Charitable and Penal Institutions.— The State institutions dealing with the defective classes include hospitals for the insane at Wor cester, Taunton, Northampton, Danvers, West borough, Medfield, Monson, Boston, Foxbor ough and Grafton; a State colony at Gardner, the Massachusetts School for Feeble-Minded at Waltham and the State school at Wrentham. These institutions are under the general super vision of the State Board of Insanity and di rectly controlled in each case by a board of seven trustees, of whom five must be men and two women, one to be appointed annually by the governor and council, the place of the senior member being vacated each year.
General remedial instil lions include a State hospital at Pondville for inebriates and victims of drug habits, seven trustees; the hos pital cottages for children at Baldwinsville, with five trustees; the Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary at Boston, two trustees on behalf of the State; the Massachusetts Gen eral Hospital, four trustees on behalf of the State; the Massachusetts Homoeopathic Hospital at Boston, five trustees on behalf of the State; the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital at Boston, two trustees on behalf of the State. There are several sanitariums for consumptives under a State board of seven trustees. All the State trustees are appointed for fixed terms by the governor. The Perkins Institution and Massa chusetts School for the Blind at Watertown has four trustees on behalf of the State, sim ilarly appointed; and the Soldiers' Home at Chelsea, three. There are special educational institutions for the deaf in which the State is interested and to which educable children of this class may be sent, in accordance with the policy of the Commonwealth which makes schooling free for all its children even when physical defects of this nature forbid their at tendance upon the public day school. These comprise the American School for the Deaf at Hartford, Conn.; the Clarke School for the Deaf, Northampton; the Horace Mann School for the Deaf, Boston; the Sarah Fuller Home for Little Deaf Children, Medford; the New England Industrial School for Deaf Mutes, Beverly, and the Boston School for the Deaf. The Massachusetts Hospital School at Canton provides for the care and education of crippled and deformed children. The penal and reforma tory institutions include the Lyman School for Boys at Westborough; the State Industrial School for Girls at Lancaster, and an Industrial School for Boys at Shirley, all controlled by the trustees of training schools, appointed by the governor; the State Prison at Boston (Charlestown district); the Massachusetts Re formatory at Concord; the Reformatory Prison for Women at Sherborn, and a prison camp and hospital at Rutland, all under the general supervision of the State director of prisons.
The State institutions for paupers include the State Infirmary at Tewksbury and the State Farm at Bridgewater.
The local poor, having settlements under the law in the cities and towns. arc cared for in local almshouses maintained by the munici palities. There are jails, houses of correction and truant schools in the counties. The chari table institutions established and maintained by religious bodies or other private agencies are widely distributed; and, especially, hospitals for the treatment of accidents and disease, and homes for the aged have, in recent years, been numerously established throughout the Com monwealth.
By the latest returns covering the year end ing April 1918, the total number of persons receiving public charity relief, of all grades (i.e., supported or relieved in institutions, in families or in own homes, but not includ ing vagrants and wayfarers), was 83,562. The paupers in State institutions numbered 10,626, and the city and town poor in local almshouses, 7,451. The total net cost of pauper relief for the year was $5,168,294, or about $1.34 to each inhabitant of the State. For the year ending 1 Feb. 1919 the whole number of insane per sons in the State in care of the State Commis sion on Mental Diseases was 15,231, besides 3,953 other mental defectives, chiefly feeble minded. (See PAUPERISM).
The total prison population 1 March 1919 aggregated 4,031; of whom about one-half were confined in county jails and houses of correction and the rest in the State prisons.
Vital Upon the estimated popu lation of the State, the birth rate per 1,000 of persons living, for the year 1916 the latest for which complete figures are available, was 24.8; the marriage rate 18.2, and the death rate 14.9, the excess of births over deaths per 1,000 of persons living being 9.9. The death rate is slightly higher in the cities than in the towns. The total number of deaths for the year was 56,366, the number under each of the principal classified causes being as follows: From general diseases, 14,111; diseases of the nervous system and organs of special sense, 5,774; of the respiratory system, 7,859, and of the digestive system, 5,071.