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WORK DEPARTMENT FOR ADULTS.

Owing to the depression which has generally prevailed in business circles, this department has suffered more or less in common with all industrial enterprises.

The receipts from all sources have amounted to $15,390.91, being a decrease of $289.95 from those of the previous year.

The expenses for stock, labor, rent of store, wages of employes, insurance and all other items have been $16,876.68.

The cost of carrying on the workshop, over and above the receipts, has been $556.27. Hence the loss to the treasury of the institution, compared with that of the previous year, has been decreased by $561.02.

There have been twenty blind persons employed to do the work, and the sum paid in cash to them, as wages for their labor, has been $3,579.34, or $21.47 less than in 1882.

This resume of the accounts of the workshop shows that its operations have not been so extensive as heretofore, and that there is but little improvement in its financial status, which has been quite unsatisfactory for a long time.

It is highly desirable that the business of this department should be increased, in order that it may pay its expenses, and that its benefits may be extended to a larger number of meritorious and industrious persons, who are striving to keep away from the almshouse, and to whom the bread of charity is not palatable. It ought to have an income of its own. The scanty funds of the institution are too limited to supply the wants of the workshop. Indeed, they do not suffice to carry out other plans relating to the development of the school, which have been so often commended to the attention of the corporation and approved by it.

We earnestly recommend this beneficent branch of our institution to the patronage of the public. It is scarcely necessary to renew the assurance that the work is done faithfully and thoroughly, and that our charges are very reasonable.