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it was clear and legible did my nerves relax. I wanted to take a second photograph, but T's friend knocked at the door and entreated me to hurry.

When I asked this gentleman how much I owed him for this priceless service he answered: 'Nothing. You cannot pay for that kind of thing, you know. It is only the sort of favor that a friend does for a friend of his friend.' And he departed.

On my way back to Irkutsk I decided to keep the results of my journey an absolute secret, for I feared that some new obstacle would be thrown in my way.

When I reached Irkutsk one of my lieutenants was waiting for me at the railway station with the heartening news that not only the townspeople but even the officers at the General's headquarters were saying that I had tried unsuccessfully to frame up Katzan and had fled to China.

I walked into the courtroom at ten o'clock and found the place crowded to overflowing with officers, soldiers, and civilians. Every Jody was interested, not only because it was the first trial of the kind since our department had been organized, but because the defendant was the Commanding General's orderly and was popularly assumed to be innocent.

their regret that my case was not more complete.

After the recess my agents were put on the stand. Their testimony was much less sensational than the public expected, and the audience was manifestly dissatisfied with it. Military considerations prevented my putting on the stand such capital witnesses as Chao and the detective who had posed as Katzan's friend, for that would have terminated their usefulness for my department. For the same reason nothing was said of the fact that we had discovered the Siraisi brothers photographing the map, or about Katzan's night revels at the General's residence.

When the court again took a recess I could see that the sympathy of the public had turned against me. Very few people addressed me, and I caught suspicious and ironical glances here and there. The third session was devoted to examining the witnesses for the defense, who had been selected by Captain N from among Katzan's comrades and friends.

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Captain N― himself gave a brilliant character to the accused, whom he described as a conscientious, faithful soldier. He said that his arrest was the result of a misunderstanding, if not of something worse. The other orderlies all confirmed the captain's statements. One of them, obviously anxious not to violate his oath, said he had happened to see Katzan talking to a Japanese or a Korean stranger on the street; and another soldier, employed as a staff clerk in the intelligence division, said that Katzan had asked him for the names of the officers of that division, but that he had refused to give them. These two trifling incidents were completely lost sight of, however, in the overwhelming flood of evidence in Katzan's favor presented by Captain N- and the orderlies.

I was the first person upon the witness stand, where I related in a matterof-fact way all the circumstances connected with the case from the time my agent first met Katzan up to the latter's arrest, omitting only the Srul incident, in compliance with my promise to him. As soon as I had testified the court took a recess, and I wandered out into the corridors among the spectators. I discovered at once that my story had made a good impression. Not only people who knew me, but entire Nme, but entire strangers, came up to me and expressed

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Katzan's advocate was a brilliant

young captain who grasped his listeners' state of mind at once and heckled my witnesses with sarcastic questions that helped to turn sentiment in Katzan's favor. The accused, seeing the way things were going, burst out in wild lamentations, protesting that he was the victim of unjust accusations. He was quieted only after the presiding officer of the court threatened to have him taken out of the room unless he kept still.

Then came the third recess. I could see that public sentiment was overwhelmingly against me. People shunned me as if I had the plague, and even my friends stood aloof. I imagine there was not a man present who did not believe Katzan innocent. When the court reassembled for the fourth time the General Quartermaster of the Staff came up to me and said: "Your case is lost. It is a disgrace for your whole section.' To this I made no answer. The fourth session began at eight o'clock in the evening. A nervous flutter ran through the courtroom. People were waiting impatiently for the pleadings. Everyone felt certain that the whole affair was a frame-up against Katzan.

The officer in charge of the prosecution sat gloomily in his chair, prepared to make the tedious routine speech which his duty imposed upon him, although convinced that it was useless, while the counsel for the defense surveyed the audience with beaming countenances and chatted with Katzan, who was the happiest man present and answered the captain with a smile. Presently the president of the court turned to the prosecuting officer and motioned for him to begin his speech.

Just at that moment I stepped up to the judges' bench and, taking the photograph of the fatal receipt from my dispatch case, asked permission to submit to the tribunal another document.

