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Finding the present building entirely too small to receive
the large number who beg to be received, the Managers, at
an expense of $55,000, have undertaken to build an addition
to accommodate at least 200 inmates : and for the first time
they ask an appropriation by the State to aid them in their
landable work, it having been heretofore supported entirely
by private contribution and without any assissance from the
municipal or State governments.

It is proper that your Committee should here state that
though they were only directed to visit such institutions as are
beneficiaries of the State, they extended their examination,
on account of representations made to them as to the benevo-
lent character of the last two named, and of the vast amount
of good which might be accomplished by some aid from the
State, in benefiting two classes of unfortunates; one totally
unable to provide for themselves by reason of their tender
age, and the other endeavoring to redeem their reputation
and re-establish a lost character for purity and virtue, and
your Committe, in consideration of these facts, deemed them-
selves justified in thus extending their examination and
inquiries, and we respectfully suggest an appropriation of
$5,000 for the year 1867 and also the same amount for the
year 1868.

CONCLUSION.

It is with a degree of pride and pleasure, to which lan-
guage affords no sufficient form of expression, that we refer
to the ladies of our State, to whose active and yet unobtru-
sive charities, we are indebted for the numerous institutions
of benevolence, which so fully illustrates the generous char-
acter and high-toned morality of Maryland. Untiring in
efforts to meliorate the condition and wretchedness of suffer-
ing humanity, their plans of usefulness, have mitigated the
stern discipline of the prison, and cheered the gloom of the
dungeon by rays of beneficent action. Their exertions have
provided Homes for the aged and infirm of both sexes : they
have opened homes for the friendless, and provided refuges
for the orphan and the homeless, the sick, the crippled, the
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