The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1871-01-20

THE BOARD OF PUBLIC CHARITIES.
WHEN the Board of Public Charities was
created in this State, and o number of very
respectable citizens we're appointed as its
members, there seemed fair ground for
hoping that wise supervision would be exer-
cised over all our public charities, and that
the Legislature would receive from time to
time valuable information in regard to their
management and the best methods of appor-
tioning State aid. From the report recently
submitted by the President of the Board,
however, it appears that these
hopes have proved fallacious. General
Thomas L. Kane, who is always thoroughly
in earnest in any task he undertakes, asserts
that the board over which he presides Shave
rendered no service of respectable import
ance or value to the State, and that they have
left wholly unperformed duties which the
public confidently looked to them to execute"
He also declares that ''they have not made
thorough investigation, followed by out
spoken reports, into the condition of any
poor-house, prison, or asylum in which
abuses were alleged to exist calling for atten-
ton, and boldly charging that the board has
failed to accomplish the objects for which it
was created, he recommends that the act
creating it be repealed
This is plain talk, and while we do not
understand the circumstances which have
occasioned it, we suspect that General Kanes
views of his duties have differed materially
from those of his colleagues. He is a
thorough humanitarian, keenly anxious to
relieve the necessities or assuage the suffer-
n of I1nf ata fall hair 10
not doubt that in any public position which
opened up opportunities for achieving such
great ends he would desire to work with
untiring zeal and self-sacrifcing energy. If
the people of the State really
want to know something of the
inside workings of the institutions
they are called upon, year after year, to sus-
tain, General Kane is one of the few men
who has sufficient vigilance to detect and
nerve to tell the plain unvarnished truth. AS
matters have been managed heretofore, State
aid has often been very injudiciously distri-
buted, and institutions of the utmost import
ance have received no financial assistance
whatever at times when large sums were
granted to comparatively undeserving appli-
cants. Favoritism, importantly, and know
leuB6 Ol inc BTSdt ulOuSIu OL knowing
how to manage Legislature, instead of true
merit and utility, have been control
ling influences in the arrange
ment of appropriation bills. And
meanwhile a series of abuses to paupers,
prisoners, insane persons, and various reci-
pients of the public bounty have been tole-
rated which are a disgrace to civilization
and a reproach upon Christianity. Money is
wasted in some quarters; much misery is
caused by the want of it in others and the
absence of systematic organization has at
once fearfully increased the volume of human
suffering, while the means which might have
lessened it were being wasted
General Kane, we presume, feels and
keenly realizes these facts, and as he has
virtually thrown down the gauntlet to his
associates by his late report, there is pros
pect that the people will learn some import