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Besides the almshouse on Long Island there is a much smaller almshouse in Charlestown. This was opened in 1849 as the Charlestown almshouse, but on the annexation of that city to Boston in 1873 it was continued as a Boston poor-house more especially for pauper couples.

The building is of brick, 100 feet long, two stories high, with two wings. To either end a large, attractive sun room has been added within a few years. One half of this building is used for men, and one half for women, the two parts being cut off more or less completely one from the other. In either division, besides two or three dormitories, the largest of which has but 30 beds, there are more or less completely one from the five beds each. The number of these rooms on the women's side is greater than that on the men's. Each part has its own dining room but shares in a common kitchen and laundry. Husbands, however, eat with their wives in the women's dining room. There is an infirmary but no hospital, those needing constant professional care being removed to the hospital at Long Island.

The largest number of inmates here last year was 150, the smallest, 138. There were admitted, males, 73, females, 37; and discharged, males, 70, females, 45. Eleven deaths occurred.

One of the changes proposed by the Board of Trustees is that this almshouse be made an almshouse for women and aged couples, exclusively. The number of women there is now double the number of men; and by making it an almshouse for women and couples only, a more thorough classification, so the trustees believe, could be secured.

Except in respect to buildings and numbers the Charlestown almshouse differs little from that at Long Island. It has, however, a homelike character which the larger institution lacks. The sun rooms, one containing piano and plants, and the sleeping rooms with their four or five beds are almost cosy. The bill of fare here society is much more varied than that of the other almshouse.

Mr. Chandler Eastman has been superintendent since 1889. Previous to his appointment to his present position he had been connected with the institutions at Deer Island and Rainsford Island. He is a veteran of the civil war.

The appointed work of Boston's pauper institutions has been up to the present time and now is merely to care for the paupers committed to their charge. With reference to this task these institutions should be judged first of all. If they are so judged, much may be said in commendation of them. The inmates are comfortably housed, clothed and fed. While the physically fit are required to work, no one is overworked, and the conditions of labor are salutary. The discipline is humane. Special provision is made for the comfort of the aged and infirm, and the treatment of the sick is by the most improved methods. Life in the almshouses may be monotonous, but on the physical side it rises to a far greater plane than the majority of the inmates ever knew before coming to them.

But in these institutions there are two distinct classes, which maybe designated as the worthy and the unworthy, the word "worthy" being used with no reference to moral qualities. The former class comprises the aged, sick, the physically and mentally defective -- in a word, such as could not care for themselves whatever might be their opportunities for self support. The latter class includes all the rest. That it is the duty of to relieve and comfort its also worthy poor, in the sense of worthy as here used, goes without saying; but it can be neither the wisdom nor duty of society to care in the same manner for the tramp, the vagrant, and all the other varieties of the professionally idle and vicious. Indeed its own self-protection demands that in the case of this latter class it pursue some other line of treatment, whose aim shall be either to reform them or at the very least to restrain them from preying upon the public. In Boston's almshouses, however, both classes are under one and the same system, a system that contemplates the worthy poor only, leaving all others out of account. As a result, these latter find here comfortable quarters where they may recover from their last debauch and plan fresh essays on society. If, therefore, these institutions be judged from the point of view of what would seem to be the true function of a pauper institution, they would be found wanting in respect to separating the pauper class proper from the work-house class and treating each by itself. But it should be said in justice to the superintendents and trustees that this radical defect is to be attributed rather to the laws and regulations in accordance with which they must act, than to themselves. As long as both the pauper and the tramp are sent to these institutions, they must both be cared for by them; and while the restraint on leaving is so slight and the industrial equipment of the institution so meager, thorough classification and reformatory methods are out of the question. The two classes should be separated and the former committed to an established workhouse. Superintendent Wentworth well says in his recent report: "There is no good reason, except in very isolated cases, why a man under 50 years of age and in good health should go to an almshouse, and there is something radically wrong in a system which permits the professional impostor to thrive at the expense of the worthy poor."