When at last the ordeal came, it was so much less dreadful than his anticipation of it that he was conscious of an immediate relief. There was, indeed, a minute of blind confusion as he made his way toward the stand - voices singing in his ears, a blue mist before his eyes. Then, somehow, he was sworn and seated, and all round him were the friendly faces of neighbors. He could see the judge nod encouragement to him over his desk; he could see the bracing kindness of the county attorney's glance. Whiting he could not see, the bowed shoulders of a reporter intervening.

He was scarcely nervous after the first moments. His story flowed from him without effort, almost without volition. 'I was walking along the track - I'd been fishing-' It seemed to him that he had said the words a million times.

There were interruptions now and then; objections; questions from a round-faced, deep-voiced youngster, who, Robbins divined presently, was Whiting's lawyer; but all of it - the narrative, the pauses, the repliescame with the regular, effortless movement of well-oiled machinery. He could have laughed at the puerile efforts of the defense to break down his story. 'Was he sure that he knew James Whiting?' Was there a resident of Sutro who did not know him? Could he swear, taking thought that he was under oath,

could he swear that the man on the side of the car was James Whiting and not some other man resembling him? If, on a moving train, another man resembling James Whiting, of about James Whiting's size -' 'He knows he can't touch me,' Robbins was thinking triumphantly. 'He knows it!'

The question of truth or falsehood was quite removed from him now. He came down from the stand finely elated,

and in the afternoon went back of his own accord to the court-room. Emerson, the truck-gardener, was under examination and faring badly. One by one, the damaging facts of his past came out against him an arrest for theft, a jail sentence for vagrancy, a quarrel with the prisoner, proved threats. The victim emerged limp from the ordeal, and slunk his way from the room, wholly discredited.

'Serves him right, though,' Robbins quenched his momentary pity. 'I knew all the time he was lying.' He started suddenly, so violently that the listener seated next him turned in irritation. 'And,' it had flashed through his mind, and he knew I was!'

His eyes sought the prisoner - the man who also knew where he sat hunched heavily forward in his chair, his arms upon the table. For an instant, pity, like some racking physical pain, shot through Robbins. To be caught in such a web! To be caught through no fault of his own! It was the first time the purely personal side had broken its way past his own selfish concern. It stifled him and, forcing his eyes from the man's brooding face, he got up and stumbled out of the

room.

But he could not stay out. An indefinite dread dragged him back presently. An indefinite dread held him bound to his place during the examination of the witnesses who followed, during the days of argument, and the judge's inconclusive charge. He lay awake on the night following the jury's retirement, picturing over and over in his own mind the scene of their return - just what degree of astonishment his face should show in listening to their verdict, with just what proud reticence and conscious wrong he should make his way out from the crowd. He had never said that Whiting was guilty he reminded himself of that. All he

--

had ever said was that on one certain day, in one certain place- He rolled over on his face and, hands across his eyes, tried vainly to sleep.

Half of Sutro was loafing about the court-house lawn next morning, pushing its way into the corridors at every rumor, drifting back to the freer outer air. When at last the rumor proved a true one, Robbins found himself far in the back of the room, the wall behind him, on three sides a packed, jostling crowd. There was a blur of unintentional noise in the place heavy breathing, the creaking of a door. Through the noise pierced at intervals the accustomed voice of the judge, and set between the intervals the mumble of the foreman's reply.

'— Agreed, all of you? —'

He was conscious of congratulatory sentences. He heard his own voice speaking words which, seemingly, were not without meaning. And all the while the mind of him waited, awed, for the impending catastrophe.

Mercifully, the house was empty when he reached home. He tiptoed into his own room, and there, the door closed behind him, stood for a moment listening. Then, with an exclamation, he dropped to his knees beside the bed and buried his face against it.

For an hour he knelt there, bodily quiet, the mind of him beating, circling, thrusting desperately against its surrounding cage of falsehood. At first it was all fear-how the exposure would come, how best he might sustain himself against it. Then, imperceptibly, a deeper terror crept into his thinking. Suppose it should not come? Suppose But that was unthinkable. For a lie to blast a man's whole life, for a lie to brand him. Stealthily, as if his very stirring might incense the devil-god of such a world, he slid down, sitting beside the bed, his distended, horror-fascinated eyes hard on the wall. In those minutes his young faith in God and justice fought to the death with the injustice before him fought and won.

