115 of Charities and Correction, and also by the National Council of The Prisoners' Aid Association is still pressing for the adoption of a probation law whereby first offenders delinquents and drunkards-may have an opportunity to reform by being placed under the supervision of probation officers on suspended sentences, and thus be saved from the stigma and contamination of jail life. The Ontario Reformatory for Boys is to be moved to a more central part of the province, and no doubt the latest improvements in buildings and equipment will be secured. The reformatory deals with boys from fourteen to eighteen years of age, and has an average population of 140. The industrial schools, of which there are two, take incorrigible lads from ten to thirteen, and their respective populations are 145 and 50. These small numbers are doubtless due largely to the child-saving work carried on by the neglected children's department under the supervision of Mr. J. J. Kelso. There are thirty-five branch Children's Aid Societies located in the leading cities and towns of Ontario, and some three or four hundred children are dealt with annually by these organizations, the policy being to place dependent children in foster homes. There are now nearly 2,000 under regular supervision, and they are making splendid progress toward useful and self-supporting citizenship. This department is exceedingly popular with all classes in the community. Some effort was made this year to induce the legislature to encourage the scientific treatment of inebriates, but without success. However, something in this line is being done by the Prisoners' Aid Association under the direction of Dr. A. M. Rosebrugh, the secretary, and the results have been most encouraging. Two years ago a bill was drafted conjointly by the Prisoners' Aid Association and the Ontario Medical Association, and presented to the Ontario government, in which provision is made for an extension of the probation system in dealing with cases of drunkenness. Probation officers will have the power to place dipsomaniacs under medical treatment, either in cottage hospitals, special wards in public hospitals, or in the form of home treatment. We are most desirous that this bill shall be adopted by the Ontario legislature in the near future. As already mentioned, experiments commenced by the Prisoners' Aid Association in this direction have been attended with most encouraging results. Great attention has been given of late years to the subject of tuberculosis; and the National Sanitarium Association has provided splendid accommodation in Muskoka, Northern Ontario, for those afflicted with this blighting disease. The general hospitals of the Province are also setting apart special quarters for consumptive patients. A society has been formed in Toronto, called the Anticonsumptive League, for the purpose of promoting the establishment of an institution near the city for the care and treatment of the consumptive poor of Toronto. PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND. B. BALDERSTON, CHARLOTTETOWN, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. A new Prince Edward Island Hospital has lately been built and equipped at a cost of $20,000, all raised by voluntary subscription. The grounds, about fifteen acres in extent, were donated by Rev. Dr. Brecken. Persons convicted of crime in this province are sent to the penitentiary at Dorchester, N.B., which is maintained by the federal government. We have no institution for the reform of the vicious or juvenile delinquents. We have an average of 50 in a poorhouse, which is sustained by the province. The government also pays out money for the support The poor cost the province last of the poor outside the institution. year $7,307.35. There is no special provision for destitute children, but the province provides for their support in private families. The sick and injured are cared for in two hospitals supported by private subscriptions. Those who are able pay for their attendance, but about one-half are poor persons who pay nothing. The Prince Edward Island Hospital treated during the year 252 patients, besides providing medicines and surgical dressings for 70 outdoor patients. The Charlottetown Hospital also cares for a large number. We have no institution for the blind here, but the province pays for their education in a school for the blind at Halifax, N.S. The deaf-mutes are also sent to an institution at Halifax, and their expenses paid by the province. No provision has been made for feeble-minded children. The insane are cared for in a hospital provided and maintained by the province. There was an average of 195 inmates last year. Net cost to the province, $22,472.76. We are much in need of a reformatory for juvenile delinquents. Formerly boys convicted of crime were sent to the penitentiary at Dorchester, but the results were not satisfactory: they were only changed into hardened criminals. During the last term of the Supreme Court a boy of eleven years was found guilty of larceny ; but the judge would not send him to prison: he handed him back to his father, taking a bond for his appearance, should he again transgress. PROVINCE OF QUEBEC. FRANCIS H. McLEAN, MONTREAL, CORRESPONDING SECRETARY. As this is the first provincial report from Quebec, the Committee on Reports has requested a general statement of conditions rather than a simple account of the advances made in the field of charities and correction during the twelve months just ending. Nothing but a bird's-eye view of important features is possible within the limits allowed. Amplification must come in later reports. PUBLIC CHARITY. A. THE PROVINCE. 