What are some concrete suggestions, developed from the experience of case workers, as to how to proceed in searching for deserting men? A full and careful talk with the wife is the first requisite, supplemented by equally thorough interviews with any near relatives who can be reached. The case worker should be familiar with the Questionnaire on the Deserted Family in Mary E. Richmond's Social Diagnosis. A description and if possible a photograph of the man should be procured. Where several out-of-town clues are to be followed, copies of the photograph can be cheaply made, and at least one bureau for dealing with desertion cases makes this part of its routine procedure. _Agency B._--"I have seen very few individuals in the course of my experience who could not be brought to see the right viewpoint if they were intelligently approached, even though the probation officer had considerable to do with their arrest. It is in my opinion not altogether important what occurs before the man's arrest but how he is treated after he comes within the jurisdiction of the probation officials." [21] See p. 69. V FURTHER ITEMS IN THE INVESTIGATION It is evident that the need of finding the man strongly influences the course of this type of investigation, especially in the early stages. Are there other considerations, however, that modify the technique of inquiry into these desertion cases? There is one crisis in the lives of deserted families which is not duplicated in the history of any other group suffering from social disability. This crisis is the period of the first desertion. "If we could learn what preceded and what immediately followed the first desertion, we should know much more than we do now about how to deal with the problem," said a case worker who has studied many court records. The _number_ of subsequent desertions may be both interesting and significant, but the circumstances attending them are not nearly so well worth study as are those connected with the critical first break. We should go back to that spot and probe for causes. The common practice of recording carefully what led up to a chronic deserter's last desertion before his family applied, and of passing over his earlier desertions with a mere mention of their number and dates, puts the emphasis in the wrong place.