The news in this publi
cation is released for the
press on receipt.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
NEWS LETTER
Published We,ekly by the
University of North Caro
lina for the University Ex
tension Division.
f if NOVEMBER 4. 1925
CHAPEL HILL, N C.
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
VOL. XII, NO. 1
f ' Editorial Board* E. C. Branson, S. H. Hobbs. Jr.. L. R. Wilson, E. W. Knight. D. D. Carroll. J. B. Bullitt, H. W. Odum.
Entered as second-class matter NoveiAber 14, 1914, at the Postoffice at Chapel Hill, N. C.. under the act of August 24. 1912
COST OF ALMSHOUSES
AMERICAN ALMSHOUSES
Into a bulletin of fifty-four pages the
ureau of Labor Statistics of the United
bates Department of Labor has packed
• a mass of interesting information about
almshouses in the United States. The
study discusses physical equipment,
types of inmates, and character of
supervision, as well as costs, but its
chief contribution is in an analysis of
. costs, some of the results of which are
shown in liie table in this issue of the
News Letter. The figures presented,
which are for the year 1923, show that:
the average total cost o,f maintenance
per inmate per year in almshouses in the
United States is $334.64, Costs are
further analyzed by grouping the alms
houses according to number of inmates
-1-10, 11-25, 26-50, 51-100, 101-200,
201-600, etc.
Cast Becreases with Size
It was found that as a rule costs de
crease steadily as the size of the insti
tution increases. “The multiplication
of almshouses is extravagant and in
effectual to a degree seldom realized.”
In North Carolina we maintain 97 sepa
rate county homes to care for 1,784
inmates. A study of the figures for
North Carolina shows that there were
29 county homes with from one to ten
inmates each. There were in these 29
institutions 176 inmates. To carO for
these inmates the counties employed 44
t persons, or one to evei'y four inmates.
The annual cost per inmate was $415.60,
not counting supplies furnished by the
farms. There were 42 county homes
with eleven to twenty-five inmates each.
Tn this group the counties employed one
person for every seven inmates. The
annual cost per inmate was $363.49.
Sixteen county homes had from 26 to 50
inmates each. The average number of
inmates in this group to each person
employed by the countifes to care for
i them was nine. The annual per capita
I cost was $251.59. Four county homes
had between 61 and 100 inmates each.
In these institutions the counties em
ployed one person to every 12 inmates.
The total cost per inmate per year was
-$244.76. There was only one county
home in the state with more than 100
inmates. In this institution there was
one employee to 17 inmates. The annual
! per capita cost was $300.27.
SmftU Units Expensive
although the State Board of Charities
and Public Welfare has continued its
agitation for such institutions, no such
institutions have been established.
There has been a remarkable quicken
ing of interest in providing better build
ings—twenty-five new county homes in
five years, all but two of them costing
from $20,000 to $176,000 each, and a
total of $1,000,000. But county officials
seem unable to even think of an institu
tion for the poor, in which they have
invested the county’s money, located
outside the county. There seems little
prospect for district almshouses in North
Carolina by the voluntary action of the
counties. And the erection of a large
number of new county homes makes
more difficult any sort of plan for the
solution of this difficult problem by the
districting of the state.— Roy M. Brown.
COMMUNITY RELATIONS
The regular meeting of the North
Carolina Club, October 19, was addressed
by Mr. G. H. Lawrence, of Orange
county,- who spoke on Inter-Community
Relations. The attendance was good
and thJ discussion following Mr. Law
rence’s paper was brisk and stimulating.
The whole question of inter-community
relations is one step in advance of com
munity organization, and the research
and thought of students have scarcely
begun to grapple with it. Perhaps not
until the local community is better de
fined will it be possible to say what the'
relations between communities are and
wherein they are capable of improve
ment. Nevertheless, the subject is one
that deserves consideration.
