of city funds for the improvement was proper. Re United States (1884) 67 How. Pr. 121, citing Re Townsend (1868) 39 N. Y. 171, sustaining an act for the construction of a canal in Pennsylvania. Volunteer firemen.-"Volunteer fire companies are recognized as discharging a municipal function, and it is a legitimate use of municipal funds to pay such organizations, the same as it is to pay for fire protection afforded by a paid department." People ex rel. Richmond Hook & Ladder Co. No. 4 v. Grout (1903) 79 App. Div. 61, 79 N. Y. Supp. 1027. Water district.-Water districts created under the act of 1900, chap. 451, “remain integral parts of the town," and the provision prohibiting the legislature from authorizing a town to incur indebtedness for any except town purposes does not prevent the town from incurring indebtedness for the purpose of establishing and maintaining such a water district. "A town may incur indebtedness for any local improvement that may be for the general welfare, although the direct benefits therefrom accrue more particularly to the residents of a designated district within the town; [and it is not] a diversion of the money or property of the town for it to become primarily liable for the expense of such a local improvement, although payment of the expense is ultimately to be made by the residents of a particular district within the town." Holroyd v. Indian Lake (1903) 40 Misc. 75, 77, 81 N. Y. Supp. 268, Spencer, J. Water supply-The supply of water for a city is a city purpose, and municipal bonds may constitutionally be authorized and issued for that purpose. Re Comstock (1889) 25 N. Y. S. R. 612, 5 N. Y. Supp. 874. § 11. [State board of charities; lunacy and prison commissions.]—The legislature shall provide for a state board of charities, which shall visit and inspect all institutions, whether state, county, municipal, incorporated or not incorporated, which are of a charitable, eleemosynary, correctional, or reformatory character, excepting only such institutions as are hereby made subject to the visitation and inspection of either of the commissions hereinafter mentioned, but including all reformatories except those in which adult males convicted of felony shall be confined; a state commission in lunacy, which shall visit and inspect all institutions, either public or private, used for the care and treatment of the insane (not including institutions for epileptics or idiots); a state commission of prisons, which shall visit and inspect all institutions used for the detention of sane adults charged with or convicted of crime, or detained as witnesses or debtors. [New.] The Convention of 1867 gave the subject of charities serious consideration, and I have already recounted the efforts made in that body to establish a constitutional policy of supervision of charitable institutions. The subject developed rapidly during the next few years, and the Convention of 1894 was therefore able to formulate a policy which should provide adequate supervision of these institutions, and at the same time protect the state and local communities from unwise appropriations. As often happens in such cases, the original propositions were materially modified. The final result appears in the last five sections of this article. The importance of the subject is manifest from the large number of judicial decisions which have been rendered during the ten years since the charity provisions were adopted. The New York Institution for the Blind is an educational and also a charitable institution, and falls within the provisions of the Constitution and statutes relating to charitable institutions. It is not necessary that the institution be wholly charitable; "it need only be an institution which is wholly or partly charitable in its character and purpose." The jurisdiction of the state board of charities over such an institution is not affected by the fact that it is also subject to supervision by school authorities. People ex rel. New York Inst. for Blind v. Fitch (1897) 154 N. Y. 14, 38 L. R. A. 591, 47 N. E. 983. Considering the status of the New York Society for the Preven tion of Cruelty to Children, as affected by the constitutional provision relating to charitable institutions, the court, in People ex rel. State Charities v. New York Soc. for Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1900) 161 N. Y. 233, 55 N. E. 1063, say that "a corporation cannot be classified by what its friends or promoters may say about it, but only from the nature of the powers which it may lawfully exercise and the business in which it is lawfully engaged. It is manifest, therefore, that in any inquiry concerning the nature, character, or classification of any particular corporation, the only safe guide is the charter or law of its creation, prescribing the powers that it may exercise, and defining the nature of the business or the duties for which it was created." Referring to the suggestion that "this corporation, in order to promote the objects of its incorporation, has been given legal capacity to take and administer gifts and bequests that would be called charitable under the statute of Elizabeth, and under general rules of law applicable to trusts," the court say that "colleges, academies, and nearly all institutions of learning or of a literary character, and even cities, villages, and other municipal corporations, may take and administer such gifts, but that fact cannot in the least affect their