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STRAIGHTENING OUT A DOMESTIC TANGLE. GEORGE S. WEBER AND FRANK M. HELAN ON THE JOB

A DOMESTIC RELATIONS COURT

BY RICHARD B. WATROUS

trial. Before that condition could arise, however, a zealous officer, of the city

ON-SUPPORT is a felony, under the law, in the District of Columbia, and is punishable by the Police Department, detailed to the Discriminal courts just as is arson, larceny, house-breaking, or any other misdemeanor. Until recently actions by wives against their husbands for failure to support them and their children came under the jurisdiction of the juvenile and probation court. A recent construction of the law, however, transferred them directly to the office of the United States District Attorney. The strictly technical execution of the law in such cases is of long duration, is expensive, and is generally quite lacking in the application of any helpful human relations.

Washington, for its population, has in the course of a year a quite large percentage of non-support cases-probably not more than in other cities, but more conspicuous because they are brought to public attention. Possibly the number is due in part to its colored population and the number of small wage-earners of the common labor type. It was apparent in October, when it became necessary for the District Attorney to assume non-support cases, that the courts would soon become clogged and congested and the jail overfilled with offenders under indictment awaiting

trict Attorney's office to prepare cases for presentation to the Grand Jury, hit upon a method that in a quite unofficial application has proved to be expeditious, much less expensive, and altogether much more human in the disposition of cases of matrimonial disagreements and consequent non-support. Thus it has come about that George S. Weber, the officer in charge, with the co-operation of his brother detective Frank M. Helan, has, in effect, established and set in operation, almost before he knew what he was really doing, a "domestic relations court."

The procedure is a simple one. When an aggrieved wife appears at the office of the District Attorney to make complaint of a neglectful husband, she is referred to Mr. Weber, who, instead of passing the case directly to the Grand Jury, first ascertains what support the wife thinks her husband might afford to pay-it is amazing what small sums are frequently agreed upon-and also what prospects there may be of a reconciliation if the separated parties were brought together. He then writes in an unofficial way-that is, not by a formal summons process-to the husband, say

ing that the wife has made complaint against him for non-support and inviting him to appear at his office at three o'clock on the following Thursday afternoon to discuss the matter. It is usually arranged, without the knowledge of the husband, that the wife shall be there at the same time. Each Thursday is a busy day-there is always a well-filled anteroom. The husbands usually appear, probably not infrequently because they think they must appear. Each one has a good "sit-down" talk with the officers, and then, if he is willing, the wife is brought in and they talk things over, with the result that the husband generally agrees to some form of support and very often family differences are healed then and there, and the two go away together, happy and thankful for the agency that has brought them together. If the husband does not appear, or if after the conference he is obstinate and will not promise to do his duty, his case goes to the Grand Jury the next day; generally he is indicted, and, if unable to obtain bail, remanded at once to jail to await trial, conviction, and sentence to a term in prison.

During the three months that this unique "domestic relations court" has been in existence the results have been

most gratifying. Out of three hundred And fifty cases Mr. Weber says that one hundred families have been reunited, and that in those instances where reconciliation was not effected one hundred and eighty husbands have been induced to, and for the most part do, give support to their families. Only thirty have been indicted and compelled to go through the slow, expensive, and

disheartening stages of trial, conviction, and imprisonment. By their zeal as officials of the state and their distinctly human interest in unfortunates these two men, through the court of their own creation, have healed many marital wounds, maintained many wage-earners as such rather than assisted in their withdrawal from labor and unproductive confinement in jails, and saved the Dis

trict Government the large expenses that are ordinarily involved in the grinding of court wheels. This has worked to the satisfaction of all concerned, and none are happier in the results than the two officers who originated the plan and have carried it to a successful fruition and who now have the satisfaction, of being peacemakers rather than law enforcers.

