To the Executive Committee is assigned the duty of "defining and adopting such course of action as may best promote the objects of the Association, and to devise ways and means for increasing the usefulness and efficiency of the Association."

And it is further stated that "this committee shall put itself into communication with the New York State Commissioners of Public Charities."

As the President of our Association is also a member of your own Board, we have at all times the advantage of this close connection with your work.

We have divided our work into three departments, representing a threefold division of the pauper class, as follows: Children, Adult Able-bodied Paupers, and the Inmates of Hospitals. The latter division includes the sick, the insane, blind, deaf-and-dumb, idiot, inebriate and aged paupers.

The duties of these three standing Committees are defined as follows:

"ARTICLE XII.

"It shall be the duty of the Committee on Children to inform itself of the number, present condition, plan of education and ultimate disposition of the children in the Reformatories of this State, and in the State Institutions of Public Charities. It shall be the duty of this Committee to urge upon the community the very great importance of enforcing such enlightened measures in the care and training of these children as may tend to effectually destroy hereditary pauperism in this State, and to best enable them to become useful citizens and good men and women.

"ARTICLE XIII.

"It shall be the duty of the Committee on Adult Ablebodied Paupers to ascertain the number of able-bodied pauper men and women supported in the almhouses of this State, and the character and value of the labor, if any, performed by them. It shall be the endeavor of this Commit

tee to have workhouses erected, to have the laws for the arrest and commitment of vagrants enforced, to relieve the industrious members of the community from the support of the idle, to uphold the dignity of labor, and, in a country where work can always be obtained, to take such measures as shall tend to abolish beggary and vagrancy.

"ARTICLE XIV.

"It shall be the duty of the Committee on Hospitals: 1. To inform itself of the number and present condition of the sick, the inebriate, insane, blind, deaf-and-dumb, idiot and aged paupers in the New York State Institutions of Public Charities, and to urge the adoption of such measures as are best adapted to restore the health, alleviate the sufferings, secure the humane care and comfort, and contribute to the happiness of these afflicted and aged people. 2. To collect and impart information in regard to the latest and most approved plans for the construction, ventilation and disinfection of hospitals and asylums; to prepare plans of organization for their kitchen, linen, laundry and nursing departments; and to acquaint themselves with such hygienic and sanitary regulations as are in accordance with the most advanced views of the medical profession."

To secure the practical application of the work we have proposed to ourselves we must rely upon the support of public opinion; and to this end, the most important feature of our plan, it is provided

"ARTICLE XV.

"There shall be Local Visiting Committees for every Institution of Charity, supported by the public funds, in the State. These shall receive their appointment from the Executive Committee of this Association, through its Secretary.

"The President and Secretary of all Local Visiting Committees shall be ex-officio Associate Managers of this Association. They shall make monthly reports of the work of

their Committees to the Secretary of the State Charities Aid Association on the first day of every month, and an Annual Report on the 1st day of February. They shall correspond with the State Charities Aid Association, and shall work under its control and by its direction."

We find that our State contains fifty-six County Poorhouses, six City Almshouses, covering nearly twenty-two different institutions, and twelve State Asylums. We hope ultimately to have Visiting Committees appointed for all. To do this requires many workers, and we shall gladly welcome to our ranks any who may feel inclined to join us as volunteer Visitors for city or for country work.

Having thus given you a full outline of our proposed plan of work, we will now speak of what has already been accomplished.

Immediately after the organization of our association last May, we issued a circular (Appendix C, which accompanies this report) stating the objects we had in view, and asking the public to aid us by contributions of money. Up to this time $520.47 have been received, and our Treasurer's Report shows an empty treasury. Our expenses are not large. A regular income of $5,000 will cover them fully. This is needed for office rent and expenses, printing and stationery, salary of Secretary, and traveling expenses. We are now in need of money, and ask from our friends annual subscriptions of $5 and $10, to enable us to continue our work more efficiently.

The following Local Visiting Committees have been appointed:

1. For the Westchester County Poorhouse, organized January 9, 1872, with forty-nine members.

2. For Bellevue Hospital, New York City, organized January 26, 1872, with fifty-three members.

3. For the "Newburgh City and Town Almshouse," organized December 13, 1872, with fifteen members.

4. For visiting the Richmond County Institutions.

(Staten Island), organized January 27, 1873, with thirty members.

5. For visiting the Children's Institutions on Randall's Island, organized February 3, 1873.

A Committee for visiting Charity Hospital, on Blackwell's Island, is also nearly completed.

The members of these Visiting Committees, numbering in all over one hundred and fifty, have been selected with great care. They are, with the exception of some thirty Advisory Members, all active, earnest workers, visiting regularly and systematically once a week, or once a fortnight, the ward of the hospital or the department of the almshouse assigned them. They represent the best class of our citizens as regards enlightened views, wise benevolence,. experience, wealth, influence and social position. Our Visitors belong to no one political party; both Republicans and Democrats are to be found among them. They belong to no one creed; as the inmates of our pauper institutions are of every religious denomination, so also our Visitors represent both Protestant and Catholic forms of worship. Ours is neither exclusively man's work nor woman's work. We are men and women working together, supplementing each other's powers, with the one object of helping and elevating our poorer classes.

You will see that we have aimed to place our work upon a foundation as broad as that upon which our own republican form of government rests; to do away with all distinctions of race and sex, of political partisanship and sectarian prejudice; to have the work judged by its merits alone-whether it is or is not worthy of support from our citizens.

Lists of members of our Central Association, fifty-six in number, and of the Local Visiting Committees, so far as appointed, are given in the Appendix (Appendix A).

As those Visiting Committees organized this winter have been at work but a few weeks, we have as yet no results to

offer from their experiences. Two, however, of our com. mittees have now been steadily at work for a year, and we would lay before you the story of their successes and their failures. In the one instance, working in co-operation with intelligent and enlightened officials, the results have been most gratifying; in the other, ignorance and opposition on the part of those in power have paralyzed well-meant efforts.

And in giving an account of the condition of these two institutions-Bellevue Hospital and the Westchester County Poorhouse-I wish you to realize upon what my statements are based. They are not based upon the returns of Boards of Inspection, who walk through these buildings once a year, or once a month, or once a week, who comment upon clean floors and good ventilation, who examine books in the office, and take notes from statements made them by warden or keeper in charge. In Bellevue Hospital, for instance, each of the twenty-nine wards has been visited. every week, the same Visitors for the same ward, by ladies whose experience in the supervision of their own households has made them experts as regards washing, the care of linen, cooking, nursing the sick, etc. They go often enough to know every patient in the ward, to study the character of the person in charge, to know what the work of the ward is, and how well it is done; they go in the morning, in the afternoon, at mealtimes, sometimes one. day, sometimes another. They write an account of every visit in books kept for the purpose. Each book is the history of the condition of that ward and its inmates for the past year. There were, to be sure, weeks in summer when the visits were discontinued, owing to absence from the city, but the whole number of visits average at least one visit a week to every ward. It is much to the credit of the City Commissioners of Charities that, fully aware of what such a searching examination must result in, how it must necessarily bring to light abuses of which they could