ALBERT C. RITCHIE, GOVERNOR.                  977

said supervisors to make certain contracts with child placing '
agencies.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of
Maryland, That Section 107 of Article 4= of the Code of Pub-
lic Local Laws of Maryland (1927 and 1930 Editions), title
"City of Baltimore, " sub-title Supervisors of City Charities, "
be and it is hereby repealed and re-enacted, with amendments,
to read as follows:

107. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, through
the said supervisors, shall have care and supervision over such
children as shall be committed to or placed in those institu-
tions or child placing agencies, with which the city may have
contracted and as shall have been duly accepted by said super-
visors as proper charges on the city. Said supervisors shall
have power to remove any child from any such institution or
child placing agency to which he or she has been committed
or placed, and to place said child in any other such institution
or child placing agency, when it is apparent to the supervisors
that from improper treatment or for other good cause, the
welfare of the child requires such removal. No such child
shall be discharged from the institution or child placing agency
to which he or she shall have been committed or placed (unless
by direction of a court of competent jurisdiction), or be trans-
ferred to any other institution, or to the care of any individual
without the approval and consent of the said supervisors. It
shall be the duty of the supervisors, as far as is practicable,
to place all destitute or neglected children who are under their
care or in their charge, in some institution or child placing
agency or home for children, or without payment of board in
some respectable family in the State of Maryland, and to have
the children visited and their circumstances carefully examined
at least once in every six months by one of the supervisors or
by a skilled agent or agents appointed by them for the pur-
pose. On the preliminary question of the commitment of any
destitute or neglected child, said supervisors, or their agent,
shall be summoned by the committing officer and heard as to
whether the parent or guardian of the child to be committed
is entitled to the aid of the city, and if on return of the sum-
mons of the said supervisors, or their agent, further time is
required by them or him to make inquiry as to the pecuniary
ability of said parent or guardian further time, not exceeding