Page:U.S. Department of the Interior Annual Report 1871.djvu/29

Rh, already in full operation, and having many of the material appliances required for the successful, moral, and hygienic treatment of their inmates, will take patients from a distance at a rate of board but slightly in excess of the of the current cost of their maintenance, and the suggestion of the board, that an arrangement should be made with the proper authority of one or more such institutions to receive inebriates from the District, under the authority of such an at as Congress may see fit to pass, seems to be the only ready and feasible mode of undertaking the correction of that evil habit, which unquestionably gives rise to a large percentage of the crime and domestic suffering which are fearfully prevalent in this, as in most other large communities. Unless Congress should make a small appropriation for the payment of the board of indigent inebriates, that class might be unable to avail themselves of any legal provision that may be made for their reformation.

It is certainly to be hoped that the moderate cost for which handsome and comfortable additional wards for chronic cases have been erected, furnished, and fitted up during the past year, will be regarded by the State and municipal authorities, upon whom the obligation rests, as affording whatever additional evidence may seem to be required that the expense of properly providing for the chronic indigent does not exceed what they can fairly afford, and, therefore, what they are in duty bound to expend, if it be necessary to effect the humane purpose in view.

On the 30th ultimo there were 104 pupils in the Columbia Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, 43 of whom were received since July 1, 1870. Sixty-four of them were in the collegiate department, representing twenty-thres States and this district, and 119 have received instruction since July 1, 1870, of whom 101 were males. Eight pupils have left the college during the year, and seven have left the primary department, one of whom was removed by death.

In 1867 and 1868, provision was made by Congress for the admission of a limited number of indigent students from the States into the collegiate department free of charge. Twenty-five, the number authorized, were duly admitted, and were pursuing their studies with view to graduation when Congress, in 1870, repealed the laws under which they entered. Had not the directors been able, with funds derived from sources other than the United States Treasury, to continue to support these young men, they would have suffered the evident injustice of being dismissed from an institution to which they had been sent by the Government to be educated before the term of education for which they were entered was completed. Simple justice would seem to demand that Congress should so amend its action as to allow these youths to complete the course of study upon which they entered as beneficiaries of the United States; and, further, it would seem not improper that Congress, having established the only collegiate school for deaf-mutes