Excerpt from Report of the Joint Special Committee on the Removal of the Alms House, and the Purchase of "Brook Farm"

There were admitted into the house, during the year, in addition to 224, the number remaining at the commencement of the year, 710, making the number of inmates, during the year, 934. A large proportion of this number were foreigners, many of them newly-arrived immigrants, who make the Alms House the object of their first inquiry, and whose friends and relatives, ready to shift the burden of their support from themselves to the public, guide them to the hospitable doors, whither our native citizens are unwilling to go, save as a last resort. It is true, that such paupers are supported in part by the commonwealth, but the balance paid by the city is no small item, and the expense is by no means the greatest evil they inflict. They bring disease; they bring idle and improvident, often filthy and vicious habits they come as the pioneers and guides to the crowds who come after them, and follow their steps into the same doors. They oftentimes have not the slightest claim on public charity, and afford an example, very quickly fol lowed, of a too ready disposition to be a public burden. It is true, also, that very many of them remain but a short time; but it is no less true, that for every one who goes, at least one comes to take his place, and the average number has of late years very much increased. This large number of foreign paupers, coming in the manner they do, subject to inconvenience, annoyance, and the dan ger of disease, those aged, infirm, and sick, real oh jects of charity, some of whom have been reduced from competence to a lot, at best hard to bear, while at the same time it has an injurious effect.

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