Expenditures. 49 



per year for the fourteen years — more than four times as much as 

 that for the preceding fourteen years. This increased expenditure 

 finall}' caused the legislature to investigate and a committee appoint- 

 ed for this purpose made a report at the May session in 1812. This 

 committee gave four causes for the increase : (1) increased immi- 

 gration from Europe; (2) vigilance on the part of the neighboring 

 states in removing the idle and worthless; (3) lack of this vigilance 

 on the part of Connecticut; (4) defects in the laws. They pointed 

 out that most of the states authorized their towns or counties to 

 remo\e from the state foreigners who were likely to become paupers 

 and that Connecticut had become a dumping ground for these states.^ 

 Nothing, however, was done which diminished the expense; and in 

 1816 the comptroller's report to the legislature at the fall session 

 called its attention to the subject. The report contained the state- 

 ment that the towns charged the state for the support of state paupers 

 more than they expended for the support of their own poor. It 

 also stated that frequently two dollars and a half to three dollars 

 a week was charged for board, exclusive of any allowance for clothing 

 or doctors' fees. The town authorities met the requirements of the 

 law, the report said, by swearing that these charges were just and 

 thus secured their payment by the state. According to the report, 

 the expense for doctors to care for the state paupers constituted 

 approximately an eighth of the total expense for paupers and man;y 

 towns employed a physician, at a yearly salary, to attend to all of the 

 town poor, but paid him the customary fee for each visit and for 

 medicines whenever he attended a state pauper. ^ Thus we see that 

 the expense to the state for the support of paupers was considerably 

 greater than was necessary. It remained for the Republicans, as 

 will be seen in the next chapter, to alter this condition of affairs.^ 



5. Humane Institutions. 



At this period of the country's history there were very few insti- 

 tutions of any kind for the relief of suffering and the education of 

 those who were physically handicapped. Connecticut has the honor 

 of being the first state in this country to charter an asylum for the 

 deaf and dumb. In 1816 the general assembly chartered "The 

 Connecticut Asylum for the Education of Deaf and Dumb Persons" 



^ Report of Committee de Paupers (Ms.) to the General Assembly, May 

 session, 1812, pp. 1—3. 



2 Compt. Report (Ms.), Oct. 1816. 



3 Cf. p. 84. 



Trans. Conn. Acad., Vol. XVII. 4 March, 1912. 



