regulate the payment of public funds to private charitable and correctional institutions, by obliging inmates supported by public funds in any such institution to be received and retained therein pursuant to rules established by the State Board of Charities, such rules to be subject to the control of the Legislature by general laws. It also prohibits the Legislature from requiring (although it may authorize), the authorities of any county, city, town or village to make payments to any private charitable or correctional institutions.

Another addition to the amendment, not of our seeking, but especially gratifying to us, as showing the watchful care of the interests of the Association by its friends in the Convention, states that: "the visitation and inspection herein provided for (i. e., of the State Board of Charities, the State Commission in Lunacy and the State Commission for Prisons), shall not be exclusive of other visitation and inspection now authorized by law," this being designed to protect the New York Prison Association and the State Charities Aid Association in their rights of visitation and inspection, should these be threatened in the future by any possible construction of the Constitution "by inference."

And here we would express our thanks to the President of the Convention, Hon. Joseph H. Choate, and to Messrs. Edward Lauterbach, Elihu Root, Milo M. Acker, John Bigelow, Frederick W. Holls and other delegates, for their hearty sup port of the proposed amendment, and for the invariable courtesy extended by them to the representatives of the Association, both in Albany and elsewhere. To the Hon. Edward Lauterbach, Chairman of the Committee on Charities, we are especially indebted for much kind consideration, as also for his generous acknowledgment, in his report to the Convention, of the assistance which it gave us so much pleasure to be able to render. We quote from this report: "The proposed amendment submitted by your Committee results in part from conferences with the representatives of the State Charities Aid Association and the Prison Association of New York, whose vast experience in all matters connected with State charities and the management of State prisons has been placed at the service of the Committee, which has had the benefit of many important suggestions from the officers of these associations."

Following is the full text of the amendment, which now forms Sections 11-15 of Article VIII. of the State Constitution, and was known as "the Charities Article" during the debates in Convention:

THE CHARITIES ARTICLE.

(The amendment as proposed by the State Charities Aid Association is in plain type; additions made by Committee in Italics.)

Article VIII. of the Constitution. SECTION 11. The Legislature shall provide for a State Board of Charities, which shall visit and inspect all institutions, whether State, county, municipal, incorporated or not incorporated, which are of a charitable, eleemosynary, correctional or reformatory character, excepting only such institutions as are hereby made subject to the visitation and inspection of either of the commissions hereinafter mentioned, but including all reformatories except those in which adult males convicted of felony shall be confined; a State Commission in Lunacy, which shall visit and inspect all insti tutions, either public or private, used for the care and treatment of the insane (not including institutions for epileptics or idiots); a State Commission of Prisons, which shall visit and inspect all institutions* used for the detention of sane adults charged with or convicted of crime, or detained as witnesses or debtors.

SECTION 12. The members of the said board and of the said commissions shall be appointed by the Governor by and with the advice and consent of the Senate; and any member may be removed from office by the Governor for cause, an opportunity having been given him to be heard in his defense.

SECTION 13. Existing laws relating to institutions referred to in the foregoing sections, and to their supervision and inspection, in so far as such laws are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution, shall remain in force until amended or repealed by the Legislature. The visitation and inspection herein provided for shall not be exclusive of other visitation and inspection now authorized by law.

* The amendment proposed by the Association contained the words "(except reformatories)" after "institutions." These words were omitted by the Committee.

SECTION 14. Nothing in this Constitution contained shall prevent the Legislature from making such provision for the education and support of the blind, the deaf and dumb and juvenile delinquents, as to it may seem proper, or prevent any county, city, town or village from providing for the care, support, maintenance and secular education of inmates of orphan asylums, homes for dependent children or correctional institutions, whether under public or private control. Payments by counties, cities, towns and villages to charitable, eleemosynary, correctional and reformatory institutions, wholly or partly under private control, for care, support and maintenance, may be authorized, but shall not be required by the Legislature. No such payments shall be made for any inmate of such institutions who is not received and retained therein pursuant to rules established by the State Board of Charities. Such rules shall be subject to the control of the Legislature by general laws.

