The purely experimental work of such philanthropic efforts as that of Mr. Straus has been done. The practicability and value of municipal control of the milk supply has been abundantly proven, and there is no longer need of private charitable effort and experiment. There lurks a danger in leaving this important public service to philanthropy, a danger well-nigh as great as in leaving it to private commercial enterprise. The dangers arising from the amateurish meddling of “near-sighted charity workers and unknowing givers” is much greater than is generally recognized. Many of these charitable societies drag out a precarious existence, their usefulness and success depending upon the measure of success attending the efforts of the “begging committees.” Generally speaking, they are less economical, and, what is more important, less effective, than municipal enterprises, besides being based upon a fatally unsound and demoralizing principle. I know of one large city in which a number of public-spirited citizens have for some years interested themselves in the supply of sterilized milk for infants. Notwithstanding that they receive each year in subscriptions a much larger amount of money, in proportion to the milk supplied, than Rochester’s deficit, they charge the parents more than twice as much as the latter city for the milk. Nor is this all; there are other, weightier objections than this. There are no regular depots for the distribution of the milk, under the direct supervision of the Committee, but it is handled by drug-store keepers and others. No sort of control is exercised over the sale. Any child can go into the store and buy a bottle of milk. This is what happens: small children, sometimes not more than four or five years old, are sent by their parents to buy the milk. These little children are, naturally, ignorant of the importance which the medical advisers of the charity attach to the subject of modifications of the milk to suit the age of the child to whom it is to be given, with the result that babies less than three months old are given milk intended for babies eighteen months old, while the latter are half starved upon the modified milk intended for the former. Another evil, not, I am told, peculiar to this particular charitable society, is the selling of milk irregularly and in single bottles. When the mothers have the money, or when they are not too busy to go for the Pasteurized milk, they buy a single bottle, but at other times they send out to the grocery store for cheaper milk, or else feed the babies upon ordinary table foods. Of course, there should be a system of registration adopted; every child’s name should be enrolled, together with the date of its birth, and no less than a full day’s supply should be sold. That is the custom where the matter has been taken up by the municipal authorities. The result is that the children can be weighed and examined more or less regularly; facilities