whom he has seen. They may be offenders against morals and the social
order, but they are human beings over whom the waters of civilization
seem to sweep with relentless flood. The frightful waste of life and
energy seems inexcusable. And it is as though some mill dam had burst
and was flowing in a terrific torrent down a river bed along which a
few are drawn white and drowned.

The ordinary man knows that the women who go under are such a small
proportion of those who escape, that it seems either a ghastly joke or
a terrible tragedy. The whole paraphernalia of the court-room merely
accents the contrast between those who are caught and those who go
free.

But all criminal courts are always unpleasant. And humanity if seen
only in the setting of a criminal trial would be a discouraging
object. Turning to the more civil court, we find an almost equal
unfitness between the courts and modern conditions.




II

THE CIVIL COURT


In a twenty-four-story office building, on a smooth gliding elevator,
up seventeen stories, down a low-ceilinged corridor, past fireproof
doors labeled: "Clerk's Office," "Judge's Chambers," "Witness Room,"
we find the typical modern court. The old idea of a very