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ATTLES have been won and battles have been lost because of Great enterprises have failed because of the destruction wrought by disease-carrying and diseasedistributing insects. In our own coun try vast areas of agricultural lands are little used and practically undeveloped because of the prevalence of an insectborne disease, malaria! Cities and communities have grown and prospered regardless of endemic yellow fever, which is also an insect-borne disease, but this cannot be said of any place where malaria seriously prevails. Malaria is a disease that works slowly but surely. It is not the immediate cause of death as often as a number of other diseases, but in many instances it certainly is an important contributing factor, for malaria is a disease which debilitates. It saps the patient's strength as it makes its savage attacks from time to time, and thus the powers of resisting other diseases are broken down. Because the disease works slowly and by degrees, and because it is not the immediate cause of death frequently, there is nothing spectacular about it. Consequently it does not frighten the public like smallpox, yellow fever, and typhoid, and it does not receive the attention which it justly deserves. An attack of malaria is bad while it lasts, but it is soon over and apparently forgotten until the next brood of organisms is liberated and fever again results. An attack of the disease is aptly described in the following poem by the late Mr. Gilbert, a Panama Canal Zone poet, who, as is evident, knew malaria from first-hand experience:

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Public health officers who have had an opportunity to observe and study malaria are fully aware of the seriousness of the disease, and they are making great efforts to enlighten the public. The response has not always been of the desired degree, mainly for two reasons: first, the disease is not one that tends to frighten man to action; second, to control malaria requires funds. The average man will not spend a dollar unless he is sure that he will. receive a dollar in return. Some men require a dollar and a quarter or a dollar and a half, and others wish to collect the interest in advance. A dollar spent in anti-malaria work is a most excellent investment, but the burden of convincing the public of this fact falls upon the shoulders of the public health officers, and this is not always an easy matter.

Fine examples illustrating the fact that malaria can be controlled by preventing mosquito production in large numbers are available. We need only to refer to work done by the Federal Government on the Panama Canal Zone, and to the cantonment zone work during the recent war. The cost of this work, however, was quite high, and therefore much attention is now being devoted 10 finding more economical methods of securing the same, or even better, results. As these newer and cheaper methods are being developed the burden of the health officers and the public is becoming lighter, and anti-malaria operations no doubt will be greatly extended.

One of the newer and cheaper methods of fighting mosquitoes and malaria consists in the employment of top-feeding fish. It is the major purpose of this article to convey information concerning the fish used and the manner of their employment for anti-mosquito work.

A word of explanation concerning the relation which the mosquito bears to malaria, however, appears to be in order before proceeding with the subject of fishes in relation to mosquito control. Malaria is caused by an organism which grows and multiplies in the red cells of the human blood,. and the only way these organisms can be carried from one person to another is through the females of a certain group of mosquitoes belong ing to the genus Anopheles. So far as known, the malaria parasite does not live in any other mosquitoes. In the stomach of the Anopheles it, however, not only lives, but multiplies. Some of the new organisms then migrate from the mosquito's stomach to its mouth, and when it again bites a person some of the parasites are injected into the blood as the mosquito sinks its proboscis through the skin and into a blood-vessel. In this way, and this way only, is malaria transmitted from one individual to another. The theories that malaria is caused by night air, bad air from ponds and swamps, from the drinking of bad water, from the eating of chinkapins or watermelons after the first of October, are mere trash.

Conquering the mosquito pest by the employment of top-feeding fish, while comparatively new in anti-malaria work. nevertheless is a very old way of checking mosquito production, for it is nature's way. It has been known for many years that certain fish fed on wiggletails, or young mosquitoes, when placed in aquaria, water barrels, cisterns, etc., but their value in larger waters was variously overestimated or underestimated. There also was no definite information concerning the fish which were of most value. Within the last four years much headway, however, has been made in determining which species are the chief enemies of the immature mosquito. (It of course must be understood that the young or immature mosquito, larvæ and pupæ, live in the water.) Considerable information too has been gained concerning the manner of the employment of fish and the degree of control which may be expected from their introduction into waters of various kinds.

Most of the members of the top minnow family appear to be naturs

A SECTION OF A POND SHOWING AN AREA OVERGROWN WITH "SILVER-LEAF GRASS," WHICH FORMS GOOD PROTECTION FOR MOSQUITO LARVE AGAINST FISH

enemies of the mosquito, but one species occurring in the Southern States of this country has been found to be of especially great value. This fish is the common, insignificant-looking top minnow, also known in some localities as the "top-water minnow" or merely as "topwaters," in other localities as the "potbellied minnow." To science this little fish is known as Gambusia affinis. Since only a single species from the waters of the United States is recognized, it hereafter in this article will be referred to as Gambusia-a name which, etymologically speaking, signifies "nothing," of no account, a joke or farce, meaning that when you catch a Gambusia you catch nothing. It, then, is evident that the naturalist who selected this name failed to guess the importance which these little fish some day would assume.

