OCR Text |
Show On the first of January, 1875, there were iu all the prisons of Mas-Bachusetta Mas-Bachusetta 4,400 persons under confinement; con-finement; this ia exclusive of those in the station-houses and guard-houses. At the close of tho war, a little less than ten years ago, tbo inmates ol these Bame prisons numbered less than 2,000. In this period, therefore, there-fore, while the population has increased in-creased ODly So per cent, crime has doubled. Th.e state board of charities and crime takes strong ground against public soup-houses and public alms-giving of any kind, aa tending to destroy independence and increase pauperism, and complain that indiscriminate indis-criminate charity during the winter months has brought to the city a large floating population from other places, which continued to live in 1 idleness on the principle that the world owed it a livine. |