Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 55.djvu/773

Rh to the Legislature were usually passed without amendment or modification, and gross inequalities in disbursing public funds have arisen, different institutions receiving different rates of payment for the same class of work.

In 1890 the city paid for the support of prisoners and paupers in city institutions the sum of $1,949,100, and for paupers in private institutions the sum of $1,845,872. In 1898 these figures had increased to $2,334,456 for prisoners and public paupers, and $3,131,580 for paupers in private institutions. Private charity, so called, has prospered at the expense of the city until in some cases it has become a matter of business for profit rather than relief of the needy. The returns made by institutions receiving appropriations in bulk from the city treasury show that many of them are using the public funds for purposes not authorized by the Constitution. The Constitution authorizes payments to be made for "care, support, and maintenance." The reports of a large number of institutions show the money annually obtained from the city carried forward wholly or in part as a surplus. Different uses are made of this surplus, none of them, however, authorized by law or warranted by a proper regard for the interests of the taxpayers. In some cases this surplus is used to pay off mortgage indebtedness, in others for permanent additions to buildings, or for increase of investments and endowment. In one case the manager of an institution frankly explained a remarkable falling off in disbursements (so great that its charitable activities were almost suspended) by stating that it was proposed, by exercising great economy for a number of years, to let the city's annual appropriations accumulate into a respectable building fund. The flagrant nature of this abuse is so apparent that comment is unnecessary.

Appropriations for dependent children have reached enormous proportions. Out of a total of $3,249,623.81 appropriated for private charities in 1899, no less than $2,216,773, or sixty-nine per cent, is for the care and support of children. In no city in the United States will the number of children supported at the public expense compare, in proportion to the population, with the number so cared for in the city of New York. This may be partly accounted for by the extremes of poverty to be met with in the metropolis, especially among the foreign-born population, where the struggle for existence is so severe as to weaken the family ties; partly by the rivalry and competition which have existed between the several institutions devoted to this kind of work; partly by reason of the fact that the rate paid by the city for the care of these children is such as to enable the larger institutions, in all probability, to make a small profit; but, to a considerable extent,