In other states there are state boards of charities for the establishment of which women have worked and on which they usually serve officially. The powers of these boards vary greatly, from a pure advisory function which is of little avail, unrecommended institutions winning subsidies over its advice, to a department of control carrying on preventive work against insanity, tuberculosis, inebriety, feeble-mindedness and similar evils. EFFICIENCY OF WOMEN The service of women on charity commissions and as public relief officers has so long been an accepted fact that it scarcely needs notice here, but the argument for it advanced by the Massachusetts Committee on Women as Overseers of the Poor, a committee composed of both men and women, is so emphatic that it deserves special notice: The experience of the town of Brookline since 1877 and Winchester since 1891 and the city of Boston since 1891 has made it apparent that it is desirable to elect women upon the Boards of Overseers of the Poor—desirable for the following reasons: Because the time necessary for this important work is more often at their disposal. Because the classes to be aided are largely composed of women and children. Because of their special fitness to advise with the matrons of almshouses about the domestic arrangements of these institutions. Because of their fitness to discharge the duty now devolving upon Boards of Overseers of the Poor of towns, as well as of cities, of finding suitable homes outside the almshouse for dependent children. The Legislature at its last session enacted that the Overseers of the Poor of all towns within the commonwealth shall place every child in their charge, and over four years of age, in some respectable family in the state, or in some asylum therein. No such child, who can be thus cared for without inordinate expense is now to be retained in any town or city almshouse in Massachusetts unless idiotic, or otherwise so defective in body or mind as to make his detention in an almshouse desirable or unless he is under the age of eight years and his mother is an inmate thereof and is a suitable person to aid in taking care of him.[36]