figure an even larger amount dispensed by private agencies, and we may
derive some definite sense of the heavy burden of dependency, pauperism
and delinquency upon the normal and healthy sections of the community.

Statistics now available also inform us that more than a million dollars
are spent annually to support the public and private institutions in
the state of New York for the segregation of the feeble-minded and
the epileptic. A million and a half is spent for the up-keep of state
prisons, those homes of the "defective delinquent." Insanity, which, we
should remember, is to a great extent hereditary, annually drains from
the state treasury no less than $11,985,695.55, and from private sources
and endowments another twenty millions. When we learn further that the
total number of inmates in public and private institutions in the State
of New York--in alms-houses, reformatories, schools for the blind,
deaf and mute, in insane asylums, in homes for the feeble-minded and
epileptic--amounts practically to less than sixty-five thousand, an
insignificant number compared to the total population, our eyes should
be opened to the terrific cost to the community of this dead weight of
human waste.

The United States Public Health Survey of the State of Oregon, recently
published, shows that even a young community, rich in natural resources,
and unusually progressive in legislative measures, is no less subject to
this burden. Out of a total population of 783,000 it is estimated that
more than 75,000 men, women and children are dependents, feeble-minded,
or delinquents. Thus about 10 per cent. of the population is a constant
drain on the finances, health, and future of that community. These
figures represent a more definite and precise survey than the rough one
indicated by the statistics of charities and correction for the State
of New York. The figures yielded by this Oregon survey are also