ADVERTISEMENT.

TEN THOUSAND COPIES of the former edition of this Report being exhausted, TWENTY THOUSAND more are printed to meet the undiminished demand. This disclosure of FACTS is sought with an avidity which evinces on the part of the people of the State of NewYork, a determination to understand the nature, extent and causes of their burthens in the shape of taxes, gratuities to the poor, and the like. The consequence of the wide dissemination of intelligence of this kind, must be manifest in renewed more universal and more strenuous efforts to remove from among us THE TRAFFIC IN INTOXICATING DRINKS, the cause of nearly all this suffering and crime.

OF

AN EXAMINATION OF POOR-HOUSES, JAILS, &c. &c.

ARISTARCHUS CHAMPION, ESQ.

Dear Sir—I am now prepared to make an exhibit of the result of an examination, which your liberality, with the blessings of God, has enabled me to undertake and accomplish, to which I have devoted nine months' time, and in which I have travelled more than 4,500 miles. It may not be improper to state here, the reasons which led me to propose this examination. I had become fully satisfied that in our efforts to advance the cause of temperance, facts must be our principal reliance. I saw one great field yet but partially explored, where a rich harvest of facts might be gathered. I proposed to you sir, to assist me-to furnish me the means to explore. You very liberally aud promptly complied with my request. The field to which I allude is POOR-HOUSES and JAILS-connecting with them the expense of pauperism, as well as the expense of the administration of criminal justice. I commenced my tour of examination on the first of July, and have visited all the counties of the state, the results of which I hereby submit to your consideration.

It may excite surprise that I should speak of this as a field but partially explored. I do not mean by this, that much had not been said and written in relation to it, and facts gathered and presented, having an important bearing upon the subject of temperance. I do not mean that the most casual observer had not seen that the improvidence and idleness which lead to poverty and furnish tenants for our poor-houses,-that the recklessness, the profligacy and crime, which people our jails, were the legitimate offspring of ardent spirits: but I do mean that the statements which have been made in relation to them, have very seldom been the result of a

critical examination. Of this I was satisfied before I commenced my tour, and in the progress of it I have found abundant evidence to show that this opinion was well founded. The superintendents of the poor and the keepers of poor-houses had given their opinions. Sheriffs and jailers had done the same; but not a single instance have I found where an actual examination had been made into the case of each pauper and each criminal-where all of them had been classed. The statements, many of them, may have been correct, but they were not known to be so. Ground was still left for cavilling. This I thought it possible to remove, and so to fortify the facts presented, by the evidence we should adduce, that if incredulity herself would not subscribe to their correctness, she should not be able to disprove them. How well I have succeeded

the results must show..

The expense of the support of the poor has been frequently and correctly given; but I have never seen a statement which even pretended to have been obtained by an actual investigation, showing the expense incurred in a single county, for administering and executing the laws relating to criminal justice. I may go further. I have not found a clerk of supervisors, although many of them are men of the first intelligence-lawyers, legislators, and judges who had ever before attempted to collect and add together, the various sums which constitute this item of expediture,* and I have frequently been amused at the supprise which they expressed when they have ascertained the amount. I have also given the amount of county tax in each county, that it might be seen how large a sum was left, after deducting the expense of the poor, and criminal justice, applicable to other purposes. I consider this a very important part of the object of my investigation; for however trifling the pecuniary evils resulting from intemperance may appear to the christian and the philanthropist, when compared with those of a moral character, yet while the love of money so powerfully influences mankind, and is so instrumental in corrupting their morals, it cannot be amiss to remove misapprehensions on this point, and to show them, that instead of mak

* Since the above was written I have found two exceptions, Otsego and Schenectady.

ing money by making paupers and criminals they are only increasing their taxes.

The course which I have pursued in obtaining, these statistics is this: I have called on the keepers of jails and poor-housesrequested them to take their book which contains the names, &c. of those committed to go back one year and examine each name seperately to tell me who was temperate, and who was intemperate; and where the habits of any one were not known, to say so; while I took my pen and marked according as they belonged to one of the three classes-temperate, intemperate, or doubtful. The footing of the three would give the whole number of inmates for the year In poor-houses the inquiry was whether the poverty which brought them there was occasioned by intemperance—their own or that of their relatives. In jails the questions was as to their own intemperance, although as you will perceive from my certificates, I occasionally, where I found the names of quite young persons, extended my examination farther, and inquired into the habits of the parents. This however did not alter the classification. I embraced it in my certificate only as showing the influence of intemperance in parents, on the moral characters of their children, and consequently upon their standing in society and their destinies in future life. I found in almost every jail some lads from ten to fifteen years of age-but very few, however, were known to be intemperate; neither was it known that any of them, according to my recollection, practised on principles of total abstinence.

In giving the information called for, there has in my opinion, been extreme caution used; but as I was asking for information, I could not, of course, dictate the answer that should be givenespecially as my object was not to obtain some general expression. of opinion, but an official certificate-one which it was understood was to be published, and which the person giving it would meet in his own county, where any error or mis-statement might be detected and exposed.

I have no hesitation in saying that the facts thus obtained are entirely within the bounds of truth, and exhibit a less vivid picture of the evils of intemperance than would be exhibited, could all the

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