of the boys
testified that Ancarola had paid his mother 20 lire (about four dollars)
and his uncle 60 lire. For this sum he was to serve the padrone four
years. Ancarola was convicted and sent to the penitentiary. The children
were returned to their homes.

The news travelled slowly on the other side. For years the padrone's
victims kept coming at intervals, but the society's agents were on the
watch, and when the last of the kidnappers was sent to prison in 1885
there was an end of the business. The excitement attending the trial and
the vigor with which the society had pushed its pursuit of the rascally
padrone drew increased attention to its work. At the end of the following
year twenty-four societies had been organized in other States upon its
plan, and half the governments of Europe were enacting laws patterned
after those of New York State. To-day there are a hundred societies for
the prevention of cruelty to children in this country, independent of each
other but owning the New York Society as their common parent, and nearly
twice as many abroad, in England, France, Italy, Spain, the West Indies,
South America, Canada, Australia, etc. The old link that bound the dumb
brute with the helpless child in a common bond of humane sympathy has
never been broken. Many of them include both in their efforts, and all the
American societies, whether their care be children or animals, are united
in an association for annual conference and co-operation, called the
American Humane Association.

In seventeen years the Society has investigated 61,749 complaints of
cruelly to children, involving 185,247 children, prosecuted 21,282
offenders, and obtained 20,697 convictions. The children it has saved and
released numbered at the end of the year 1891 no less than 32,633.
Whenever it has been charged with erring it has been on the side of mercy
for the helpless child. It follows its charges into the police courts,
seeing to it that, if possible, no record of crime is made against the
offending child and that it is placed at once where better environment may
help bring out the better side of its nature. It follows them into the
institutions to which they are committed through its care, and fights
their battles there, if need be, or the battles of their guardians under
the law, against the greed of parents that would sacrifice the child's
prospects in life for the sake of the few pennies it could earn at home.
And it generally wins the