telegram, so that each was informed of the doings of the others. Such a
piece of work calls for a common body of experience and technique among
the workers concerned, amounting almost to an unwritten understanding
as to how the work should be done. Nothing makes more fascinating
reading than the record of a quick, touch-and-go investigation, such as
is presented in the finding of a deserter conducted by skilled case
workers who are accustomed to work together. Much can, under these
circumstances, be taken for granted or left to the discretion of the
worker or agency whose help is being sought. There are instances,
however, where no such common understanding exists, and where the
home-town agency has to work through people with little social training
or with training of a type which definitely unfits them properly to
approach the deserting man. It is a distressing experience to know that
a man has slipped through one's fingers, been frightened off or
alienated, by poor work at the other end. Are there any ways to reduce
the number of these mischances?

Even with the closest co-operation among case workers of ability in
different cities the results are not always as favorable, for obvious
reasons, as if the person who knows the family were the one to find and
interview the man. More and more it is realized that money and time
spent in going to nearby cities to do one's own investigating is well
spent. There used to be a feeling on the part of the kindred society
whose territory was thus invaded that this action argued lack of
confidence in its work; but as the importance of the personal contact
has been more widely recognized this feeling has disappeared. It may be
said that a worker who goes to a strange city is handicapped by her lack
of knowledge of local conditions. This is of course true, and it may
easily be a question of how great an advantage will be gained by the
journey. The worker from the man's home town can, however, go far toward