Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/790

 774

THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY

Year

No Levy

Under 5 Cents

5 Cents and Over

No. of Town- ships

I8g8..

64

etc

4-3E

014

l80Q. .

CO

607

2C7

OI4

IQOO. .

146

644

226

016

IQOI

IC4

620

240

.014

1902

181

611

223

.015

i go?. .

2T.T.

617

l6<5

OTC

1004..

224

640

144

I 017

1 905..

2bQ

cSj

146

I Ol6

The number of persons aided and its relation to the popula- tion of the state form an equally interesting study. In former years there was no means of collecting such statistics, but the law of 1895 filled that need. As mentioned above, the first set of reports under that law was for 1896 and indicated a total of 71,414 persons aided. Because of their incompleteness, these reports were not satisfactory. The number reported for 1897 was 82,235. This was equal to 3.2 per cent, of the population of the state (2,516,462 by the census of 1900), or one in every thirty-one inhabitants. In 1898 the number was reduced to 75,119, and in 1899 to 64,468. From that year to 1905, inclu- sive, the number helped annually averaged 46,561. In 1905 the number reported as receiving the aid given was 45,331. This was equal to 1.8 per cent, of the population of the state, or one in every fifty-six inhabitants.

The conditions in 1897 and in 1905 are shown graphically in the shaded maps numbered 3 and 4, herewith given. The counties shaded black are those in which the number aided was equal to one in twenty-nine or less inhabitants of the county. Tnirty-eight counties are so shaded in the 1897 map; one. Mont- gomery, in the 1905 map.

In this connection it is fitting to call attention to conditions existing in the county poor asylums in the state in the years under consideration. A census of the inmates for August 31, 1891, gave 3,253 as the number of persons present on that day. This was equal to 14.8 in each 10,000 of the state's population. 21 When the General Assembly of 1899 passed a law restricting the

n Annual Report, Board of State Charities, 1891, p. 128.