brace himself together, and tell them
the truth and nothing but the truth. Then out pours the awful tale,
which, however bad it may be, they listen to quite unmoved though not
unconcerned, for they hear such every day. When it is finished, they
ask coolly enough why, in the name of all that their visitor
reverences or holds dear, he considers it necessary to commit suicide
for a trifling job like that. A new light dawns upon the desperate
man. He answers, because he can see no other way out.

Why, exclaims the Officer, there are a dozen ways out. Let us find one
of them. You, A., have been faithless to your wife. Well, when the
matter is explained to her, I daresay she will forgive you. You, B.,
have defrauded your employer. Well, employers are not always
relentless. I'll call on him this evening and talk the matter over.
You, C., are hopelessly in debt through horse-racing or speculation.
Well, at the worst you can go through the Court and start afresh. You,
D., have committed a crime. Go and own up to it like a man, stand your
trial, and work out your sentence. I daresay it won't be so very heavy
if you take that course, and we will look after you when it is over.
You, E., have been brought into this state through your miserable
vices, drink, or whatever they may be. Cure yourself of the
vices--we'll show you how--don't crown them by cutting your throat
like a cur. You, F., have been afflicted with great sorrows. Well,
those sorrows have some purpose and some meaning. There's always a
dawn beyond the night; wait for that dawn; it will come here or
hereafter.

And so on, and on, through all the gamut of human sin and misery.

Of course, there are cases in which the Army fails. As I have said,
there were about a dozen of these last year, six of which, if I
remember right, occurred with startling rapidity one after the other.
The Suicide Officers of the Army always take up the daily paper with
fear and trembling, and not infrequently find that the man whom they
thought they had consoled and set upon a different path, has been
discovered dead by drowning in the river, or by poison in the streets,
or by whatever it may be. But everything has its proportion of
failures, and where intending suicides are concerned 1 or 2 per cent,
or on the quarter basis that I have adopted as beyond question of
sincerity of intent, 4 or 8 per cent is not a large average. Indeed,
20 per cent would not be large, or even 50 per cent. But th