The female Gambusia is much larger than the male and much the mightier sex, but even the giant females rarely attain a length of 2% inches. The males have a somewhat more slender body, and rarely, if ever, exceed a length of 11⁄2 inches. In the aquarium the cruel, ferocious female often pounces upon the small male, making attack after attack, each time inflicting a wound or taking a mouthful of flesh, which is devoured. The result of course is that the male is killed and devoured to the extent of the feeding capacity of the female.

The color in both sexes is a modest gray, but the male may be distinguished from the female by the shape of the anal fin, the fin on the median line of the body situated just behind the vent. In the female this fin is normally developed, consisting of rays connected by membrane, but in the male the rays are united and prolonged, and the fin forms a long spear-shaped prong. This prong

serves as an intromittent organ for the conveyance of the male element (sperms) from the male to the female, for, curiously enough, in Gambusia the eggs are fertilized and hatched within the body of the female and the young are born alive, in broods of a few to a hundred or so at a time, each female producing several broods of young during one summer.

The young when born are about onehalf inch in length. They are welldeveloped and fully formed fish, being able to swim with ease and quite thoroughly able to take care of themselves. It is indeed very fortunate for the young fish that they come into the world so well prepared to lead an independent life, for they receive no parental care whatever. Even the mother at once becomes an enemy. In the aquarium, at least, the brutal parent often eats up her own young as rapidly as they are born. The young fish grow rapidly, and sometimes they become sexually mature at the age of three months and themselves then begin producing offspring. Thus two generations result during a single

summer.

The fact that Gambusia brings forth its young alive is of great advantage in the utilization of this fish for antimalaria work, for the necessity for a special environment required by egglaying species for depositing and hatching the eggs is not necessary, as the young are born while the adults move about in the water. Reproduction takes place almost anywhere, even in the aquarium. This enables the anti-malaria worker to use this fish in many kinds of waters, the introduction of a brood stock only being necessary, as the offspring usually soon abundantly populate the water.

Gambusia furthermore is of wide dis

tribution, occurring in at least some of the waters in all malarious sections of the South. Thus it has from the beginning and continues to provide a measure of mosquito control. In other words, Gambusia has served as a check on malaria from the beginning of civilization in the South and the consequent introduction of malaria. It is the firm belief of the writer that several large and prosperous cities in the South never would have been built had it not been for this enemy of the mosquito.

It is not claimed that fish in any locality have furnished complete mosquito control. It is not nature's way to permit one form of animal life to exterminate another. Consequently, in many waters barriers have been placed between the fish and the immature mosquito. These barriers may consist of plant growths or of floating or anchored débris, over which the wiggletails hover out of sight and out of reach of the fish. Again, Gambusia has enemies, consisting chiefly of larger predatory fishes, water snakes, and birds, which may prevent it from becoming abundant enough to destroy all the wiggletails which are obtainable in the water. There also are waters in nearly every locality which are inaccessible to the fish through natural channels, and consequently have not become populated with members of the finny tribe. It is here where man's help is needed. Plants and floatage providing protection for the immature mosquito against fish may be removed or, in some instances, chemically treated in such a way as to render them worthless as protectors of mosquito larvæ and pupæ. The enemies of Gambusia may either be removed from the water or destroyed, or sometimes places of refuge for the minnows may be provided. The waters which have not become populated with top minnows through natural channels should be artificially stocked, and the use of Gambusia for bait must be discouraged.

A great reduction in mosquito production and a consequent decline in the development of new cases of malaria will result if the suggestions offered in the preceding paragraph are followed. Gambusia, as already indicated, lives and multiplies under a wide range of conditions. It lives in very stagnant water and it endures more pollution than most other species of fish. It may be used in practically all standing bodies of water, sluggish ditches, cisterns, shallow wells, water barrels, etc. Gambusia does not live in rivers and creeks with strong currents, in which mosquitoes of course do not breed. Its natural habitat is in the quiet waters. in which it frequents the very quiet. shallow arms and bays, and it seeks and acquires its food at the surface, where the immature mosquito spends much of its life and where it must come for air. The common names "top minnows" and "top-waters" no doubt originated from the fact that this fish so often is seen swimming at the surface of the water. It

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NEVER saw my Uncle Ellis, because he died before I was born,

but I heard a great deal about him when I was a child. His step-daughter married one of our fellow-townsmen, and lived next door to us when I was a little girl, and her mother, Uncle Ellis's widow, lived with her till her death. Whatever Ruth did not say about her stepfather Aunt Molly supplied. The two women spent the rest of their lives hating him, and for his sake hated and distrusted all men, especially the smooth, plausible variety. I was brought up on their stories of him, and he stood for me as the type of the traditional house devil and street angel.

