sexes would lessen. And were the labor unions to enact a rule forbidding the pregnant woman to work, this would yield an economic gain: first, it would open the field to men, and unemploy-ment would lessen; and second, the pregnant woman needs compul-sory rest for a month before delivery and another month after it, and this is not in the interest of the work. It may be said that this may hold true in the countries of the West, but that among us the number of working women is very small. That may be so now; but industry among us is in its infancy, its growth is on the increase, and the number of working women grows year by year — so why not provide for the matter before it comes to pass?

The third aspect of the improvement of off-spring — and in it, too, the child has no say — is that the child should find, after his birth, healthy surround-ings that help him to grow and keep from him the fatal diseases and the diseases that leave in him infirmities pre-venting him from doing his duty as a useful member of the social body: blindness, rickets, chronic tuberculosis, and the rest. I shall pass over the fatal diseases — the fevers and the contagious diseases — and content myself with pointing to the diseases carried by the air, by flies, and by polluted water, all of which are easy to overcome by fol-lowing the noble verse, 'Cleanliness is of faith.' Unfortunately, filth is general in Lebanon: in the cities and the vil-

lages, in the streets and the alleys, in the gardens and in the fields, in the tramway cars and in the shops. The man seated in his motorcar and the man going on foot spit where they please; the son of the city and the son of the village relieves himself in any place; the refuse of the houses and their drains are cast out and lie open in the roads and the gardens, and there the fly finds its food and a fit hotbed for laying its eggs, and carries on its feet all the microbes contained in this filth, to deposit them in the eyes of children, who are stricken with trachoma, and in food, where they cause infec-tions of the stomach; and what the flies do not carry, the air carries once it has dried, and the microbe of consumption works its havoc. Who, then, is responsible for the spread of this filth? Government and people equally. The health laws of this country are such as the most advanced countries might envy us; but the weakness is in enforcement. If favoritism may pass in appointment and promo-tion, in the war on filth it is a crime; were the law applied to the letter against every offender, filth would not be what it now is.

And upon the people rests a duty no less than the government's, for the government cannot station in every house a policeman to restrain people from acts con-trary to public decency and public health. We need discipline and training in cleanliness, and it is as necessary in the primary schools as national instruc-tion itself.

It may be asked: what is the object of inking this article, when all that is in it is commonplace, known to the elite and the public alike? True — the object is not to spread information; the object is a hope and a plea addressed to the women's associations in this country, which labor in every field of our social life: that they take the lead in the movement for the care of the pregnant woman and for child welfare. If they turned their scattered efforts to this one field alone, they would render the country a service that no one else is able to render. In every one of Lebanon's great cities there is a women's association gathering to itself the choicest of women in patriotism, in learning, and in devo-tion; if each one of them adopted the project of protecting the pregnant woman and caring for the child, and founded a health center to carry on this work, nourishing it with its mighty effort and with the money it gathers, its labors would bear good fruit. And they have today a strong weapon for spreading their message: the women's paper, The Woman's Voice. If they carry this banner in their hand, all the people will march behind them. The benefit of it is general, beyond any price; and this is the least that we can do for our children, the men and women of tomorrow.

In America there are a number of laws, some old and some new, which are fortunately not in force: the courts do not apply them, and no one demands their application!

In the state of Virginia, for example, there is a law forbidding the inhabitants to go to church without pistols in their pockets!

In the same state there is also a law forbidding the existence of bathrooms in dwellings, and providing that people may bathe only in the courtyard of the house they occupy.

In California there is a law forbidding anyone to hunt wild animals while riding in an automobile or an airplane — though it excepts from this the hunting of whales at sea.

And in Boston the law forbids anyone to play the violin! And it forbids anyone to own a dog standing more than thirty centimeters high.

It is a truism that the sky does not rain money; but it appears that in America there are exceptions to every rule — even to this self-evident one. Upon the heads of passers-by and idlers near one of New York's skyscrapers there alight, every day, several small coins, without their knowing whence these descend upon them!

These coins are usually seen overhead between noon and one o'clock in the afternoon every day, and their total comes to ten dollars. It is said that an unknown benefactor tosses them from one of the windows on the six-teenth or eighteenth floor of that building!

And people's curiosity has so far failed to dis-cover the identity of that wondrous benefactor.