ABUSE OF PUBLIC CHARITY. 157 



need. Most of the small organizations that waste public money in 

 misdirected charity are controlled by women of eminent respectabil- 

 ity, but with no knowledge whatever of the details of the work they 

 have undertaken. The result in many cases has been that they em- 

 ploy enough help to absorb the bulk of the money received without 

 realizing that they are doing more harm than good. 



The city does not spend its own money cheaply. Of the appro- 

 priation of $1,941,215 for the support of the Department of Chari- 

 ties for the current year the sum of $529,626 is allowed for the pay- 

 ment of salaries of commissioners and employees. No private busi- 

 ness could long endure if conducted on such a basis. Some of the 

 institutions where hundreds of homeless waifs from the streets are 

 cared for institutions semipublic in character, managed by men of 

 more than local reputation as experts in such work, societies founded 

 by men and women whose lives have been devoted to doing good 

 show by their annual reports that more than half their income is 

 paid out in salaries. One institution that received $30,000 from the 

 city in 1898 and $20,000 from all other sources, reported a salary 

 account of $31,000. Another, receiving $100,000 from the city 

 and $120,000 in donations, had a salary account of $115,000. For 

 every five persons supported by public charity there are three persons 

 employed on salary in the work of relief. Of every five dollars paid 

 out by the city treasury to relieve the sick and destitute, two dollars 

 is absorbed by the salary and expense accounts. 



The theory of the law under which city money is paid to private 

 charitable institutions is that they relieve the municipal authorities 

 of the care of a certain number of persons who would otherwise be- 

 come public charges to be maintained in the hospitals, asylums, or 

 homes owned by the city. It is also a popular theory that young 

 children who have become a public charge will receive better care and 

 training in a home controlled by a private society than they would in 

 a public institution. Appropriations and legislation are also ob- 

 tained by private organizations on the representation that for every 

 dollar paid to them by the city or State an equal amount will be 

 contributed by founders and subscribers. This representation is not 

 always true, and in many cases it happens that when a society begins 

 to receive money from the city private contributions fall off. When 

 the city authorities first took up the question of caring for homeless 

 and destitute persons and found that they had to deal with a grave 

 problem, some of the private charitable institutions were already in 

 existence and came forward with offers to share the burden. At that 

 time it was considered a good business arrangement for the city to 

 use private societies in the work of relief. This plan, it was ex- 

 pected, would save the city considerable money, because the officers 



