CHARITABLE AND PENAL INSTITUTIONS. Ac co•ding to a law of 1000, tho•e is a Board of State Aid and Charities, appointed by the Gov ernor and Senate. This hoard receives all appli cations for State aid and recommends to the Legislature that certain grants should he made, and in what amounts. In 1901 about 95 institu tions and organizations applied for aid, 64 of which were favorably recommended by the board. These included 23 hospitals. of which the State Insane Asylums at Sykesville and at Spring (drove received the largest contributions; 7 re formatories, 3 of which were semi-State institu tions, located at o• near Baltimore, viz.: House of Refuge, for boys: Saint Mary's Industrial School, for boys; and the Female 1-louse of Ref uge; 6 orphan asylums and 12 'homes' for the friendless, infants, etc., including the Maryland Line Confederate Soldiers' Dome near Pikesville, the buildings of which are owned by the State; and a number of schools, including the State asylums, the training school for feeble-minded children near Owings Mills, the State School for the Deaf and Dumb at Frederick, and the semi State institutions at Baltimore. namely. School
for the Blind, and School for Colored Blind and Deaf. The two last-named institutions do not receive aid front Baltimore, but most of the State-aided institutions are endowed and receive local aid also. The endowed .Tohns Hopkins Hos pital at Baltimore is probably the most widely known institution of the kind in the United States. The Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital for Mental and Nervous Diseases, located near Baltimore, is also worthy of note. The State penitentiary is in Baltimore. The convicts are generally employed under contract, the majority of them being engaged in the manufacture of boots and shoes. Prisoners confined in jails do nut, as a rule, have employment. About half the prison population are negroes.