I added that the welfare of the service had made it undesirable to submit this document at a public trial, but that I was now forced to do so in order to prevent an unjust verdict.

The president consented after a short consultation with his colleagues, and the document was read aloud while silence reigned throughout the hall. Its contents stunned the audience, the prosecutor, the attorney for the defense, and above all Katzan himself. Pale as chalk, Katsun stared at the president of the court with an expression of terror in his eyes. When that officer, turning sternly toward him, asked, 'Did you sign this contract?' Katsan fell on his knees and implored pardon:

'Forgive me, lord judges, forgive me! I confess, I confess everything. I served the Japanese as a spy. Pardon me! Pardon me! I will never do it again.'

I had no reason to remain longer. I was exhausted. My nerves were on edge, and I had eaten nothing since early that morning. So I asked the president's permission to retire, and left the court. When I walked out of the hall people cheered me, but I hastened to get away from them; only a few minutes before they had been glowering at me with contempt.

Proceeding immediately to the nearest eating-place, the Modern Restaurant, I ordered supper. Here I waited for my lieutenant and other members of my section who had remained in the courtroom to hear the verdict. They came an hour later, together with several of the spectators. It was all over. Katzan had been sentenced to four and one-half years of hard labor.

As soon as the lieutenant had made his report people flocked around me from every side. They said they believed the verdict was just, and expressed their astonishment that I had

been able to procure so secret and important a document. The captain who had been in charge of the defense came up and apologized. He said he had been fully convinced of Katzan's innocence, that the latter had sworn to him by the memory of his mother that he was not guilty but was the victim of a frame-up.

That settled Katzan. I need only add that after the trial he refused to give any further information regarding his work as a spy, or to name the

Japanese who employed him. He said the trial was over, he would take his punishment, and he wanted to be let alone. He even refused to appeal. He simply said to the court:—

'I am satisfied with the sentence. I expected twelve years, and I get only four.'

This matter settled, and the morale and prestige of my office somewhat restored, I now proceeded to follow up the case against Siraisi.

IN A BRITISH COAL MINE1

BY J. W. F.

He was a big, powerful man, the sort of man generally described as a 'typical guardsman.'

He had wandered much. He had seen men work at many occupations tea planters in Ceylon and China, gold miners on the Rand, diamond miners at Kimberley, cowboys in the Wild West, lumberjacks in Canada. . . . He had seen men build ships and make cotton and woolen goods, and he had sailed in a tramp steamer. He had soldiered through the war and risen to the rank of colonel; but he confessed he had never seen an electrically driven coalcutting machine working in a twentyinch seam.

He was anxious to see one. Our manager granted permission, and he came to see. I met him at the pit-head. He was dressed for the occasion in a suit of mechanic's overalls. With eighteen others we got into the cage.

1 From the Daily Herald (London Labor daily), May 3

As the descent began he gasped for breath and clutched my arm.

The cage stopped, and we stepped out. A few minutes were spent explaining the mysteries of haulage ropes and roadways; then we started for the face. 'Now keep your back well bent; it's only four feet high, so be careful!'

We tramped steadily. He stumbled; his eyes were unaccustomed to the faint light of a safety lamp. 'Ugh; wait a minute! Ugh, my head!' He failed to keep his head low enough, and hit a baulk. I turned round. The perspiration was streaming down his face, his breathing was labored, and we had only gone four hundred yards. We halted a few minutes; I warned him to stoop lower, and away we went again.

At last we arrived at the deputy's place, and I handed him a pair of leather knee-pads. 'What are these for?' he asked. I fixed them for him, explaining that they were to protect his knees when creeping. 'Are we going to creep?'

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'Here we are. That's the face. Now get down, and we'll crawl along to where the coal-cutter is working.'

With great difficulty he got into the twenty-inch-high passage, and we dragged ourselves along. Men were working stripped to the waist and bathed in perspiration. One stopped the machine and explained how it worked. We pulled ourselves back a little. 'Right; set her away!' The power was switched on, and the machine began working.

