Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-01-09
AFTER AGENT0 'BRIEN
The State Board of Charities Making
an Investigation.
ACASE AT THE CITY POOR FARM
Which is Charged to be the Result of Very
Gross Negligence.
WANT CHILDREN BETTER CARED FOR

The State Board of Charities is finding
fault with the Humane Society's methods,
and has complained to Secretary Davis, of
the latter, concerning the agents course.
One young woman was taken out of the So
ciety's charge yesterday Tor rather from the
City Poor Farm, where Agent 0'Brien had
placed herr by members of the State Board
of Charities.
These members claim that sufficient care
is not taken in the placing of children by
the Humane Society, and point to the young
woman taken from the City Poor Farm yes
terday as an awful example of carelessness
or neglect on the part of Agent O'Brien.
About ten months ago a young woman,
who is now II, was left an orphan by the
death of her mother. She went to live with
her brother, but he either would not or
could not keep her, and she went to work
for a woman on Perrysville avenue, Allie
gheny. The sons of the house are alleged
to have come home drunk and abused her,
and at last she appealed to the Humane
Society.
Agent O'Brien placed the girl in the
temporary home on Penn avenue for a short
time, and then sent her to live with the
wife of a saloon keeper in Allegheny.
While there the girl suffered a downfall at
the hands of a boarder, a plumber by trade.
The girl SAYS that when the lady of the
house learned of her condition she told her
to keep quiet about the matter and pro-
cured medicine for her. 1t failed of its
effect, however.
WHERE HE SENT HER.
Then the Humane Agent was called in,
and he sent the girl, who was the victim of
an awful malady, to the City Farm. She
is now about well.
The case was brought to the attention of
the State Board of Charities, two of whom
visited the girl yesterday at the City Farm
and heard her story.
Last night they called on Secretary
Davidson and inquired if the Humane So
ciety W g aware of the fact that its agent
had placed any unprotected children in
saloon boarding houses. The committee
then requested that a more careful over
sight be maintained over children. so that
they might not be placed where both health
and morals are ruined.
1t is charged by the girl in the case men,
toned hat the agent made no effort to
punish the young man whom she charges
with her downfall. The State Board of
Charities, or rather the committee acting in
the case, say that they are carefully investi-
eating the matter and that they will place
the responsibility where it belongs.
AN OFFICIAL QUERY.
A member of the State Board of Chart
ties handed the following TO a DISPATCH
reporter last night:
The people of our city had better look a little
more carefully into details of the benevolences
for which they pay their money and in which
they place confidence. We hear that an agent
o. such a society when called upon to protect a
young girl from the abuse of the family in
which she was living, placed her in a saloon
boarding house, where her health and morals
were ruined. Under kind and skillfui medical
treatment at the Plttsburg City Farm she is
now restored.
Query: Are d~esolate, unprotected children
to be consigned to the tender mercies of saloon
boarding houses?
Query: Are there not suitable men to be OBJ
tanned for these positions of trust, where the
lives and morals of the young may be preserved
or imperiled ?