ring which the Officer confessed to me that he felt very
uncomfortable. The end of it was that his visitor said, with a laugh,
that 'he would not like to cumber the Salvation Army with his corpse,'
and walked out of the room. The draught which he had taken was
comparatively harmless.

As I have mentioned, however, a proportion of the cases are quite
irreclaimable. They come and consult the Army, then depart and do the
deed. Six that can be traced have been lost in this way during the
last few months.

Colonel Unsworth explained to me what I had already guessed, that this
business of dealing with scores and hundreds of despairing beings
standing on the very edge of the grave, is a terrible strain upon any
man. The responsibility becomes too great, and he who has to bear it
is apt to be crushed beneath its weight. Every morning he reads his
paper with a sensation of nervous dread, fearing lest among the police
news he should find a brief account of the discovery of some corpse
which he can identify as that of an individual with whom he had
pleaded at his office on the yesterday and in vain.

On former occasions when I visited him, Colonel Unsworth used to show
me a small museum of poisons, knives, revolvers, etc., which he had
taken from those who proposed to use them to cut the Gordian knot of
life.

Now, however, he has but few of these dreadful relics. I asked him
what he had done with the rest. He answered that he had destroyed
them.

'The truth is,' he added, 'that after some years of this business I
can no longer bear to look at the horrid things; they get upon my
nerves.'

If I may venture to offer a word of advice to the Chiefs of the
Salvation Army, I would suggest that the very responsible position of
first Anti-Suicide Officer in London is not one that any man should be
asked to fill in perpetuity.

WORK IN THE PROVINCES

LIVERPOOL

When planning this little book I had it in my mind to deal at some
length with the Provincial Social Work of the Army, Now I find,
however, that considerations of space must be taken into account; also
that it is not needful to set out all the details of that work, seeing
that to do so would involve a great deal of repetition.

The Salvation Army machines for the regeneration of fallen men and
women, if I may so describe them, are, after all, of much the same
design, and vary for the most part only in the matter of size. The
material that goes through those