aged and infirm man, broken down by hardship.

The old man

and his family worked in a sweatshop in lower New York and led a wretched existence. Moses was sent West by means of Mr. W. W. Astor's contribution in 1893, and was apprenticed to a village baker. He has changed his name to M, and being in a family of good Catholics, of his own free will has not only joined that church but is altar boy and acolyte.

from

The accompanying cut is of the home of Agnes J the Nursery and Child's Hospital. Agnes is doing fairly well, although she had to be replaced once.

Of the other fifteen children in this neighborhood, all are doing well excepting one girl, who did poorly, and was brought back to New York in 1896. The others, of whom five are girls, have excellent homes and are well cared for. One, F▬▬ Hsent out by St. George's Church, has a splendid home. She will probably be a leader in social life. Another girl, Eva D——, from the New York Infant Asylum, and sent out by Mr. Morey, pleased me greatly. She is a kind-hearted girl, and I believe will make a noble woman.

,

This is the last name on my note-book. To make the review of our work valuable I have included in the above list every child placed in the particular communities mentioned, whether the child has done well or ill. Thus a correct review of our work

may be obtained. The list includes one hundred and fifty-one children of all ages, and is characteristic of our work at large. A list of five thousand of our children would show about the same results. Of the one hundred and fifty-one children, of whom thirty-five are girls, one hundred and thirty-five are doing well— some of them remarkably well--but all doing as well as other children native to the soil. None of them has committed an actual crime; two were sent to a Reform School for mischief and one to an institution; three have run away and cannot be traced,

and five have been brought back to New York as unsuitable; four have died and one is not strong mentally and may have to be sent to an institution. Ninety per cent. are doing well and are becoming good citizens. Three per cent. have died, three per cent. have been brought back to New York, two per cent. have been sent to institutions and two per cent. have been lost track of, these latter being older boys who ran away.

What would have become of these children if they had remained in New York or in institutions?

While the Children's Aid Society is the agent-the middleman, as it were-it is the warm-hearted people of the West who must be thanked for doing this work of benevolence. It is true they receive a material reward in the cheerful companionship and helpfulness which these children bring to a lonely farmhouse; nor does an extra mouth cost a farmer anything. But it is the patient devotion of these people to children whose habits are at first so often bad that, in the end, brings about the good results. Let us be grateful to the western people for helping us of New York in our great problem of over-crowding, and let us hope that theorists, misunderstanding the needs of our great country, may not interfere with this best of all help to dependent children by restrictive legislation.

CONCLUSION.

Since 1885, the year the party of children was sent West to B—, Nebraska, improvements have been made in the system of placing children in homes by the Society. For ten years past the visiting agents have not permitted our children to be sent to Reform Schools in the West. Mischievous children, or children unsuitable for any reason, are brought back to New York and sent to the institutions here. The agents of the Society are required to visit the children in their homes immediately after

they are placed in order to be sure that conditions are proper in every respect, and are required also to visit the child within six months or a year to see that the child is being well cared for or to remove it if the foster parents request it. Frequently several visits are made within the first year, and I have in mind the case of a little girl who was so unruly that she had to be removed and replaced in another home four times within a year. She is now with excellent people, who have discovered how to manage her, and our visiting agent reports that "the little girl is now considered to be quite a little angel."

After the first year some discretion is used by the agents in visiting the children, as it is a waste of time and money to visit children who are unquestionably in good homes and doing well. However, as a rule, we aim to visit our children annually, besides keeping in communication with the foster parents and the children by letter. To this end, Mr. L. W. Holste, well known for his deep interest in unfortunate children, has been engaged to devote his entire time to this correspondence with our children.

At the present time we have three placing agents who are also visiting agents, Mr. Tice, Mr. Trott and Mr. R. N. Brace; two visiting agents, Mr. Fry and Mr. Schlegel, and several resident western agents, Mr. Frederick King, attorney, Tecumseh, Oklahoma; Mr. W. J. McCully, farmer, Clay Centre, Kansas; Rev. J. W. Swan, Wahoo, Nebraska; ex-Mayor Theodore Brigham, Kirksville, Mo., and Mr. W. W. Bugbee, livery stable proprietor, at Eldorado, Kansas. All these gentlemen are employed temporarily as their services are needed-that is to say, they travel to any point to which they may be called to visit or remove children as the necessity arises. Beside these paid resident agents, in each town is a local Committee of leading business men who have agreed to look out for the interests of the