Types of Communities
Mr. Lawrence classified communities
in North Carolina as follows: Rural
communities, small-town communities,
industrial communities, and urban com
munitk's. ‘ T mean by rural communities
those places familiar to most of us
where Ihe population may be anything
from fifty to about four hundred, al
though there are usually no well defined
boundaries as to just where the com
munity ends and hence thd exact num
ber of inhabitants cannot easily be
counted. Such places are characterized
by a few stures, one or two churches,
usually a post-office, rarely a bank,
i often a consolidated school, and some
times a railroad siding. In the main
studied in connection with the reports although some
of the State Board of Charities and : be engaged in lumbering or other
Public Welfare,, these figures are still! * P®'''>y
more interesting. Per capita costs in I SlUall-TOWH Cominunity
county homes with one to ten inmates! “Xhe small-town community is the
range from $109.75 in Avery to $1,244.73 j larger logical unit. It is usually
in Brunswick. But of the eleven county j outgrowth of a rural community,
homes showing annual per capita costs the prevailing characteristics
of $350 and more, nine have nOt more'
than ten inmates; and of twenty-one
institutions with annual costs per in
mate of $i00 or more only two have
MY COMMUNITY
“My Community.” Did you ever
say that and then stop to think seri
ously of what it really meant? Your
community is the locality wherein
you expect to make your home,
where most of your property, if not
all of it, is located. It is the place
where your neighbors and best friends
live, and where their children will
grow up to become the friends and
associates of your children. Its wel
fare is your own and that of your
family. Its health should be a mat
ter of profound interest to you. Its
prosperity must of necessity, to a
great extent, affect your prosperity.
Its beauty should be your pride. Its
roads, its schools, its churches are
yours. Your community comesmext
to your home, and, therefore, should
be of concern to you, if for no other
than a selfish reason.—Albemarle
News-Herald.
and character of community inter-rela
tionships. These relationships are most
extensive in adjoining communities, or
at least they probably should be.
Obviously small rural communities have
practically nothing in the way of rela
tionships with each other if the distance
separating them is more than a few
miles. But the larger and more im
portant a community is the farther will
be its radius of influence and the greater
will be its sphere of relationships with
other communities. The subject is of
interesting complexity in proportion to
the size and importance of the com
munities involved.”
None Self-Sufficing
“Since the day has passed, at least in
this country, when any one cominunity
can satisfy all its needs it would be a
hopeless task to try to explain every
relationship between any one community
and other communities. Even the ultra-
conservative and self-complacent com
munities cannot exist without depend
ing on other places for many of the
necessities of life. It is necessary,
therefore, to consider inter-community
relationships in terms of a group of
communities; the most logical grouping
for North Carolina^ then would be by
counties. However, in some sections
of the United States the unit might
better be the township or even the state.
While in many instances communities
of one county form close relationships
with those of an adjoining county we
must draw the line somewhere or else
we would be involved in the larger
sphere of inter-counuy relationships or
more than twenty-five inmates.
, Of the 2,0-16 almshouses included in
the, Department of Labor Study, 1,373
have 26 inmates or fewer. Of this num
ber 787 had from 1 to 10 inmates. Of
the 92 county homes in North Carolina,
71 had 25 or fewer inmates, and 29 had
from 1 to 10. All of these, according
to the study, fall below the number
that is necessary for efficient and eco
nomical operation. The fault lies, in
the opinion of the United States De
partment of Labor, in the smallness of
the governmental unit operating most
of the almshouses.
Need District Almshouses
The Department of Labor approves
the suggestion already advanced from
several states that the solution lies in
tbe district almshouses. In this state
State Board of Charities and Public
Welfare proposed this solution in its
biennial report in 1922. It analyzed the
situation in the first congressional dis-
trict and presented figures tending to
show that a considerable saving in
money as well as a great improvement
efficiency in the care of the poor
could be effected by a district institu-
‘on to take the place of the twelve
institutions with fewer than one
«red inmates, all told.
but No Results
^^ilowicg the recommendations of the
' General Assembly of 1923
ment^ f permitting the establish-
two or hospital-homes by any
contig^us counties. But
even of inter-state affairs,
of this type are definite town limits, at County-Unit Proposed
leastone bank, often somepavedstreets, county as a unit for promoting
usually manufacturing on a small scale, | j^g^^er inter-community relations is sug-
several churches, some form of town | ggg^g^ j^y jyjj. Lawrence, but in this
government, one or more eachof hotels, > jg necessary for county loyalty
drug stores, barber shops, and moving-
picture houses, the presence of lawyers,
and the existence among the inhabitants
of a definite feeling of town conscious
ness. The population may run up to
twenty thousand or so, but when it be
comes this large one or more industrial
communities are usually included.
