Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/174

162 The expenditures for the same period were $102,570.64, of which $33,613.56 was for salaries and wages. This is a private institution exempt from city or State control, subject to no governmental supervision except examination by the State Board of Charities, yet ninety per cent of its income is public money, and almost one third of the cost of maintenance is charged to salaries and wages. These two cases are mentioned not in criticism of the work or methods of the institutions, but as representing a fair average of the salary account of all the larger private charitable societies. They also fairly represent the two extremes in the source of their income, one receiving ninety per cent of public money, the other a little more than thirty per cent.

Recent investigations conducted by the city comptroller and supplemented by the agents of the State Board of Charities disclose abuses in the expenditure of public money by certain small societies so flagrant that the appropriations for the current year have been withheld. In these cases the salary account was always the chief expenditure, but it was also discovered that whatever relief got beyond the headquarters of the societies went to professional beggars, who had no difficulty in deceiving the persons in charge. It was found that persons in good health had lived comfortably for months, perhaps for years, on public charity dispensed through private organizations. These professional beggars would obtain food at one place, clothing at another, coal at a third, small sums of money from all three perhaps, then reverse the order of application or appeal to newer organizations if detection threatened. Relief was extended in many instances with little or no effort on the part of the societies to ascertain the merits of a case or the honesty of an applicant.

One small society was found to have expended practically all of the money received from the city in the payment of the living expenses of the person who had the entire management of the organization. The charitable work of a year consisted in the distribution of a small quantity of cast-off clothing and a few bushels of potatoes. The reports of the society contained the names of directors who had never served and knew nothing of the true condition of the organization. They had merely consented that their names might be used as a guarantee of reliability and to aid in the work of soliciting contributions.

One case has been found where a mother and daughter lived comfortably by selling coal given to them by charitable societies. One private institution, now abolished, boarded committed children and received two dollars a week from the city for each child. The children were fed on fish and potatoes at a cost of forty-four cents each per week. After these facts were discovered the city authorities