal 
effort to render the stay of the members in Buffalo pleasant, 
would long be remembered by them, was deserving of special 
mention. At Dr. Rogers's suggestion, Dr. Hoyt was appointed 
a committee to draft resolutions of thanks to the press of 
Buffalo. The following submitted by him was adopted by ac- 
clamation : 65 
Resolved, That the sincere and heartfelt thanks of this Con- 
vention be tendered to the public press of the city of Buffalo 
for the kind and courteous attention bestowed upon it; for the 
very able, accurate and enterprising reports made of its daily 
proceedings; and also for the public-spirited, impartial and 
graceful editorial comments upon its deliberations and work- 
ings. 
Mr. Gates, of Orleans, submitted the following resolutions 
which were unanimously adopted : 
Resolved, That the cordial thanks of this Convention be ten- 
dered to Mr. Fuller, Superintendent of the Poor of the County 
of Erie, for his untiring and successful efforts to render the 
stay of the Superintendents of the Poor of the State of New 
York in Buffalo pleasant and enjoyable. 
Resolved, That not only does the Convention as a body feel 
under obligation to him for contributing to the success of 
its present session, but that each member personally appre- 
ciates and gratefully acknowledges his courteous and gentle- 
manly attentions. 
Three cheers were then proposed for Mr. Fuller, and they 
were given with a will. 
Mr. Sullivan, of Queens, moved the adoption of the follow- 
ing resolution: 
Resolved, That the thanks of the Convention be accorded to 
President Olmsted for the very able and impartial manner in 
which he has presided over its deliberations. 
Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe: in seconding the motion of 
Mr. Sullivan, said : Our worthy presiding officer is the oldest 
Superintendent of the Poor present, and has also been longer 
in office then any of the others. He has been urged a 
number of times to accept the position of President of the 
annual conventions, but his extreme modesty has invariably 
led him to refuse. This modesty I consider uncalled for as 
ins action on this occasion abundantly prove Mr. Olmsted has 
presided with intelligence, keenness of discernment, apprecia- 
tion of parliamentary rules, dignity, and with consideration 
for every member. This does equal honor to his ability and 
kindness of heart. 
Dr. Warner, of Wayne, corroborated the statement of Mr. 
McGonegal that Mr. Olmsted had on several occasions been 
5 66 
tendered the position he now held. The success in getting 
him into the chair this time he attributed to the fact that Mr. 
Olmsted's estimable wife had accompanied him. 
The resolution was carried unanimously, amid great applause. 
Mr. Olmsted acknowledged the honor in a brief and modest 
speech. 
Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe : I move that a vote of thanks 
be tendered the stenographer, Mr. Carman, for his excellent 
and satisfactory report of last year's proceedings of the Con- 
vention, and for his valuable services as secretary at the present 
meeting. 
Mr. Crossman, amended by inviting Mr. Carman to attend 
the next Annual Convention. 
Amendment accepted and motion adopted. 
On motion of Mr. Brundage, of Steuben, a committee of five 
was ordered appointed by the Chairman on the subject of legis- 
lation. The Chairman's name was also added to the com- 
mittee. 
Mr. Brundage also moved that the Chairman appoint a 
Committee on Topics, to consist of three members and the 
Chairman. Carried. The Chairman was also added to the 
National Committee to visit Boston, July 25th. 
On moton of Mr. Witter, of Ontario, each county representa- 
tive was requested to prepare a synopsis of its work in the poor 
department, to present at the next meeting, either in writing 
or orally. 
Reception at Poor-house. 
The gentlemen then proceeded to inspect the various depart- 
ments of the poor-house, after which they visited the insane 
asylum, where a similar inspection was made. All were enthu- 
siastic in their praise of the neatness, order and surprising 
excellence of the institutions noticeable in every department. 
Returning to the poor-house the members of the Convention 
partook of a choice collation prepared by Mrs. Busch and other 
ladies connected with the institution. It was spread in the 
dining-room, and all did ample justice to the excellent repast. 
On motion of Mr. Bristol, of Wyoming, a vote of thanks 
was tendered Mr. and Mrs. Busch for the very pleasant manner 
in which the members of the Convention had been received 
and the sumptuous manner in which they had been entertained 67 
by them. A high compliment was also paid those connected 
with the institutions for the excellent condition in which both 
the insane asylum and poor-house were found. There was 
nothing to criticise but everything to commend. 
Mr. McGonegal, of Monroe, said he knew that he expressed 
the feelings of every member of the Convention when he 
thanked Mr. and Mrs. Busch from the bottom of his heart for 
the kindness and attention which had been shown them. It 
was a continuation of the attentions shown them ever since 
their arrival in Buffalo. The speaker had never visited an in- 
sane asylum, either State or county, which had the appearance 
of being better conducted than that of Erie County, and if all 
asylums were as well managed he thought there need be no 
prejudice against county asylums for the insane. 
Other gentlemen present united in paying tribute to the 
neatness and good order everywhere visible about the institu- 
tion, and after a short time spent in pleasant social converse 
they returned to the city. 
The Chairman made the following appointments: 
COMMITTEE ON LEGISLATION. 
H. W. Bund age, of Steuben, 
B. F. Bristol, of Wyoming, 
S. R. Williams, of Suffolk, 
Philip Niver, of Columbia, 
E. D. Barnum, of Allegany. 
COMMITTEE ON TOPICS. 
A. B. Lewis, of Niagara, 
C. Crossman, of Genesee, 
James B. Wiley, of Wayne. 
The Convention then adjourned to meet at Rochester on the 
second Tuesday of June, 1882.