Herbert McCann, who had been doing railway construction in Russia, returned to this country and disappeared while en route from an eastern city to his home in Canada.  There was reason to think that he might have left the train in an intoxicated condition at an important junction point; and the family social agency of that city was asked to trace him.  No information was secured from the police, lodging houses, employment agencies, etc., and finally the following advertisement was inserted in the local paper:  “Information Wanted—­Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Herbert McCann, Montreal, who returned from Russia in June, will confer a favor upon his family by notifying Social Service Building, 34 Grand Street.”  Six days later a reply was received from a man in a nearby town, and McCann was found at work in a factory there.

More than upon any other method the National Desertion Bureau depends on the publication of pictures and short newspaper paragraphs.  As this Bureau deals entirely with Jewish deserters, it works chiefly through the Yiddish newspapers.  Its “Gallery of Missing Husbands” is a regular weekly feature in some of the better known of these journals, and attracts increasingly wide attention.  The Bureau estimates that 70 per cent of the deserters which it finds are discovered through the publication of pictures.  It should be remembered, however, that this Bureau is dealing with a selected group, who know a great deal about one another, live closely together, follow in the main only a few trades, and read only a limited number of foreign-language newspapers.  Whether anything like the same results could be obtained by the same methods applied to deserting husbands of many different national and social backgrounds is open to question.

Since most deserters leave the city, if not the state, the social worker who is dealing with the family problem is often not the same person to whom is delegated the task of finding the man.  This fact makes necessary the most careful and sympathetic co-operation between the social workers or agencies, which must work together at long range upon the problem.  In the case of Herbert McCann, just cited, not less than four family social work societies were concerned—­three in the United States and one in Canada.  This necessitated keeping in the closest touch, by letter and 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,