to expense and time. We say the poor ought to live in the country. Mr. Chairman, the country is a desert to the ordinary workingman and his family. It is my pleasure to live on the East Side, not in a tenement-house, but on a street through which flows a stream of working people from seven o'clock, or earlier in the morning until eight or eight-thirty. These people could not live in the suburbs and reach their places of work at the hour they are obliged to be there, without losing a part of their much needed rest; an hour or a half-hour in the morning means much for them throughout the day. The same is true of their getting home again. But this is not all; when carfare for three or four members is added to the reduced rent, has the family saved much?

One word about sanitary inspection. A word of experience may not be amiss, although it is familiar to some of you. A few years ago the East Side Relief Work Committee made an investigation of tenement-houses and employed several hundred men with the money furnished by the committee of which Mrs. Lowell was chairman. Although there are stated inspections made, according to existing rules, by the Health Board inspectors, we found and removed four thousand barrels of refuse in the cellars inspected by our men on the East Side and then whitewashed the cellars. Forty barrels were found in the cellar of one double house, including a large pile of sauerkraut, and not new sauerkraut either. Not infrequently, I am called upon as a clergyman to perform the burial service in this house and similar ones, and I speak sincerely, as clergymen should, of Divine Providence, but I often think of the sauerkraut, and wonder for how much responsibility for such. cellars Divine Providence will hold me accountable.

When New York has a County Council, similar to London's County Council, the workingmen will realize some of the blessings which have come to their brethren in London. If it be wise and necessary to have hospitals and almshouses and lodging-houses for a certain class of the population, and to have criminal courts

and penitentiaries and prisons for others of our population, and small parks and playgrounds for others still, and these are both necessary and wise expenditures, is it not possible to have municipal dwellings on something of the same plan that has been found to work so well in Bethnal Green and other crowded sections of London? The County Council took what it termed a slum district near Bethnal Green and condemned all the property-fifteen acres in one section. The rookeries and the houses not so bad were all torn down and sanitary houses were erected in their place. Is it too much to ask our incoming municipal administration to give this question its earnest consideration.

Mr. DAVID BLAUSTEIN, Superintendent of the Educational Alliance. I have nothing to add to what has been said here this evening, but I venture to offer a suggestion for the improvement of the conditions of the tenement-house district. One of the greatest evils true it is due to economic and social conditions - but it is nevertheless a fact, that there is hardly a family in a tenement house, no matter how small an apartment it may occupy, which does not have one or two boarders. This I consider to be a source of a great evil. I know of instances where boarders have de stroyed the happiness of families.

Philanthropists should be interested to build hotels like that of Mills, or homes like the Clara de Hirsch Home, for young women who have no relatives or friends in this city. The hotels should have restaurants; for next to the saloon is the evil of the so-called cafés, although there are many cafés on the East Side which are social and literary centers of the people.

As to keeping the tenement houses clean, it is a very delicate matter indeed to enter the homes of the people. Even if the visitor be an inspector vested with authority, it is after all intrusion. We must bear in mind that "dirt is not the cause of poverty, but that poverty is, in many instances, the cause of dirt." If the poor are to be taught the lesson of cleanliness, it should be

by an indirect suggestion. Let us, as citizens, see that the streets are kept clean, and it will serve as an object lesson to the people living in close quarters.

Mr. DEVINE. We would say, in closing this part of the session that the purpose of this section in the Conference is to arouse among the charity workers of the State, and through them indirectly, on the part of the citizens of the different communities, an interest in the subject of improved housing, to implant everywhere the conviction of what is the fact, that there is an intimate relation between character and physical environment, between the' houses in which people live and the domestic life of the families who live in them; and that we are not to overlook that essential and fundamental fact. I turn over the session to the President of the Conference, for closing.

President de Forest announced his appointment of the following committees, in accordance with the resolution previously adopted:

Committee to represent this Conference at the National Conference of Charities and Correction: Hon. Simon W. Rosendale; Prof. George F. Canfield; Rev. D. J. McMahon, D. D.; Mrs. John Davenport and Mr. Frederic Almy.

Committee to represent this Conference at the annual Convention of the County Superintendents of the Poor: Hon. John W. Keller; Mr. Homer Folks; Mr. B. M. Child; Dr. Lee K. Frankel and Rev. William J. White, D. D.

At 10.40 P. M., the President declared the Second Conference of Charities and Correction of the State of New York closed.

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CONSTITUTION AND BY-LAWS OF THE NEW YORK STATE CONFERENCE OF CHARITIES AND CORRECTION.

CONSTITUTION.

The objects of the New York State Conference of Charities and Correction are to afford an opportunity for those engaged in charitable and reform work to confer respecting their methods, principles of administration, and results accomplished; to diffuse reliable information respecting charitable and correctional work, and encourage coöperation in humanitarian efforts, with the aim of further improving the system of charity and correction in the State of New York. With this end in view, the Conference will hold an annual meeting in the State of New York, at a time and place to be agreed upon at the preceding annual session, at which addresses shall be made, papers read, discussions carried on, and general business transacted in accordance with the by-laws of the Conference.

The Conference shall not, however, formulate any platform nor adopt resolutions or memorials having a like effect.

BY-LAWS.
I.

MEMBERSHIP OF THE CONFERENCE.

All who have an active interest in the public or the private charitable or correctional work in New York State are invited to enroll themselves as members of the Conference. No other tests of membership shall be applied, and no membership fee charged, the expenses of the Conference being met by voluntary contributions.

II.

OFFICERS OF THE CONFERENCE.

The Conference shall have the following officers, to be elected at the preceding annual session, with the duties herein respectively assigned to them:

1. A President, who shall preside over the sessions of the Conference, except when the chairman of a Committee on Topics has charge of the meeting, or some other officer is temporarily called to the chair.

The President shall also be a member of the Executive Committee, and the Chairman ex-officio thereof, and shall continue to be a member of the said Committee when his term as President has expired.

He shall have supervision of the work of the other officers and of the various Committees in preparing for the sessions of the Conference, and shall have authority to accept resignations and to fill vacancies in the Committees on Topics of the Conference. The President, with the assistance of the Secretary, shall also supervise the editing of the proceedings of the Conference.

2. Three Vice-Presidents, who shall, at the request of the President, assist him in the discharge of his duties, and in case of his inability to serve, shall succeed him in the order in which they are named.

3. A Secretary, who shall be ex-officio Secretary of the Executive Committee, and who shall keep the records, conduct the correspondence and distribute the papers and documents of the Conference, under the direction of the Executive Committee. He shall assist the President in editing the proceedings of the Conference, and direct the work of the Assistant Secretaries.

4. Three Assistant Secretaries, who shall assist the Secretary of the Conference, at his request, and work under his direction. 5. A Treasurer, who shall receive all moneys of the Conference, and disburse the same upon vouchers duly certified by the Secretary, and audited by the Chairman of the Executive Committee.

III.

COMMITTEES OF THE CONFERENCE.

The Conference shall have the following Committees, with the duties herein respectively assigned to them: