Among the larger efforts of the department is a preliminary survey of Newburgh. N. Y., which was started March 15. The department’s field director, Zenas L. Potter, is being assisted by Franz Schneider, Jr., also of the department’s staff, in the investigation of public health; Margaret F. Byington of the Charity Organization Department of the Russell Sage Foundation has investigated public and private charity work; D. O. Decker is covering public finance and municipal efficiency; E. F. Brown of the National Child Labor Committee is assisting in the studies of labor conditions; and Franklin Zeiger is studying housing. The New York Consumers League expects also to send a field worker to co-operate for a fortnight. Amy Woods, secretary of the Newburgh Associated Charities, started the movement toward the Newburgh survey. The project has had the support of citizens representing the business-men’s associations, labor unions, churches, charity and other social organizations, city administration and women’s organizations. The findings of this survey are soon to be ready for publication. The preliminary surveys are designed to attain three kinds of results. First, they aim to reveal sufficient local facts to permit the planning of an intelligent program for community advance, say for a period of five years. Not only liabilities but community assets—the forces to build on and to build with—as well as what to build will be. Second, the preliminary survey aims to be the means of enlisting public support for measures which champion human welfare. The public official with a vision of what he might accomplish toward social well being needs the support of public opinion. His and other work for city progress are as often hampered by public indifference as by the selfish interests of an active few. Public indifference in matters of its own vital concern disappears quickly when the public is intelligently informed. City self-knowledge is a chief effort of the survey. Third, the preliminary survey is to collect sufficient data to point out the problems which need more thorough or continuous investigation. PROSTITUTION BANISHED IN ONE NEW YORK TOWN It is an innovation for the physicians of any community to protest in a body against prostitution solely on the ground that it is a menace to public health. Yet this has happened in Norwich, a village of 8,000 people in Chenango County, New York. [Illustration: _Newburgh, N. Y., Journal_ “I SEE BY THE PAPERS—” ]