), all receive financial aid from the commonwealth, which has
representation in their management. The city hospital dates from 1864. A
floating hospital for women and children in the summer months, with
permanent and transient wards, has been maintained since 1894
(incorporated 1901). Boston was one of the first municipalities of the
country to make provision for the separate treatment of juvenile
offenders; in 1906 a juvenile court was established. A People's Palace
dedicated to the work of the Salvation Army, and containing baths,
gymnasium, a public hall, a library, sleeping-rooms, an employment
bureau, free medical and legal bureaus, &c., was opened in 1906. Simmons
College and Harvard University maintain the Boston school for social
workers (1904). Beneficent social work out of the more usual type is
directed by the music and bath departments of the city government. In
the provision of public gymnasiums and baths (1866) Boston was the
pioneer city of the country, and remains the most advanced. The beach
reservations of the metropolitan park system at Revere and Nantasket,
and several smaller city beaches are a special feature of this service.
Benjamin Franklin, who was born and spent his boyhood in Boston, left
L1000 to the city in his will; it amounted in 1905 to $403,000, and
constituted a fund to be used for the good of the labouring class of the
city.

Largely owing to activity in public works Boston has long been the
most expensively governed of American cities. The average yearly
expenditure for ten years preceding 1904 was $27,354,416, exclusive of
payments on funded and floating debts. The running expenses
_per-capita_ in 1900 were $35.23; more than twice the average of 86
leading cities of the country (New York, $23.92; Chicago, $11.62).
Schools, police, charities, water, streets and parks are the items of
heaviest cost. The cost of the public schools for the five years from
1901-1902 to 1906-1907 was $27,883,937, of which $7,057,895.42 was for
new buildings; the cost of the police department was $11,387,314.66
for the six years 1902-1907; and of the water department $4,941,343.37
for the six years 1902-1907; of charities and social work a much
larger sum. The remaking of the city was enormously expensive,
especially the alteration of the streets after 1866, when the city
received power to make such alterations and assess a part of the
improvements upon abutting estates. The