'He'll be sentenced Friday,' he found himself thinking, drawing on some halfheard scrap of conversation. "That's four days. There's time enough—'

He dragged himself up and lay down at full length. Something hot smarted upon his face; he put up his hand to find his cheeks wet with tears. They flowed quietly for a long time soothingly. He fell asleep at last, his lashes still heavy with them.

He was very early at the court-house Friday morning. Cartwright, coming in at nine to his office, crossed the corridor to speak to him- cheerily.

'Well, we got our man, Robbins.

You made a good witness

I meant to tell you so before; no confusing you. Look here, my boy, you're not fretting over this? If it had n't been you, it would have been some one else. There's no covering a crime like that.'

'Not ever?' said Robbins thickly. His secret was upon his tongue's end. A glance of interrogation would have brought it spilling out. But there was no interrogation in his companion's eyes only an abstracted kindness. He looked away from the lad toward the stragglers along the corridor.

'You came up to hear the sentence? Come in through my office and we'll find you a seat. The place will be packed.'

"There's nothing new?' Robbins asked unwillingly. 'No-new evidence?'

'Why, no! The case will be closed in another half-hour. And then I hope it will be a long time before you have any thing to do with a criminal charge again. Now if you want to come in

Robbins followed, silent. It did not trouble him to find himself placed conspicuously in the front row. His whole attention was set upon holding fast to the one strand of hope extended to him. In half an hour it would be over. In half an hour the hideous thing would be folded into the past. But it would not! The case against Whiting would be ended, the arraignment of God would be but just begun! To go on living in a world so guardianed

The judge entered and took his place; the lawyers on either side filed in to their stations about the long table; the prisoner was brought in in the custody of a deputy sheriff. There was a little bustle of curiosity to herald his coming. Then the packed room settled to attention.

Robbins leaned forward in his seat. He heard vaguely the opening interchanges of speech. He saw the prisoner

rise. The man was clay-colored; his teeth scraped back and forth continually on his dry lower lip. There was no resource in him, no help. And suddenly the watcher knew that help was nowhere. The voice of the judge reached him, low-pitched and solemn, as befitted the occasion.

- having been found guilty-decree that you be confined

'No!' said Robbins suddenly almost in a scream.

All at once the thing was clear to him. It was not Whiting who was being sentenced, it was God who was on trial, it was truth, good faith, the right to hope. The impulse of his cry had wrenched him from his chair. He stood flung forward against the rail.

'You can't! I never saw him! They were tormenting me and I said I did. He was n't there -'

Behind him the court-room rang with excitement. He was aware of startled exclamations. He was aware of Cartwright, tragic-eyed, beside him, halfsheltering him, calling to him.

'Robbins! What's wrong? He's not speaking under oath. He's been brooding

'It's so!' said the boy.

For a moment he held himself erect among them, high-headed, joyous, splendid with the exaltation of the martyr. Then, suddenly, his eyes met the eyes of the prisoner. He dropped back into his seat, his shaking hands before his face.

It had lasted a second, less than a second, that frank, involuntary revelation; but in that second, his guard beaten down by sheer amazement, the prisoner's guilt stood plain in his face. In that second, reading the craven record of it, Robbins saw the glory of martyrdom snatched from him forever - knew himself, now and now only, irrevocably perjured.

PROPER measures for the prevention and control of tuberculosis among school-children should not only be addressed to the protection of children during their school-life, and to the cure of those who have active tuberculosis, but should also aim at the education of all children in the essential facts of hygiene and, so far as possible, in the cultivation of habits of living that will protect them in later life.

The present paper does not deal with the educational side of this work except so far as it is inseparably bound up with the care of children already ailing or actively tuberculous.

