A DECADE OF OFFICIAL POOR-RELIEF IN INDIANA 765
reports from county auditors on the expense of outdoor poor- relief. On November i, 1889, the board sent blank forms to each trustee in the state, requesting information as to the number and classes of persons receiving temporary relief. Only about one-third of the whole number of trustees returned the blanks, and of these less than one-half were intelligently filled, so that the effort to obtain statistics from that source was fruitless. From the county auditors, to whom a different blank was sent later, it was learned that for the year ending May 31, 1890, relief by the township trustees amounted to $478,739.91 and medical relief to $81,492.74, a total of $56o,232.65. 5 A portion of the medical relief was properly chargeable to the county institutions ; still the figures indicated more than half a million dollars expended to relieve the poor not in institutions.
In its report for 1891 the board published further reports from county auditors, showing a total of $560,012.35 for poor- relief and medical aid for the year ending May 31, 1891. 6 In the same report was given a careful analysis of the figures, show- ing the relative cost of outdoor relief to population in the differ- ent counties of the state. According to this table the per capita cost of aid to the poor varied from 5 cents in Crawford County to 84 cents in Warren County. Communities rich in opportunity for self-support were shown to be spending more money propor- tionately than much poorer counties. Adjoining counties, with practically identical conditions, varied greatly in their expendi- tures for the poor. The conclusion was inevitable that the amount expended was governed more by the methods of the trustees than by the actual needs of the citizens.
Statistics collected in 1893, and published in the board's report for that year, showed a decrease in the cost of trustees' and medical relief from 1891 amounting to $48,509, the total expense for the year being $5ii,5O3.35. 7 The same wide range in the per capita expense among the different counties was noted. In
8 Ibid., 1890, p. 60.
- Ibid., 1891, p. 138. These figures were corrected in the Report for 1893,
p. 85, to read $560,265.95. 1 Ibid., 1893, pp. 85, 89.
