Kitty coughed twice, with meaning. It was a signal agreed upon between the three when the others thought that the speaker was on the wrong tack. Dixon recalled himself from Freedom with a jerk, and began to talk about the coming Mind Training Act. He discoursed upon its general advantages to the citizen, and concluded by saying that Miss Grammont, a member of the Ministry of Brains, would now explain to them the Act in detail, and answer any questions they might wish to put. This Miss Grammont proceeded to do. And this was the critical moment of the meeting, for the audience, who desired no Act at all, had to be persuaded that the Act would be a good Act. Kitty outlined it, thinking how much weaker both Acts and words sound on village greens than in offices, which is certainly a most noteworthy fact, and one to be remembered by all politicians and makers of laws. Perhaps it is the unappreciative and unstimulating atmosphere of stolid distaste which is so often, unfortunately, to be met with in villages.... Villages are so stupid; they will not take the larger view, nor see why things annoying to them personally are necessary for the public welfare. Kitty wished she were instead addressing a northern manufacturing town, which would have been much fiercer but which would have understood more about it. She dealt with emphasis on the brighter sides of the Act, i.e. the clauses dealing with the pecuniary compensation people would receive for the loss of time and money which might be involved in undergoing the Training Course, and those relating to exemptions. When she got to the Tribunals, a murmur of disapproval sounded. "They tribunals--we're sick to death of them," someone said. "Look at the people there are walking about the countryside exempted from the Marriage Acts, when better men and women has to obey them. The tribunals were bad enough during the war, everyone knows, but nothing to what they are now. We don't want any more of those." This was an awkward subject, as Captain Ambrose was a reluctant chairman of the Local Mental Progress Tribunal. He fidgeted and prodded the ground with his stick, while Kitty said, "I quite agree with you. We don't. But if there are to be exemptions from the Act, local tribunals are necessary. You can't have individual cases decided by the central authorities who know nothing of the circumstances. Tribunals must be appointed who can be relied on to grant exemptions fairly, on the grounds specified in the Act." She proceeded to enumerate these grounds. One of them was such poverty of mental calibre that the possessor was judged quite incapable of benefiting by the course. A look of hope dawned on several faces; this might, it was felt, be a way out. The applicant, Kitty explained, would be granted exemption if suffering from imbecility, extreme feeble-mindedness, any form of genuine mania, acute, intermittent, chronic, delusional, depressive, obsessional, lethargic....