LOCAL BUSINESS.

Local Business.

Before your Agent had been long in the public service, he became aware that the number of commitments to the State Almshouses was needlessly large, and that many persons falling into distress could, with more comfort to themselves and vastly less expense to the public, be removed at once to their homes or their places of settlement, or, if they had neither, to the places whence they came. To remedy the difficulty he proposed to the Legislature a simple statute, (chapter 83 of the Acts of 1860,) which was unanimously adopted. To carry out this legislation efficiently, he organized the sub-department of local business, and placed it under the supervision of the First Deputy, aided by a competent clerk. To them all applicants for relief are referred for examination, and on their report the parties are removed as above indicated, or remanded to the authorities of the cities and towns for commitment to the State Institutions. These officers, also, have charge of the Registers, wherein are recorded the weekly returns from the State Almshouses, and furnish information, when proper, to the friends and relatives of the inmates. They further execute the statute of 1851, which holds all individuals and companies that have brought passengers into the State, responsible during one year for their support or removal, in case they become a public charge.

During the past year these officers have examined 1,671 cases, and caused the removal of 1,418 paupers and lunatics.

The expediency of this policy, with its comparatively trifling expenditure, will hardly be questioned when it is known that the number they have removed equals more than one-third of the actual commitments to the State Almshouses.

GENERAL AGENT'S REPORT.

2.-Sub-Department of Settlement and Bastardy.

This is supervised directly by the General Agent, who is aided by the Second Deputy and by the Second Clerk, and other officers who will be named hereafter. Its successful administration requires great industry and adaptation to its peculiar work. It is the agency which analyzes, classifies and assigns for distribution the mass of pauperism, vice and lunacy aggregated in our Almshouses and Hospitals. It is a cheap, efficient and indispensable department. Without it institutions would be multiplied, or our towns and cities thronged with the victims of poverty, disease and crime. In either event taxation would be alarmingly increased, while in the latter the sanitary condition of the community would be seriously affected. The truth of this statement is attested by the fact that the number of dependents removed by your officers of transportation, through the investigations of the officers of settlement, nearly equals the number of annual commitments to the public institutions of charity.

It is necessary, in explanation of their business, to say, in every yearly Report, that "ever since the State system was established, it has been customary to examine all the inmates of the several Institutions as soon as possible after their admission, to ascertain their birth-place and previous residence, their occupation, habits and personal history; also, the names and residences of their parents, grandparents and more remote ancestors in the direct line; the civil and pecuniary condition of all these parties, with such other facts as might throw any light upon the question of their settlement; and, if foreigners, the time and mode of their immigration, the port where they landed and the date of their entry into the State."

During the past year, your Agent, his deputies and clerks, in pursuance of this duty, have made numerous visits to the Institutions, as well as to different towns within and without the State, have travelled many thousand miles and conducted an extensive correspondence.

Examinations for Eight Years.

The following table will show the number and places of these examinations for the past eight years:

GENERAL AGENT'S REPORT.

After examination, each case is carefully studied, and all necessary investigation made, with the view to ascertain some possible means of support through a "lawful settlement," or "kindred of ability;" or, failing these, to verify the propriety of removal by some one of the methods provided by law; and in the next table will be found the result of these labors for the past eight years:

Thus it appears that since October 1, 1867, 4,617 cases have been investigated, 67 settlements found in this State and 716 in other States, and 371 persons given up to the proper officer to be sent to their friends, who have sometimes wholly or partially re-imbursed the State for its outlay. More than 1,700 others have been placed in the care of the same officer for transportation to the "places where they belong or whence they came."

The State Workhouse.

This Institution was designed for the vicious poor, of whom large numbers were wont to congregate in the Almshouses, after going the rounds of the penal institutions. Some came to recover from the effects of excessive indulgence; others to avoid new sentences to the Houses of Correction, and to shirk the labor they would there be required to perform; others to conceal the maternity of illegitimate children, and to abandon, if not destroy, their offspring, on the first convenient opportunity, and yet others were vagrants of the most stubborn and hopeless class. The admixture of these with the inmates of a

THE STATE WORKHOUSE.

better description, and especially with the children and youth among them, was destructive of the morale of the Almshouses, and to the last degree offensive and inhuman. After arguing and expostulating against this enormity for years, your Agent finally succeeded in securing the appointment of a special committee, who, after a most thorough investigation, reported the bill which was quite unanimously enacted into the present statute. Two years of experience under the efficient management of Mr. Goodspeed, whose large heart and strong common sense admirably fit him for a position which he should not be permitted to resign as long as the State is rich enough to retain him, have convinced your Agent that this policy was wisely adopted, and is becoming more and more effectual in preventing the class before mentioned from taking refuge in our Almshouses. But one objection to the operation of the statute has reached him. Accustomed to the brief sentences of the minor courts, some persons, more sympathetic than thoughtful, object strenuously to the long terms of confinement it imposes; but they forget that these unfortunates have reached a stage in their career where liberty is a curse to them, and is employed merely in preying upon the honest and industrious, and in completing the degradation and destruction of their own bodies and souls. When all other remedies provided by the law have signally failed, both to restrain these offenders and to protect the public, surely the highest good of the former and the just rights of the latter alike demand that they shall be prevented from doing farther injury to themselves or others. And hence the Legislature of 1866 wisely provided not imprisonment in its usual sense, but rather restraint in a comfortable home for a lengthened period, where they might be saved from themselves, and the public from their evil example and constant depredations, and where enforced abstinence, with moderate but continuous labor, might improve their physical condition, recall forgotten habits of industry, and afford them the best chance possible, on their final release, to become worthy members of society. Besides, it must be remembered that one object of the Legislature was to force vicious idlers to go to work or to leave the State, by shutting the Almshouses against them, except under penalty of