information of this nature given to relatives has been welcomed and quite frequently followed out.

Similar to the foregoing instance are the cases in which the father was a citizen and where consequently the mother was granted a pension on behalf of her minor and dependent children. There is a difference, however, in that in the latter cases the families may be in need of financial assistance to tide them over until their case is finally passed upon by the Board of Child Welfare and is placed on the pension role. Some instances occurred in which the wife herself was a patient in a state hospital for the insane, though no minor children were left to need the attention of a social

agency. Had there been such children the obvious plan would have been, as in similar situations in which both parents are either dead or mentally incompetent, to place them with relatives, or for a child-caring agency to provide for them in an orphan asylum or to board them out.

The waves of immigration in the years preceding the war brought large numbers of single as well as married men to this country. Many of the latter, however, arrived here alone in order to establish a home for their families whom they had left in some European land, their plan being to send for their wives and children as soon as they had saved. sufficient to pay for the passage of their families and for the new household they intended to establish. Unfortunately for some, the plans so well thought out went wrong, due altogether to the fact that the father became mentally unbalanced before he could send for the family. Such cases are indeed sad, though there is nothing that can be done either for the family or for the patient, as the latter has to be considered as a single man without any family responsibilities, at least during the period of his illness. The question of deportation is of course involved in some instances, though it was found that most of these patients had been in this

country beyond the five-year limit and had not become public charges prior to that time.

(c) Family Problems following Death of Mothers. In the cases in which the mother of the family died, it is quite conceivable that a widower, upon his wife's death, should find himself seriously embarrassed in making provision for the care of his children, even though his income had been sufficient to care for the entire family. As is well recognized, in the normal family the contribution made by the mother to the common welfare is often fully equal to that of the father even though it is not so readily measured in dollars and cents. The loss of the mother does not necessarily cause the family of the wage-earner to become dependent upon outside financial aid, though the assistance of social agencies interested in the care and welfare of children is often necessary. Due often to particular family conditions, the father is not able properly to care and provide for his orphaned children, and he is thus compelled to turn to others for help. The natural thing is that he should first of all appeal either to his own or to his deceased wife's relatives, so that his children may be quickly provided with a proper home and suitable accommodations essential for their future well-being. In several of the families studied it was the relatives who came to the help of the children, either because of the strength of family ties or as a result of the father's inability for one reason or another properly to provide for his children.

Sometimes the opposite kind of situation developed; instead of care being needed for the children, the aged father had to be provided for by his adult children. This never involved any serious social problem, for the children usually took the father into their own home or made other provisions for his maintenance and welfare.

Emphasis has been placed upon the advisability of main

taining the family as a unit whenever possible. The placing-out of children either in institutions or in boarding homes is only a make-shift to meet a condition of affairs for which there seemingly is no better way. In many instances far better results are obtained if one of the children, especially if a daughter, is old enough to take up the household cares, or if some near relative of the family is in a position to step into the vacant place. During the first few months following the deaths of a number of the mothers, the husbands had to resort to the expedient of boarding out the minor children because of inability to make any adjustments which would have resulted in the maintenance of the family under one roof. Other fathers found it necessary to have their minor children committed to orphan asylums, as they did not earn sufficient to support their several children either in their own homes or in foster or boarding homes. The financial arrangement always insisted upon by the Department of Public Welfare of the City of New York is that the father must regularly pay a certain amount per week to the Department for the maintenance and support of his children, the amount depending upon the number of children committed and the average earnings of the father. A number of the husbands eventually re-married and took their children of the first marriage with them into the new household, thus making as suitable provision for their care as the circumstances would allow.

Childless marriages have always been regarded by one school of thought as unnatural and uncalled-for, particularly when both the husband and wife are in good mental and physical condition and are in a position properly or at least adequately to provide for such offspring as they may have. In those cases in which the wife died without leaving any children, the husband had no family problems needing solution, and he returned to the status of a single man.

From the point of view of society as a whole, it was probably fortunate that a few of the married women who died in hospitals for the insane left no progeny, for, even from the little we know at present regarding the inheritance of mental disease, it is quite probable that at least some of the children, had they been born, would have become afflicted with some form of mental or nervous ailment.

The exact classification of social phenomena is frequently fraught with much difficulty, particularly when the groups for various reasons are limited in number. In several cases in which the wife and mother died in the state hospital, the husband had not been able to and did not provide and care for his children even prior to the time of the death of his wife. There were a number of causes for this, among them being the illness of the father, lack of sufficient earnings, desertion, etc. The action taken by the relatives of the couples in several such families was to have the children placed with grandparents or other immediate relatives during the illness of the mother, and remain in such homes after the mother's death. There were one or two cases in which the mother died in a state hospital during the time that the husband and father was serving in the army. The Home Service Section of the American Red Cross readily came to the assistance of the dependent children by placing them in boarding homes until the fathers returned home.

(d) Widowed. The total number of widowed persons dying in state hospitals was rather small, numbering 7 males and 10 females. The social problems presented by this group were almost insignificant, due altogether to the fact that of the males, the ages at death were between 55 and 80 years, while of the 10 females, 9 ranged in age between 68 and 89 years; the tenth patient was a widow of 33 years, whose two minor children had been placed with relatives some time prior to her death as she had been ill for a long

time previous to her admission to the state hospital. None of the aged widowers or widows left any dependents, as such children as they had were all self-supporting adults.

(e) Divorced. There were only two cases of divorced persons dying in the state hospitals, and both of these were men who had been sick for many years prior to their admission to the institution in which they passed away. Under the divorce laws of the State of New York a divorce can be granted only for infidelity. On grounds of insanity the marriage, under certain conditions, may be annulled. From the facts in hand regarding these two cases it appears that in one a divorce was obtained by the wife in another country; in the other, though the patient claimed at the time of his admission to the psychopathic ward of Bellevue Hospital that he had been divorced by his wife, it was later determined that she had only obtained a separation from him.

(f) Modification of Marriage and Divorce Laws. The injustice of the stringent divorce laws of New York State to the innocent party to a marriage in which one of the participants at an early date or even eventually becomes hopelessly insane, is apparent to all students of social problems. The time is overdue when New York should follow in the footsteps of other states and liberalize the obsolete and unfair laws relating to divorce. In no group of social facts that can be presented is this more strongly evidenced than in a consideration of the misery and unhappiness and blasted lives of young manhood and young womanhood following insanity in a young married person. Marriage licenses in New York contain the following statement which both parties are required to sign: "I have not to my knowledge been infected with any venereal disease or if I have been so infected within five years, I have had a laboratory test within that period which shows that I am now free