It would be better for us that a millstone were hanged about our necks, and we were cast into the depths of the sea, than that we should be thoughtless or indifferent of one of God's poor, like old Rosie. Well, you ask, how can it be made better? My answer is that there ought to be a radical change in the Board of Control of Public Institutions. I do not make any personal fight on the three men now in control. I make war on the whole system. As it is now, there are, in and about Boston, ten public institutions, occupied by thousands of men and women and children, carried on at an expense of nearly six hundred thousand dollars, entirely under the control of three commissioners. This is not wise. There ought to be a large advisory board made up of distinguished citizens. This should be composed of women as well as men. It is certainly a very short-sighted and thoughtless arrangement that, although there are in these institutions several hundred women and children, there is no woman who has any authorized interest in them. There is every reason why women should be on the Boards of Control of Public Institutions. The editor of the New York _Nation_ says: "Whatever improvement there has been in the condition of Bellevue Hospital, for example, and of the hospitals of Blackwell's and Hart's Islands, during the past twenty years--and it is very great--has, as a rule, been due to women's initiative and labors." The fact is, that everything that concerns health, education, and good morals occupies the minds of women more than it does the minds of most of their husbands and fathers; and in every department of municipal administration, where the conditions of the streets, of the sewers, of the hospitals and almshouses, and of the police, are in question, women have an equal interest with men, and in order to the public well-being and safety, ought to have an equal voice. I am sure that an advisory board of leading citizens, on which were three or four level-headed, humane women, would work the revolution that is needed in the treatment of Boston's paupers. Do not put this question aside. This is Boston's question, and you are a part of Boston. As some one sang in the Boston _Transcript_ not long ago:-- "Lazarus lies at your gate! O proud and prosperous city, How long will you let him wait? Listen and look; have pity. Dives, oh, cannot you hear, For the music and dance of your high land, The moaning of misery drear That comes from the desolate island? Finest of linen you wear; Comrades in luxury you cherish, Sumptuous daily you fare. What of your neighbors who perish? When you would heighten your cheer By a contrast that's very dramatic, Fancy what scenes may appear In a certain dim hospital attic. Swarming and sweltering, and scant Of air,--foul to soul as to senses,-- Where he that is guilty of Want Meets a doom fit for graver offences.