in wheeled chairs, on crutches, the sightless ones led. The
exchange was made. Then ten more, and so on. What a sight! What a
horror! No man there would ever be whole again. There were men without
legs, without arms, blind men, men twisted by fearful body wounds. Two
hundred and sixteen British officers and men, and as many Germans,
were exchanged that day.

"They were, however, in the best of spirits," said the London Times of
the next day!

At Folkestone a crowd was waiting on the quay, and one may be sure
that heads were uncovered as the men limped, or were led or wheeled,
down the gang-plank. Kindly English women gave them nosegays of
snowdrops and violets.

And then they went on--to what? For a few weeks, or months, they will
be the objects of much kindly sympathy. In the little towns where they
live visitors will be taken to see them. The neighbourhood will exert
itself in kindness. But after a time interest will die away, and
besides, there will be many to divide sympathy. The blind man, or the
man without a leg or an arm, will cease to be the neighbourhood's
responsibility and will become its burden.

What then? For that is the problem that is facing each nation at
war--to make a whole life out of a fragment, to teach that the spirit
may be greater than the body, to turn to usefulness these sad and
hopeless by-products of battlefields.

The ravages of war--to the lay mind--consist mainly of wounds. As a
matter of fact, they divide themselves into several classes, all
different, all requiring different care, handling and treatment, and
all, in their several ways, dependent for help on the machinery of
mercy. In addition to injuries on the battlefield there are illnesses
contracted on the field, septic conditions following even slight
abrasions or minor wounds, and nervous conditions--sometimes
approximating a temporary insanity--due to prolonged strain, to
incessant firing close at hand, to depression following continual lack
of success, to the sordid and hideous conditions of unburied dead,
rotting in full view for weeks and even months.

During the winter frozen feet, sometimes requiring amputation, and
even in mild cases entailing great suffering, took thousands of men
out of the trenches. The trouble resulted from standing for hours and
even days in various depths of cold water, and was sometimes given the
name "waterbite." Soldiers were instructed to rub their boots inside
and out with whale oil, an