REPORT OF THE STATE VISITING AGENT. REPORT OF THE STATE VISITING AGENT. VISITING AGENCY, BOARD STATE CHARITIES, STATE HOUSE, BOSTON. To the Board of State Charities. GENTLEMEN :-I herewith present a report of the work of this Agency for the year ending September 30, 1871. The purposes of the Agency have been shown in former reports, by the publication of the law which gives it existence. It is only necessary now to remark, for the information of strangers to whom its title will convey no definite meaning, that it has to do with the dependent and vicious children who have come under the care or control of the State, or who are candidates before the courts for its guardianship. The business of the office filled the year with activity; each day brought work to be done in it besides that belonging to every day. The duties of law had application to over four thousand children in dependence or duress. Those applications were individual, not en masse. The service on account of these children was large. The surveillance of them was supplemented by the personal importunities of their relatives and friends, to whom the attentive ear was turned as a deference due, and lest, perchance, injustice to the subjects of solicitation might have come with the goodly intent of charity and reform. The various duties of the office were animated with two purposes: benefit to the children, and protection to the communities and the State, immediate and future. In character the work was the same as in previous years. By legislation one provision of the law was extended and another made complete, viz.: by including within the terms of DIVISION OF WORK. the law children seventeen years of age, instead of limiting them to those under sixteen years, as before; and by provid-· ing for the subsequent commitment to State institutions of those children placed in the custody of the Board of State Charities who proved unmanageable. An Act of the legislature of 1871, chapter 370, provided for semi-annual returns from the cities and towns of the Commonwealth to the Visiting Agent, concerning all children supported in almshouses or elsewhere by them, and applied to such children the provisions of sections two, three and four of the Visiting Agency Act. Another enactment of the legislature, chapter 310, Acts 1871, made the adoption of children dependent upon the consent of the Visiting Agent, in the absence of parents and guardians. The amendatory Act which brought within the cognizance of the Agency children under seventeen years of age, and the new Acts referred to, added to the business of the office. The Agency has not escaped criticism during the year. To some it has appeared in holiday garb; to some it has seemed unnecessary; and some have charged that its operations are cumbersome, hindering the process of justice. Although we do not present the law for observation as a perfect one, nor commend the administration of the agency as faultless, we expect in these pages to show that the law is better in its purposes and results than any former one of its class; that its operations are simple, comprehensive and satisfactory; that they have the practical character of real work, and that its accomplishments exhibit efficiency, economy and benefit to individuals, communities and the State. Attention is invited to the following divisions of the work: BUSINESS AT THE COURTS. VISITATION OF CHILDREN PLACED OUT. INVESTIGATIONS PRECEDENT TO THE RELEASE OF CHILDREN. SEEKING OUT SUITABLE PERSONS TO TAKE CHILDREN. CHILDREN SUPPORTED BY CITIES AND TOWNS. CHILDREN ADOPTED; and to the SUMMARIES AND GENERAL REMARKS. |