shielded by his sister, but was discovered by an officer who scraped
acquaintance with her little boy and asked innocently, "Where's your
uncle Jack now?" In another case the officer learned of a man's
whereabouts through his relatives by representing himself as a lawyer's
clerk calling about a legacy which had been left the man. In still
another case, reported by a different agency, a man who had deserted his
family was known to be receiving mail through the general delivery of
another city. It was ascertained that he was writing to a woman in his
home town. A letter was sent to him in care of General Delivery asking
him to meet the writer (who was represented to be the young woman with
whom he was corresponding). The wife was sent to that city and she and
the local probation officer met the man and served the warrant.

There is, of course, something to be said in favor of the use of such
methods. The protection of the weak and helpless may justify, in certain
circumstances, any subterfuge. But the _detective_ who arrests the
criminal in ways like these is seeking his punishment and nothing else.
There is no thought in that case of establishing personal relations and
effecting the long, slow process of reformation. When social workers use
such methods it should be in the full realization that they are
foregoing any future advantage of straight dealing with the man. To
capture a man by a trick is to declare war on him; and, in his mind, the
social worker and the policeman then stand in the same place, "I'd have
him there to meet you," said a deserter's chum to a woman visitor, "if I
wasn't sure, in spite of your straight talk, you'd have a bull waiting
behind a tree."[20]

If it is a first desertion, or if there is room for doubt whether an
accident may have befallen the man, police and hospital records should
be looked up.