1. Institutions and Maintenance Required by Statute.- Prisons and penitentaries are the only institutions in the domain of charities and correction exclusively maintained and administered by the province of Quebec. Youthful delinquents are maintained in reformatories and industrial schools under private control. The insane are maintained in three asylums at public expense, but under private management. These asylums also have pay patients. With regard to youthful delinquents, a per capita allowance is paid for their maintenance. The same arrangement is made with reference to the insane, excepting that half of the cost must be paid by the municipalities in which the commitments were taken. All the above institutions are subject to inspection by the inspectors of prisons and asylums. 2. Permissive Maintenance. The province may, but is not required by statute to, assume joint responsibility with municipalities in the maintenance of children from six to sixteen years who are orphans or whose parent or parents have been sentenced to prison or are grossly misbehaving themselves, providing there are no relatives or proper guardians to receive the children. The provincial authorities are more and more refusing to assume responsibility under this statute, as will be explained below. 3. General Subsidies.— Subsidies in bulk and without requiring the admission of persons sent by public officers are made to a number of institutions each year. The list includes general hospitals, orphan asylums, shelter for women, etc. These subsidies are very insignificant, however. For 1901 they amounted to $44,570.75, divided among 78 institutions. B. THE MUNICIPALITIES. 1. Maintenance Required by Statute. One-half the per capita cost of maintenance of all the insane committed from each municipality. 2. Permissive Maintenance. Any municipality may entirely support in an institution children from six to sixteen years without parents or whose parents are unable to support them on account of sickness, misfortune, misconduct, etc. This permission is much more inclusive than the one relating to the province. Whether the proceedings are taken under the one statute or the other, they have to be inaugurated by the municipality in either case. If inaugurated under the statute which permits the province to pay one-half the cost, the provincial authorities may after commitment refuse to make the necessary certification. In this case the municipality must shoulder the whole burden. This has often happened, so that the present trend may be said to be in the direction of exclusive local responsibility in the matter of dependent children. It will be noted of course that it is not mandatory for the municipalities to assume the care of a child: they might place the whole burden on private charity. So far, however, there has been no tendency in this direction. PRIVATE CHARITY. Private charity, besides furnishing the management and administration of the insane asylums, the reformatories, and industrial schools above alluded to, fills the rest of the field. It is evident that it has assumed much heavier burdens than in any American The writer has in another place * indicated some of the results of this division of work. It will only be possible here to recapitulate exactly how far adequate indoor relief is provided by private charity. state. 1. There is adequate provision for children and the acutely sick. 2. Inadequate provision for the almshouse population found in every community. There are no almshouses,- either public or private, no places of final refuge for the abjectly miserable or degraded who do not belong among the delinquents. 3. Fair provision for the respectable aged. 4. Inadequate provision for incurables, those suffering from chronic diseases, the blind, the feeble-minded, homeless, convalescents, etc. As a general result, it may be stated that the private institutions suffer from lack of proper classification. ADVANCE IN CHILD-SAVING. Conservative Quebec has not been unaffected by the progressive child-helping movement, though it has nothing, of course, which resembles the Ontario system. The following definite points of advance may be noted: 1. The trials of children must be held in places apart from the usual court-rooms. In practice they are held in chambers, and are entirely private. This regulation was embodied in the penal code in 1892, antedating most of the children's courts established in the United States. 2. Children must be kept in separate rooms in jails and prisons from other offenders while awaiting trial. They are never incarcerated in any part of the Montreal jail, being confined in that city in an industrial school. By Section 525 of the new city charter of Montreal it is provided *Proceedings of Twenty-eighth National Conference of Charities and Correction, pp. 139 et seq. |