nties in which they reside, have a
legal right of entry to visit and inspect any public or charitable
institution owned by the state, and any county and other poor-house. A
large association of visitors accustomed to inspect and report on
institutions has thus been created. Further, the counties and towns in
New York state, for instance, and Massachusetts, and the almshouse
districts in Pennsylvania, are under boards of supervision. Usually the
overseers give out-door relief, and the pauperism of some areas is as
high as that in some English unions, 3, 4 and 5%. On the whole
population of the United States, however, and of individual states,
consisting to a great extent of comparatively young and energetic
immigrants, the pauperism is insignificant. In Massachusetts "it has
been the general policy of the state to order the removal to the state
almshouse of unsettled residents of the several cities and towns in need
of temporary aid, thus avoiding some of the abuses incident to out-door
relief." In New York state, in the city of New York, including Brooklyn,
the distribution of out-door relief by the department of charities is
forbidden, except for purposes of transportation and for the adult
blind. Most counties in the state have an almshouse, and the county
superintendents and overseers of the poor "furnish necessary relief to
such of the county poor as may require only temporary assistance, or are
so disabled that they cannot be safely removed to the almshouse." Public
attention is in many cases being drawn to the inutility and injury of
out-door relief.

In some states and cities the system of subsidizing voluntary
institutions is in full force, and it is in force also in many English
colonies. At first sight it has the advantage of providing relief for
public purposes without the creation of a new staff or establishment.
There is thus an apparent economy. But the evils are many. Political
partisanship and favour may influence the amount and disposition of the
grants. The grants act as a bounty on the establishment and continuance
of charitable institutions, homes for children, hospitals, &c., but not
on the expansion of the voluntary charitable funds and efforts that
should maintain them; and thus charitable homes exist in which charity
in its truer sense may have little part, but in which the chief motive
of the administration may be to support sectarian interests by public
subsidies. Claimants for relief have litt