In 1916 there were 21 charitable institutions under the management and control of the Board of Administration. They included the State hospitals or asylums for the insane at Chicago, Kankakee, Elgin, Moline, Jacksonville, Alton and Anna; the hospital for the criminal insane at Chester; the school and colony for the feeble-minded at Lincoln; the epileptic col ony at Dixon; the Psychopathic Institute with clinical laboratory at the Kankakee State pital; the Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Quincy; the Soldiers' Orphans' Home at Nor mal; the Soldiers' Widows' Home at Wilming ton; the School for the Blind and the School for the Deaf at Jacksonville; the Training School for Girls at Geneva; the School for Boys at Saint Charles; and the Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary and the Industrial Home for the Blind at Chicago. Twenty-one thou sand people were housed in these institutions, and 75,000 additional people received treatment annually at the Charitable Eye and Ear Infirm ary in Chicago. Farms are operated in con nection with most of the institutions, and over 1,500 head of cattle are maintained on the in stitution farms. Kindness is practised towards the inmates, and the 3,500 employees are well treated. The latter have an eight hour day, and one day's rest out of seven. The cost of maintenance is about $5,500,000 yearly.
Penal The Illinois State Re formatory, located at Pontiac, has excellent buildings and appointments for the care of its inmates. Under the law no one can be ad mitted who has reached the age of 21 at the time of the commission of the offense for which he is sentenced. Trade schools and a farm ate provided for and every effort practicable is made to reform the inmates. The Illinois State penitentiary is located at Joliet and the ,South ern Illinois penitentiary at Chester. The State legislature appropriated $2,803,014 for the State penal and reformatory institutions for the biennium beginning 1 July 1917. The latest statistics at hand show that on 1 Jan. 1910 Illinois had 5,111 sentenced prisoners in penal institutions or 90.6 per 100,000 of population. Of this number, 3,000 were supposedly native white, 1,197 foreign born white, 911 negro, and three other colored persons. During that year 27,942 were committed to prison, or 495.5 per 100,000 population.
Corporations.-- The first corporation was the Bank of Illinois, located at Shawneetown and chartered 28 Dec. 1816. Within the 100 years since that time, over 93,000 corporations have been created. Between the adoption of the Constitution of 1818 and that of 1848, about 2,700 corporations were created by special acts. On 16 Dec. 1824 the first statute in the nature
of a general act was approved. Manufacturing companies could be created by filing articles of incorporation with the secre tary of state at a cost of 75 cents. This statute, however, remained a dead letter. The Constitution of 1848 authorized the creation of corporations by general law, and prohibited their creation by special act, except for munic ipal purposes and in cases where the general assembly thought that the objects of the cor poration could not be obtained under general laws. Corporations, nevertheless, were still created by special acts, and the double system lasted till 1870. Then, because of the numerous evils arising under the system, the new Con stitution prohibited the legislature from creat ing corporations by special act except for chari table, educational, penal or reformatory pur poses, and these corporations were to remain under the control of the State. The first cor poration created under a general law was the Illinois and Mississippi Telegraph Company, whose articles were filed 2 May 1849. From that time until 1 July 1872, when the present general incorporation act went into effect, 2,200 corporations filed articles in the office of the Secretary of State. This was an average .of less than 100 corporations a year. The average now is about 3,300 per year. On 1 May 1916, the total number of corporations licensed to do business at one time or other in the State was 93,908. Not over 5,000 of these were created in the first half century of the State's history, and only 30380 were chartered in the first 75 years. In the last 25 years about 60,000 cor porations have been registered. The greatest increase took place in the decade from 1882 to 1892, which showed a gain of nearly 300 per cent over the previous 10 years. The increase is now comparatively uniform, each decade showing a gain of about 25 per cent. In 1915, domestic corporations paid fees amounting to $222,756.16 and foreign corporations paid 314.90. The law requires corporations organ ized for profit to make a yearly report, and in Feb. 1915, 15,900 Illinois corporations and 2,280 foreign corporations reported to the secretary of state, making an apparent total of 18,180 corporations doing business then. These figures, however, do not include banks, home building and loan associations, which re port to the auditor of public accounts, and insurance companies, which report to the superintendent of insurance. Moreover, annual reports are not required from railroads. For these reasons, it seems fair to assume that about 30,000 corporations are now active in the State.