Flying coal dust filled the air till you could not see. The stench of heating oil and the sweat of human bodies made it almost impossible to breathe. The Colonel coughed and spluttered as the coal dust got into his throat. The roof 'weighed,' the supports creaked, the coal cracked like rolls of thunder.

The scene was indescribable. We half crawled, half dragged ourselves

along. 'Let's get out of this,' pleaded our visitor. So out we got, back to the deputy's 'kist,' offed with our kneepads, and made our way to the shaft. The visitor reeled like a drunken man. His head hit the roof. Down went his head and up went his back. 'Ugh!' and he fell on his knees. Out went his lamp. One lamp between two of us. After many stops we arrived at the shaft, and then up into the fresh air. With great difficulty he stretched himself erect. His back ached, his head ached, his knees ached, he felt awful. 'Oh, is n't the fresh air grand?' he cried.

I asked him what he thought of it all. His answer came like a burst of thunder: 'It's like Hell! Absolutely the rottenest job I ever saw. I am sorry for those fellows. I wonder they stick it. Fancy sticking a job like that for ten shillings a day! It's a rotten job. Absolutely rotten!'

I don't think he'll want to see a coalcutting machine at work in a twentyinch seam any more for a while.

EPITAPH ON A DISUSED SUNDIAL

BY ARCHIBALD Y. CAMPBELL

[London Mercury]

STRANGER, time passes; ask not how.
I was a dial once; but now,

My crown is defaced by years of rain,
As my own tombstone I remain,

To testify that in this place

Stood once one of that gentle race

Whom their own shape and choice empowers

To number only sunlit hours.

He who too long does nothing, dies.

Lie light upon me, English Skies!

THE RIDDLE OF CELLULOSE 1

BY PROFESSOR DOCTOR EBNER

No other substance is receiving so much attention from the physical chemist today as cellulose. This is not only the chief structural material in all plants, but it is also the raw material of new and important industries. NotwithNotwithstanding the patient study that has been devoted to it, however, its chemical structure and composition still present many puzzles.

Cellulose has two qualities that render the investigation of its physical and chemical constitution especially difficult: it is insoluble in water or other ordinary solvents, and it is extremely sensitive to the action of acids and saline solutions. These qualities make it almost impossible to determine from the products of its decomposition what the form of its original constituents was. To be sure, cellulose shares this incapacity for molecular dispersion with several other organic substances, like albumin, starch, and certain pigments, which are classified together under the collective name of colloids.

The first investigator whose patient studies gave him some insight into the spacial structure of the colloids and their so-called solutions was Karl von Nägeli, whose researches into the constitution of starch in the late fifties of the last century convinced him that all colloids were made up of minute crystalloid bodies which he called micellæ, or 'little crumbs.' These he assumed to be extremely diminutive groups of molecules, too small to be visible under

1 From Kölnische Zeitung (Conservative daily), April 22

the most powerful microscope, arranged in symmetrical patterns so that their internal structure resembled that of crystals, although they might assume various outward shapes. While most chemical substances, like salt, sugar, and the like, separate into their individual molecules in water, the colloids cannot do this, but simply separate into these tiny molecular aggregations, or micellæ, which are the lowest subdivisions of which they are capable while retaining their collodial identity.

Nägeli's researches, however, could be pursued only to a certain point for lack of the technical instrumentalities necessary for further investigation. The next advance had to wait upon later discoveries, and only within the past few years has the nature of these molecular groups, or primary particles, of the cellulose structure been fully established. The first step forward followed the discovery that cellulose refracted light in the same way that crystals do- for instance, the cell walls of a flax fibre produced a refraction six times that produced by quartz. It was shown further, by saturating the cellulose with water, that this double refraction was not due to the fact that the tiny rod-groups, or micellæ, were embedded in a medium of different refractivity from itself, but that the micelle themselves had a distinct refractive index, such as had hitherto been assumed to be peculiar to microscopic crystals.

This led to the conclusion that cellulose must consist of minute rodlike

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