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Excerpt from A Bulletin on the Condition of the County Almshouses of Missouri Statistics. There is but one method of collecting accurate statistics concerning social conditions; and that is to send experts into the field to gather the informa tion upon the spot. Unfortunately this method was not Open to the department of sociology when it undertook to investigate the condition of the county almshouses of Missouri. The desired information had to be obtained by other and less accurate means. Wherever possible a student or alumnus of the University was sent to Visit the almshouse about which information was sought; but it was found possible to do this in only about thirty per cent. Of the cases. In the remaining cases question blanks were sent to the superintendents of the almshouses with the request that they be filled out and returned to the department. In this way infor mation was received concerning fifty per cent. More of the almshouses. But when no response from the super intendent could be elicited, the information was usually obtained through the county clerk, although in the caseof three county almshouses all efforts of every sort failed to secure the desired information. Nevertheless, in spite of the relatively crude methods employed in gathering the statistics, there can be no doubt that they present a fairly accurate picture of the actual condi tions of Missouri almshouses to-day. Small details, both good and bad, may lie concealed, but the main out lines of the system stand out in clear relief. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be repl