The gruesome impressions of married life which float through the air to most little girls came to me from their halfheard and half-understood stories of Uncle Ellis. He had killed his first two wives, they said, just as though he had taken an ax to them, and only his opportune death had saved Aunt Molly from the same fate. His innumerable children-I would not venture to set down how many he had, all in legal marriage -feared and detested him and ran away from home as soon as they could walk. He was meanness itself-secret sneaking meanness, the sort of man who would refuse his wife money for a wringer to do the family wash and spend five dollars on a box of cigars; who would fly into a black raging fury over a misplaced towel and persecute the child who had misplaced it with ingenious moral tortures till she was

ready to commit suicide out of nervous tension, and then open his arms with a smile to the baby of a parishioner. And after mistreating his wife till she could hardly stand she would hear him holding forth to a meeting of boys, exhorting them to a chivalric attitude towards all women.

Aunt Molly died long ago, firing up to vindictive reminiscences to the last. Ruth is dead now, too, in the fullness of time. I am a middle-aged woman, and probably the only one now alive who ever heard the two talk about Uncle Ellis, and I had forgotten him. If he stayed at all in my memory, it was with the vague, disembodied presence of a character in a book.

About a month ago I accepted an in vitation to speak at a convention in a town in the Middle West the name of which was vaguely familiar to me. I thought perhaps I had noticed it on a time-table. But when I arrived I understood the reason. It was the town where for many years Uncle Ellis had been pastor of the church. At the railway station, as I stepped down on the platform, one of the older women in the group who met me startled me immeasurably by saying: "We have been especially anxious to see you because of your connection with our wonderful Dr. Ellis Randolph. I was a young girl when he died, but I can truly say that my whole life has been influenced for good by the words and example of that saintly man."

The elderly man beside her added:

"You will find many here who will say the same. He left an indelible impression on our community."

They took me to his church, where a large bronze tablet set forth his virtues and his influence on the church. They showed me the Ellis Randolph Memorial Library. I was shown the playground which he conceived a generation before any one else thought of such a thing. But what made the deepest impression on me were the men and women who came to shake my hand because I was Uncle Ellis's niece, because they wanted to tell one of his family of the greatness of his value in their lives. The minister of the town, a white-haired man, told me, with a deep note of emotion in his voice, that Dr. Randolph had done more than save his life in his youth, had saved his soul alive. The banker told me that he had heard many celebrated orators, but never any one who could go straight to the heart like Dr. Randolph. "I often tell my wife that she ought to be thankful to Dr. Randolph for a lecture on chivalry to women which he gave to us boys at an impressionable moment of our lives." And the old principal of the school said: "Not a year goes by that I do not thank God for sending that righteous man to be an example to my youth. He left behind him many human monuments to his glory."

What did I say to them? Oh, I didn't say anything to them. I couldn't think of anything to say.

BREAKING THE WORLD'S WORST TRAFFIC JAM

T costs as much to pass a ton of freight through New York City terminals as it does to haul it from Buffalo, according to a statement made by an officer of the Erie Railroad and borne out by the investigations of the New York and New Jersey Port and Harbor Development Commission.

Another investigator reports that the expense involved between the arrival of a car in New York City and the placing of goods on the ship frequently amounts to as much as the cost of the haul from points as far West as Chicago, and that congestion and excessive costs at the Port of New York are not new conditions, but have prevailed for many years.

It is agreed by terminal engineers and transportation experts generally that standard railway freight cars cannot be brought on to the island of Manhattan. I think it can be agreed in any gathering of people who understand the geography of Manhattan Island that you cannot make a freight yard out of any part of it. Therefore it is to be served by an underground electric system with a break-up yard in New Jersey, where the freight is to be taken on tractors and placed in electric cars and delivered at inland points along the North River, providing a constantly moving shuttle service between the island of Manhattan and the New Jersey break-up yards.

