384 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF SOCIOLOGY
only in cases of "emergency" and "necessity." 1 A similar provision is found in New Jersey. 2 In Mississippi and Georgia, it is to be given only until the indigence of the applicant can be established or proven untrue and the applicant accordingly sent to the almshouse or dismissed. 3
A more definite limitation is had where the amount to be given in such relief is limited. The statutes of Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, authorize the relieving officers to give relief in homes, but in no case is the amount to exceed the cost of maintaining the person at the almshouse. 4 In New York an overseer of the poor cannot in any one year grant in relief to an indigent more than $10 without the written permission of a superintendent of the poor. 5 A similar provision is found in Michigan, the limit being $20 instead of $io. 6 In Iowa those whom the township trustees and overseers think should not be sent to the almshouse, may be relieved, but such relief is in no case to exceed $2 per week for each individual. 7 And, lastly, in Minnesota, the amount is ordinarily limited to $20 per year, but in some cases the higher limit of $50 is author- ized. 8
In a number of states the law provides for such relief in the form of yearly allowances, virtually pensions, to certain classes. These are all limited, however, to what is necessary to maintain the person in the "usual" or "customary" way, that is, in the almshouse. The provision in Oklahoma reads as follows : "The board of county commissioners may, in their discretion, allow and pay to poor persons who may become chargeable as paupers and who are of mature years, and sound mind, and who from their general character will probably be benefited thereby, and also the parents of idiots and of children otherwise helpless, requiring the attention of the parents, and who are unable to provide for such children themselves, such annual allowance as will not exceed the charge of their maintenance in the ordinary mode 9
X 7, ch. 46. 4 9, p. 94; 2128; 365 r. 72148 and 2152.
9 64, p. 2518. s Acts of 1894, ch. 663. 8 1962, 1974.
33153 and 762 respectively. 6 I762. 9 365i.