true character, or convert them into charitable institutions. . . . The charitable institutions referred to in the Constitution and the statute are those that have long been known and recognized as such by legislators and other officers engaged in the administration of the state government." The present Constitution added nothing to the powers of the state board of charities, "except the right to make rules for the government of such institutions as were subject to visitation. . . The scheme of state supervision was not intended to apply to every institution engaged in some good or commendable work for the relief of humanity from some of the various ills with which it is afflicted, but only to those maintained in whole or in part by the state or some of its political divisions, through which charity, as such, was dispensed by public authority to those having a claim upon the generosity or bounty of the state. It will apply to all institutions, public or private, that give public pecuniary relief in that form commonly called charity when we refer to the administration of government, and it will exclude only those institutions that ask nothing in the form of charity from the state, though they may be engaged in some good work in their own way that might be called charitable in the sense that it is unselfish and voluntarily assumed. . . . The charity with which the state is concerned consists in the distribution of relief or public aid, the fruit of taxation, levied alike upon the willing and the unwilling. The right of visitation and regulation applies only to those institutions, public or private, through which the state fulfils this function. . . If the particular institution, whether public or private, receives public money for use or distribution as charity, and not for some other reason or some other purpose, that institution is subject to visitation by the board; but this system of state supervision does not extend to the efforts of private benevolence. That may flow in various channels not subject to state regulation, since the government is in no way concerned with it." The sum received by this society from the city of New York was not paid or received as a charitable contribution, but for the enforcement of the criminal law relating to cruelty to children. The society was held not to be subject to visitation by the state board of charities. On a motion for reargument ([1900] 162 N. Y. 429, 56 N. E. 1004) the court reiterates in substance the views expressed in the original decision. After observing that it is "somewhat remarkable that in all the discussion upon the only question in the case the counsel have not attempted to furnish a definition of a charitable institution," the court say that such an institution "must be one that, in some form or to some extent, receives public money for the support and maintenance of indigent persons: By public money is meant money raised by taxation, not only in the state at large, but in any city, county, or town. The adoption of this principle will permit the board to visit, inspect, and regulate every institution in the state, public or private, where children or adults are supported or maintained, in whole or in part, by the use of public money, and every institution, public or private, where children or adults are sent or detained for support or maintenance in pursuance of any law." § 12. [Commissioners, how appointed.]—The members of the said board and of the said commissions shall be appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the senate; and any member may be removed from office by the governor for cause, an opportunity having been given him to be heard in his defense. [New.] See note to § II. § 13. [Existing laws continued.]-Existing laws relating to institutions referred to in the foregoing sections, and to their supervision and inspection, in so far as such laws are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution, shall remain in force until amended or repealed by the legislature. The visitation and inspection herein provided for shall not be exclusive of other visitation and inspection now authorized by law. [New.] § 14. [Maintenance of defectives and delinquents, institutions and inmates.]—Nothing in this Constitution contained shall prevent the legislature from making such provision for the education and support of the blind, the deaf and dumb, and juvenile delinquents, as to it may seem proper; or prevent any county, city, town, or village from providing for the care, support, maintenance, and secular education of inmates of orphan asylums, homes for dependent children, or correctional institutions, whether under public or private control. Payments by counties, cities, towns, and villages to charitable, eleemosynary, correctional, and reformatory institutions, wholly or partly under private control, for care, support, and maintenance, may be authorized, but shall not be required, by the legislature. No such payments shall be made for any inmate of such institutions who is not received and retained therein pursuant to rules established by the state board of charities. Such rules shall be subject to the control of the legislature by general laws. [New.] In People ex rel. Wayside Home v. Kings County (1895) 12 Misc. 187, 33 N. Y. Supp. 602, Justice Bartlett expressed the opinion that "after January 1, 1895, payments by municipalities for the support of the inmates of charitable and reformatory institutions, |