The Committee on Criminal Courts of the New York Charity Organization Society has appealed to the public to write, urging an appropriation of $700,000 for this institution, to the leaders of the Legislature: James J. Frawley, chairman Finance Committee of the Senate; Alfred E. Smith, speaker of the Assembly; Robert F. Wagner, majority leader of the Senate; Aaron J. Levy, majority leader of the Assembly. This the committee believes to be a conservative and economical estimate of what will be needed to put up new cottages and other buildings to accommodate present inmates, and to provide for reasonable growth in the next few years. The letter sent out by the committee reads in part as follows: “Twelve years ago the state authorities established Bedford Reformatory to care for women between the ages of sixteen and thirty, to try and save some, at least, of the young girls who were otherwise destined to a life of shame and degradation. What Bedford means to the community, the extraordinary work it is doing and has done is set forth in the enclosed article by Ida M. Tarbell.[2] That article is a challenge and a call to every man and woman in the state. Footnote 2: Miss Tarbell’s article which appeared in the _American Magazine_ was reprinted as a pamphlet by the committee. “Bedford Reformatory now faces a crisis.” “Today there are 178 more girls there than the place will hold. They are sleeping on cots in the hallways, in parlors, in the gymnasium, in the lavatories, in the linen room, everywhere they can put a bed. Two girls in a room is the rule instead of the exception, notwithstanding the moral dangers of this.” “Chief Magistrate McAdoo and Chief Magistrate Kempner and their associates in New York and Brooklyn have been asked not to commit any more girls to the institution and the stream has stopped for a moment. But the magistrates are now at their wits’ ends. What are they to do with first offenders? The young girl who is just embarking on this kind of career—shall they fine her and force her to work all the harder at her unlawful calling to earn the money with which to pay the fine? All are agreed that this is objectionable. Fines neither deter nor reform. Shall they send her then to the work-house to mingle in close confinement with the hardened offender, there to become embittered and to have a prostitute’s life fastened more firmly than ever upon her? They must do this or discharge her to walk the streets again.” EDITORIAL GRIST THE BATTLE LINES OF CHILD LABOR LEGISLATION ANNA ROCHESTER National Child Labor Committee A majority of the twenty-nine state Legislatures which have been considering child labor laws this winter are still in session, so that many of the most important bills are still pending.