A strict system of accountability has been maintained, step by step, from the lowest to the highest executive officer. Of many engaged in the labors of this Association, it can be truly said, that no business or commercial house was ever more faithfully and earnestly served, than this charity has been by them. Indeed, some of them have poured forth for it more vitality and energy than they would ever have done for their personal interests. They have toiled day and night, week-days and Sundays, and have been best rewarded by the fruit they have beheld. The aim of the writer, as executive officer, has been to select just the right man for his place, and to make him feel that that is his profession and life-calling. Amid many hundreds thus selected, during twenty years, he can recall but two or three mistaken choices, while many have become almost identified with their labors and position, and have accomplished good not to be measured. His principle has been to show the utmost respect and confidence, but to hold to the strictest accountability. Not a single _employe_, so far as he is aware, in all this time, during his service, has ever wronged the Society or betrayed his trust. One million of dollars has passed through the hands of the officers of this Association during this period, and it has been publicly testified [See testimony before the Committee on Charities of the Senate of New York, 1871.] by the Treasurer, Mr. J. E. Williams, President of the Metropolitan Bank, that not a dollar, to his knowledge, has ever been misappropriated or squandered. A most important element of the success of this Charity have been, of course, the character and influence of its Board of Trustees. It is difficult to speak of these gentlemen without seeming to use the language of compliment; but, in making known to other cities the peculiar organization which has been so successful in this, it must always be remembered what the character of trustees should be, who bear upon their shoulders so important a trust. These men are known through the city and indeed in distant parts of the country, as showing in their lives a profound and conscientious conviction of the responsibility which wealth and ability are under to the community. They are the best representatives of a class who are destined to give a new character to our city--men of broad and liberal views on matters of practical religion, full of humanity, sensible and judicious, educated to appreciate culture and art, as well as business, with the true gentleman's sense of self-respect and respect for others, a profound and earnest spirit of piety, and that old Puritan perseverance which causes them not "to turn their hand from the plow," however disagreeable the task before them may be. Such men, when once morally imbued with the needs of a cause, could make it succeed against any odds.