trained eye could detect at
a glance, and he, too, every few minutes, stooped forward and chalked
upon the coat of the man or the blouse of the woman, as the case might
be, a letter which told of a suspected disease.

"I suppose I ought not to say anything," said Hamilton, "but that looks
a little 'hit-or-miss' to me. It's hard on an immigrant to be detained
on the basis of a medical examination that barely takes ten seconds."

"If that were all," said the official, smiling, "it surely would be a
hardship. But you don't quite get the point. All these passengers really
are detained, and this arrangement is only a way to render the detention
shorter by letting those go through unchecked who do not need further
examination. This is not to delay the suspects, but to cause less
trouble to the others. Here, however is where most of them get stopped."

He pointed to another doctor, standing close to the last, who examined
the eyes quickly and deftly (principally for a chronic and contagious
disease called "trachoma"), scrupulously cleansing fingers and
instrument between each immigrant.

Passing the eye doctors the immigrants came to an inspector who stood at
a place where a large grating was built midway in the passage, dividing
it into two parts. All those who had been marked by any of the doctors,
and, in the cases of families, all those in the party of any one so
marked, passed up the right hand passage which led to the Special
Inquiry; the others were guided to the left hand side of the grating,
which led directly into the main primary inspection room.

"Do you suppose they understand anything of the meaning of that
division," asked Hamilton, "why some go on this side and some on the
other!"

"They don't at all," was the reply. "You will notice that there are no
signs up, and that no attempt is made--at this point--to talk to the
immigrant or to try to make him understand anything. Then, too, since
all the members of a family or party are kept together, there is no
reason why they should make a disturbance. They simply go where they are
sent. If we separated the families, sending some on one side and some on
the other, then there would be trouble!"

"That's true," said Hamilton, "in many cases they couldn't read the
signs, and they don't know at all what the doctors' marks mean."

"Exactly, and once past the inspector, there is no getting out or coming
back, for the two passages lead directly into two series of ro