‘ ‘The industrial community needs little
explanation for the purposes of-dis
tinguishing it from other types. It
consists of a place widely varying in
number of inhabitants but where all
interests center around a certain kind
of manufacturing, either around cotton
mills, furniture factories, tobacco fac
tories, or other industrial enterprises
which necessitate the employment of a
considerable number of people. Indus
trial communities may be entirely sepa
rate geographical units, but they are
often sections nominally of small towns
or cities.
“I shall briefly dispose of the urban
community by classifying it in general
as a place of twenty thousand or more
population.
“The first three types include by far
the greatest number of communities in
North Carolina, since we have only eight
or ten cities of sufficient size to in^any
way qualify as urban communities.”
Influence of Size
“The geographical proximity of com
munities whether they be rural, small
town, industrial, or urban is naturally
an important determinant in the amount
to predominate over the more provincial
loyalty to small communities,
“That competition should exist be
tween communities of a similar size and
character seems to be inevitable. It is
probably advisable. But there must be
a point somewhere where competition
bows to cooperation. To what extent
is inter-community rivalry a thing to be
desired, and how far can it be carried
before it becomes a hindrance rather
than an incentive to progress? Perhaps
if communities would think and act
more in terms of being cogs in the
wheel of the county as a whole much of
the cut-throat tactics of communities
with each other could be eliminated.
“Communities must look at the facts
as regards themselves and their neigh
boring communities in an unbiased light.
Neighborliness must be emphasized,
since it is just as important for com
munities to get along together as it is
jfor neighboring families. ”
RURAL ELECTRIC POWER
XL AMOUNT OF
In the last article of this series, vari
ous uses of electric power, both in the
household and around the farm, were
briefly indicated. This week some sam
ples of current requirements and ex
penses of household appliances will be
given, while in the next article the same
will be done for apparatus used in actual
farming.
Electric current is sold by the kilowatt
hour. If a customer has ten light bulbs
of 100 watts each, and be lets all ten
burn for one hour, he has used a thou
sand watts or 1 kilowatt of electric cur
rent for one hour, thereby making a
kilowatt hour (abbreviation, K. W. H.).
Rates charged for current vary greatly
in different places and depend on many
factors, among them being the amount
of power a customer can make use of.
A farmer who uses electricity for a good
many purposes can usually get a better
rate than one who uses only a little
power. The average rate calculated on
country-wide data is a trifle over 8 cents
per kilowatt hour, but for the sake of
caution the table given below is based
on a 10-cent rate.
The following table gives samples of
the amount of current used monthly in
lighting a farmhouse and runni^ig, the j
CURRENT USED
electric appliances, together with the
cost based on a 10-cent rate:
K.W.H. Costper
month
Lighting farmhouse 36.7 $1.67
Pumping water 9.1 .91
Washing machine 4.2 .42
Electric iron 6.0 .60
Vacuum cleaner 4.2 .42
Toaster 2.5 .25
Sewing machine 1.4 .14
$4.41
An electric refrigerator uses more
current than all the above put together,
and accordingly was not included in the
list. A refrigerator uses about 70 kilo
watt hours per month and accordingly
would cost $7.00 per month.
Below is given an estimate of the first
cost of electric household equipment:
Refrigerator $360
Water pump ^ 226
Washing machine and wringer.. 125
Dish washer 100
Vacuum (deaner 60
Sewing machine motor 20
Flat iron 8
Toaster 8
Percolator ^ 8
—A. T. Cutler.
that there was some taste and careful
ness in the log cabin . . . We were
seldom misled. A patch of flowers came
to signify kind people, clean beds, and
good bread. But in other states of
society other signs are more significant.
Flowers about a rich man’s house may
signify only that he has a good gardener
or that has refined neighbors and
does what be sees them do. But men
are not accustomed to buy books unless
they want them. If on visiting the
dwelling of a man in slender means we
find that he contents himself with efteap
carpets and very plain furniture in
order that he may purchase books, he
rises at once in our esteem . . . Give
us a house furnished with books rather
than furniture. Both, if you can, but
books at any rate! To spend several
days in a friend's house, and hfinger for
something to read while j'ou are tread
ing on costly carpets and sitting on
luxurious chairs and sleeping on down,
is as if one were bribing your body for
the sake of cheating your mind.”
