ABUSE OF PUBLIC CHARITY. 159 



an original method of charitable work. The agents of this society, 

 or the members themselves, go out into the slums of the city on 

 Sunday mornings and gather in a number of tramps. The homeless 

 wanderers are assembled in a room hired for the purpose and sup- 

 plied with a warm breakfast, after which they are compelled to 

 listen to a sermon and a lecture. They are then allowed to depart 

 and live as best they can until the following Sunday. For a num- 

 ber of years this society has received a small appropriation from the 

 city on the ground that it is a useful public charity. To all of these 

 small societies, no matter what may be their alleged field of chari- 

 table work, city money is appropriated without specific knowledge of 

 the exact purpose to which it is applied. By legislation or petition, 

 backed by the influence of prominent citizens, scores of these petty 

 organizations, some of them merely a fad or whim of an idle man 

 or woman, have been placed on the list of semipublic charities to 

 be aided at the expense of the taxpayers, and there they remain year 

 after year without so much as a serious inquiry as to their merits or 

 the work they accomplish. The city authorities who grant the ap- 

 propriations do not and can not know how the money they give to 

 such societies is to be expended, because they have no legal authority 

 to investigate the conduct of such institutions. The city officers, 

 therefore, are not to blame. The fault seems to rest primarily 

 upon that condition of public opinion that is cheerfully tolerant 

 of any fraud committed in the name of charity, and secondly upon 

 the members of the Legislature who vote without question or inves- 

 tigation for all legislation asked for by any benevolent person or 

 society. 



To the large charitable and correctional institutions of estab- 

 lished reputation, to which children or pauper adults are committed 

 by the local authorities, city money is appropriated on a business 

 basis. A fixed sum is paid for the support of each committed person, 

 and the taxpayers may know what they are getting for their money. 

 While the city authorities can not regulate the expenses or salaries 

 in these institutions, they know that the city is paying for a specific 

 service and that the work is performed. That it might be done 

 better or more cheaply need not concern them. But to the institu- 

 tions and societies that do not undertake to support dependent per- 

 sons, but engage in indiscriminate charitable work, the giving of city 

 money is as doubtful a method of relieving the deserving poor as 

 throwing coin in the streets. 



The appropriation of city money made for 1899 direct to two 

 hundred and fifteen charitable and correctional institutions and so- 

 cities amounts to $1,784,846. The appropriations from the excise 

 funds to institutions that support pauper children and adults will 