In plain language, the underlying principle of the Port Plan is to connect the railways from the West with the railways from the East by all-rail routes and to bring standard freight cars without floating them to the outlying boroughs of New York along belt-line rail routes intended to serve the commerce and the industry of these sections.

So far as exchange freight between the New England lines and the lines from the Pacific coast are concerned, New York is to-day a way station. The only difference is that, instead of sending the freight along under a tunnel and keeping it continually with the wheels moving, it is carted across the bay on car-floats, which is the big element of delay and a great big element of cost and the big element of expense.

WAR OF THE PORTS

The port problem directly affects the business interests of the port, and the cost of living in the metropolitan districts of Philadelphia, Baltimore, and New Orleans, which have been active competitors for the business now done at the Port of New York. They have inserted in the newspapers whole-page advertisements and used in their advertising matter the figures gathered by our own Commission to show the cost of doing business at our own port. Speaking before the Port Authority, United States Shipping Commissioner

BY ALFRED E. SMITH

EX-GOVERNOR OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK

"MR. POTATO"

This festive figure represents the farmers' crops on their journey through the intricate maze of the traffic jam of New York Harbor. A moving picture of the adventures of Mr. Potato is being used to create public interest in the port treaty

Love, among other things, made the statement:

You have lost the cotton trade. You have lost the tobacco trade, and you are fast losing the grain trade. Arguments set forth for the St. Lawrence Waterway, which, if ever built, will not only interfere with the business of the Port of New York, but will tend to destroy the effectiveness of our great canal system, built at a cost of over $150,000,000, are based largely upon the cost of doing business and the congestion at the Port of New York. A group of Mid-Western States have joined together in a federation and are urging upon Congress that a waterway be opened along the St. Lawrence River between the Great Lakes and the ocean. The Hon. A. P. Nelson, Member of Congress, urging the St. Lawrence Waterway in a speech made in the House of Representatives on December 5, 1921,

said:

Other and more drastic remedies should be applied to effect a better distribution of commerce through the ports of the country, to the end that we may be freed in part at least from the tremendous burdens that have been placed upon our commerce because we have permitted the continuance of conditions which have forced the foreign business of the country largely through the archaic Port of New York.

The following day Congressman Brennan had this to say:

We cannot close our eyes to the almost intolerable congestion which has existed for years past in the vicinity of New York City, and which

is particularly emphasized on the lower end of Manhattan Island. Can we be criticised for asking a transportation relief which would divert a part of our shipments through another route which would be interrupted and unhampered by the necessary rehandling and breaking of bulk which now attend shipments through Buffalo and New York City?

To relieve this congestion without diverting traffic from this, the world's greatest harbor, there has been created a body known as the Port of New York Authority.

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TWO STATES AT ODDS

In order that we may have a thorough understanding of what the Port Authority means, what its functions are to be, and why and how it was created, it is necessary to go back a few years.

In 1917 Representatives of the State of New Jersey petitioned the Inter-State Commerce Commission for a rate on freight from the West in favor of the State of New Jersey, on the theory that the nine large trunk lines terminated really on the New Jersey shore. New York commercial bodies got together and went down to Washington and fought for the preservation of the status of New York, because a decision in favor of New Jersey in the Federal Rate Case would have meant 3 cents a hundred pounds preferential to the manufacturer in New Jersey, or 60 cents a ton.

I do not think we need spend any time figuring on what that would have meant to the commerce of New York City. The man who established his factory in New Jersey would have that advantage over the man doing his business in New York. The Inter-State Commerce Commission did not, however, grant the petition of the New Jersey interests, but at the same time it did not deny it for all time. It gave New Jersey permission to reopen its case at any time. In its opinion the Inter-State Commerce Commission said that historically and geographically the Port of New York comprehended both States. It advised that the States get together and jointly develop the port so that there might be no future rivalry as between the States, and terminal costs might be reduced so as to leave the great Port of New York in a position to compete successfully with the other ports of entry on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts.

CENTER OF VAST SHIPMENTS

Following this experience, the two States created a Bi-State Commission, known as the New York and New Jersey Port and Harbor Development Commission, consisting of three men from New Jersey and three from New York, and in 1918 this Commission began an ex

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