I have no part in the struggle for social
j prominence. Hence they live to good’
I old age and enjoy their days. Their
' principal dissipation is books, which
they irUl have, even though it means
j skimping on such non essentials as food
! and clothes. Surrounded as he is with
1 books of biography and history and
! travel, with essays and poetry and
popular science, the preacher’s child
learns to love books long before he goes
to college. But college deepens the
The Joy of Boohs
That so many people should pass
through life without ever knowing the
joy of reading books and owning them
IS a tragedy. 1 had the good fortune to
grow up in a parsonage. Preachers
cannot overeat, even if they w'ant, to;
their faith that God will look after them
prptects them from worry, and they
love.
It is ^ good habit to keep yourself
constantly in debt to your library, to
buy one or two books a week whether
you get time to ^ead them or not. It is
a satisfaction to see the shelves fill up,
and a book once bought and put on the
library table looks up at you with a
glance of mingled invitation and reproof
until it gets itself opened and read. Of
all friends, books are the least obtrusive
and demanding. They fit every mood. '
They!come to you when you ask for
them and are not hurt when you cast
them aside. Said Sir John Herschel,
“If I were to pray for a taste that
would stand me in good stead under
every variety of circumstances, and be
a source of happiness and cheerfulness
through life, and a shield against its ills
however things might go amiss and the
world frown upon me, it would be a
taste for reading.’’—Bruce Barton, in
Good Housekeeping.
FLOWERS AND BOOKS
Henry Ward Beecher, who began his
ministry on the western frontier and
bad to make long journeys into settle
ments where there were no hotels,
always picked out a house that had
flowers as a place to spend the night,
“if there were no trees for- shade, no
patch of flowers in the yard, we were
suspicious of the place,” he wrote.
“No matter how rude the cabin or rough
the surroundings, if we saw that the
window held a trough of flowers, and
some vines twisted about strings let
down from the eaves, we were confident
THE PER INMATE COST OF ALMSHOUSES
For the States of the Union in 1923 and 1924
The following table shows the rank of the states in the cost of almshouses
per inmate per year as revealed in a recent bulletin, The Cost of American
Almshouses, issued by the United States Department of Labor. The mainte
nance cost of caring for inmates in almshouses—called county homes in North
Carolina and in most other states—does not include products supplied by the
farm.
In Nevada it cost $866 per inmate to maintain her almshouses. In Alabama
the cost was only $188 per inmate per year.
In North Carolina the cost,, exclusive of supplies furnished by county-home
farms, was $235 per inmate, distributed as follows: Superintendent $5^64;
matrons and nurses $7.62; cooks, domestics, etc., $6.40; labor $7.68; other ex
penditures $169.90. The per inmate income for maintaining county homes in
North Carolina is derived as follows: Public funds $217.02; sale of farm pro
duce $18.81—other sources $1.72; refund $2.00. The cost is far from uniform in
North Carolina, ranging from $1,244.73 per inmate in the most expensive county
to $109.73 per inmate in the least expensive county. The Scotland county home
showed a pro'fit to the county of $45.00 per inmate.
S. H. Hobbs, Jr.
Department of Rural Social-Economics
Rank
States
Annual
Maint. Cost
per Inmate
Nevada $866
Wyoming 696
Vermont 640
Arizona 590
South Dakota 667
North Dakota 522
Montana 619
Maine 602
Minnesota 491
Nebraska 462
Massachusetts 449
Connecticut 431
Rhode Island 425
New Hampshire 417
California 416
Idaho 382
New Jersey 376
Michigan - 371
Utah 361
Iowa 368
Florida 352
Delaware 339
Washington 337
Oklahoma 323
Rank
26
25
27
28
29
30
31
31
31
34
36
36
37
39
40
41
42
43
44
46
46
47
48
Note: New Mexico no
States Annual
Maint. Cost
per Inmate
Ohio $322
Illinois 322
West Virginia 314
Indiana 312
Texas ^ 309
New York 299
Arkansas 296
Pennsylvania 296
South Carolina 296
Wisconsin 290
Kansas 285
District of Columbia 278
Maryland 269
Oregon 262
Gec^rgia 259
Virginia 243
Missouri 239
Louisiana J...... 238
North Carolina 235
Colorado 228
Tennessee ... 221
Kentucky * 216
Mississippi 214
Alabama 188
report.