The consideration of the best methods of handling tuberculosis demands an appreciation of the habits and characteristics both of the disease and of the patients. At the outset we must remember that if every existent case of tuberculosis could be hunted up and put in quarantine the practical elimination of the disease could be confidently expected in the life-time of one generation. But such thoroughness is humanly impossible. The people would not put up with a quarantine of such dimensions, and it would never be possible to find the cases if the patients feared being shut up.

Many communities are, however, educated to the point of a partial understanding of the dangers of the disease and the need of reasonable precautions. They are ready to accept a separation of tuberculous school-children from well children, and I propose to consider various plans for bringing this about.

The situation is, briefly, that the state insists upon and enforces attendance at school during the growing years of the child, and in so doing tacitly assumes responsibility that the child does not suffer any harm by reason of this school-attendance. It is then the duty of the community to safeguard the health of school-children as far as lies in its power. This responsibility and this duty are reflected in legislation requiring public schools to conform to certain requirements in buildings and sanitary arrangements, and to provide proper inspection of their pupils to protect them from the needless spread of contagious diseases.

It is obvious that the responsibility thus already recognized requires that cities and towns should devise some way in which the tuberculous children may be kept from contact with the well.

In approaching this problem the school authorities find themselves confronted by two classes of children. First, children who are anæmic, rundown and under-nourished; in whom no signs of tuberculosis can be detected, but whose condition suggests latent tuberculosis. The disease appears so frequently in children of this class that they are frequently spoken of as in the pre-tubercular stage of the disease. Second, those who are actively tuberculous and in whom the disease can be positively diagnosticated.

Children in the first of these classes are not dangerous to other children. They can associate intimately with the

well children, but they are liable at any time to become actively tuberculous, and therefore dangerous. Life in the open air has proved its usefulness in restoring to health both adults and children who are debilitated, and in many places this class of children has been provided with out-of-door schools and with open-air rooms.

The out-of-door treatment of these children is no longer an experiment; it has been fully tried in many places and has abundantly proved its usefulness. These trials have demonstrated that the condition of health is greatly bettered, and have shown that the mental capacity of the children and their ability to learn their lessons are quite surprisingly increased. It has been found that these children in the open air accomplish their tasks with less hours of study than children in like grades who are studying in closed

rooms.

This experience ought to open the eyes of school authorities to their shortcomings in the matter of school ventilation, and the benefits of this discovery should be felt through the whole school system.

In addition to this provision of proper surroundings for these weakling children it has been not unusual for school committees to supply a lunch, and sometimes also to supply warm coverings to needy and scantilyclothed children during school hours in cold weather. These are both necessary adjuncts to the treatment of these under-nourished children, though the difficulty and expense of providing them has deterred many communities from establishing open-air schools. The food thus provided and the needed extra wraps should manifestly be paid for by well-to-do parents, who are able to pay for the medical and other care of their children's health. It is equally certain that they should be in some way

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supplied to children whose parents are unable to pay for the medical aid they need, and who, for other forms of medical assistance, resort to dispensaries and public hospitals.

It has been objected that this is a forward step in socialism, and this is undoubtedly true; but is that a valid objection? Compulsory education was a forward step in the same direction, and has the world regretted that? This proposed advance in the care of the children whose education the state has assumed, is a measure for the protection of the community, for the improvement of its health, for the limitation of an insidious disease, and as such it is a proper measure for which to spend the public money.

The distribution of this help should, of course, be arranged in such a manner that there should be as little pauperizing effect as possible on the recipients of the community's bounty, but it would not be a startling innovation in a community supplying free schoolbooks. To reduce the pauperizing effect to a minimum it might be well, whenever it could possibly be arranged, to have the parents pay a small sum for the lunches.

The children who were given this extra care in the schools would naturally be under the especially careful watch of the school nurses. The nurses would follow them to their homes and would thus have the opportunity to see the home conditions, and discover

how these had contributed to bring on the debilitated condition, and to advise the parents and assist them to correct any hygienic mistakes.

The out-of-door school, then, in order to produce the best results, should be supplemented by a good system of inspection by nurses.

What is an out-of-door school, and how far does an open window or windows fulfill the necessary conditions?