ned,
it expects that its out-of-pocket costs will be met.

The cases with which it has to deal are of all kinds. Often those who
have disappeared are found to have done so purposely, perhaps leaving
behind them manufactured evidence, such as coats or letters on a
river-bank, suggesting that they have committed suicide. Generally,
these people are involved in some fraud or other trouble. Again,
husbands desert their wives, or wives their husbands, and vanish, in
which instances they are probably living with somebody else under
another name. Or children are kidnapped, or girls are lured away, or
individuals emigrate to far lands and neglect to write. Or, perhaps,
they simply sink out of all knowledge, and vanish effectually enough
into a paupers grave.

But the oddest cases of all are those of a complete loss of memory, a
thing that is by no means so infrequent as is generally supposed. The
experience of the Army is that the majority of these cases happen
among those who lead a studious life. The victim goes out in his usual
health and suddenly forgets everything. His mind becomes a total
blank. Yet certain instincts remain, such as that of earning a living.

Thus, to take a single recent example, the son of a large bookseller
in a country town left the house one day, saying that he would not be
away for long, and disappeared. At the invitation of his father, the
Army took up the case, and ultimately found that the man had been
working in its Spa Road Elevator under another name. Afterwards he
went away, became destitute, and sold matches in the streets.
Ultimately he was found in a Church Army Home. He recovered his
memory, and subsequently lost it again to the extent that he could
recall nothing which happened to him during the period of its first
lapse. All that time vanished into total darkness.

This business of the hunting out of the missing through the agency of
the Salvation Army is one which increases every day. It is not unusual
for the Army to discover individuals who have been missing for thirty
years and upwards.

THE EMIGRATION DEPARTMENT

Some years ago I was present one night in the Board-room at Euston
Station and addressed a shipload of emigrants who were departing to
Canada under the auspices of the Salvation Army. I forget their exact
number, but I think it was not less than 500. What I do not forget,
however, is the sorrow that I felt at seeing so many men in the prime
of life leavin