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Transcribed and submitted by Linda Talbott
for the USGenNet Data Repository http://www.us-data.org/
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Formatted by USGenNet Data Repository Chief Archivist, Linda Talbott
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Seventh Biennial Report of the
Board of State Commissioners of
Public Charities of the
State of Illinois
Presented to the Governor, November 1882


         
         [p. 253]
         
         KANKAKEE. - In this county the towns suppor their own
       poor; but the town of Kankakee owns an almshouse, to which
       the other towns send their insane paupers. The amount
       charged for keeping insane paupers is four dollars and
       fifty cents a week; for other paupers the keeper receives
       two dollars a week. He pays for the use of the farm five
       hundred and sixty-two dollars a year. The number of inmates
       present when we visited was twenty-one, of whom thirteen
       were insane, one blind and three cripples. Of the insane, 
       eleven were in seclusion. The number of paupers admitted
       in 1881 was nine, the number discharged eight, and one
       died. The officers, both of the town and county, regard
       this almshouse as a building totally unfit for the purpose
       for which it is used. It is excessively warm in summer and
       excessively cold in winter. During the winter of 1880-81,
       it is said that some of the insane inmates had their feet
       badly frozen while in their rooms, and that this fact was
       not discovered until a portion of them were removed to the
       State Hospital for the Insane, in Kankakee, the following
       spring. The county authorities are agitating the question
       of erecting a building for the care of the insane. Some
       of the insane inmates go naked at times, but on the day
       when inspected they wore clothing.
       
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