SECTION 15. Commissioners of the State Board of Charities and Commissioners of the State Commission in Lunacy, now holding office, shall be continued in office for the term for which they were appointed, respectively, unless the Legislature shall otherwise provide. The Legislature may confer upon the Commissions and upon the Board mentioned in the foregoing sections any additional powers that are not inconsistent with other provisions of the Constitution.

Should it be asked, why is it necessary to incorporate in the Constitution of the State what might equally well have been provided by the Legislature, the answer is not far to seek. For the past twenty-five years the growth, in numbers and wealth, of the public and private charitable institutions in this State, has been enormous. The estimated value of their lands, buildings and appurtenances, October 1, 1893, was $84,154,392.37; the total amount of money expended by them in that same year was $20,407,982.94.* These institutions are very powerful. No State supervisory body, dependent solely upon the Legislature for its existence, could fearlessly perform the duties re

quired of it by law without danger of being abolished. Our amendment protects it from this danger. And yet, as the power granted by the Constitution to these Supervisory Boards is that of inspection alone, leaving with the Legislature the right to confer additional powers, and to determine all details of organization and membership, no undue autocratic authority need be feared by the institutions.

Students of English history will remember the long struggle, of sixty years ago, over the existence of the Poor Law Board, which had made for itself enemies by attempting to check the excessive grants of out-door relief; this, after a Royal Commission, at the close of a searching investigation, had declared that "out-door relief was pauperizing the nation." For years the battle raged between the reformers and the advocates of the old system until, finally, to preserve the Poor Law Board, it became necessary to reorganize it under the title of the "Local Government Board," and to give its President a seat in the Cabinet.

Not to any powerful political influence does our system of State supervision owe its existence. Incorporated in the Constitution of the State of New York, it stands secure, able to pursue, unmolested, its high mission of guarding the interests of the sick, the afflicted and the prisoner; representing, as never before to-day, in that People's Charter of our rights and privileges, those attributes of love and mercy which are no less sacred than the great principles of liberty and justice.

NEW YORK, November 17, 1894.

LOUISA LEE SCHUYLER.

APPENDIX.

ARGUMENT.

Before a joint meeting of the Committee on Charities and Charitable Institutions and the Committee on Prisons, of the Constitutional Convention, July 24th, 1894, by Homer Folks, Secretary of the State Charities Aid Association.

The necessity for the supervision and inspection by State authorities of charitable and correctional institutions has been recognized by the Legislature of the State of New York since. the year 1867. In that year it established the "Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities," which was authorized and required to visit at least once each year all the charitable and correctional institutions of the State, excepting prisons, receiving State aid, and to visit at least once every two years city and county alms and poorhouses. (Sections 5 and 6 of Chapter 951, Laws of 1867.)

Six years later, in 1873, the field to be covered by this Board, whose name was then changed to the "State Board of Charities," was extended so as to include charitable institutions not receiv. ing State aid. By Chapter 371, Laws of 1873, they are authorized to visit and inspect "any charitable, eleemosynary, correctional or reformatory institution in this State, excepting prisons, whether receiving State aid, or maintained by municipalities or otherwise."

In the same year, 1873, recognizing the need of still greater supervision over institutions for the insane, the Legislature established a Commissioner in Lunacy, a single officer, whose duties were to visit and supervise all institutions for the insane. This Commissioner in Lunacy was at first ex-officio a member of the State Board of Charities, and reported thereto, but in 1874 was separated from the Board and directed to report to the Legislature. Ultimately this supervision was found to be inadequate, and in 1889 a State Commission in Lunacy, consisting of three persons, was substituted by the Legislature for the single Commissioner.

The Legislature has also recognized the value of unofficial, local, volunteer visitation, and has authorized the Prison Association of the State of New York to visit prisons and jails, and the State Charities Aid Association to visit State and county