HEADQUARTERS PORT OF EMBARKATION NEWPORT NEWS, VIRGINIA OFFICE OF THE SUPERVISOR OF NON-MILITARY ACTIVITIES ROOM 16, SCHMELZ BuILDINQ AAgust 30, 1918. Dear ?&krgarot : I shall have to be very careful in writing this letter because I am making a carbon copy to send to Gertrude in answer to the letter from her which I am enclosing. So if I seem cold, just romomber that this is not one of my regular letters to $0~ ,-only just a family letter to toll about the events of the last few days. With these preliminary procautiems I shall proceed with my labor- saving experiment. On Tuesday the Social Hygiene &sonstration hoc- the possessor of a Bodgo car. And the same day the Fuel Administrator issued a statement asking tho public not to use cars on Sunday,- and that after the staff had planned to rent the car on a milage basis and to visit Jamostown and Yorktown to see the places whwere our earlmistory was made. I would like to catch the man who toad the F.A. that we had a car. Well, anyway, I have had one lesson in running the thing, and I am almost as proficient in *;t it as I am in teasing the typwriter. On fiesday evening I received a telegram from Mrs. Rippin saying that there was a bad state of affairs at Potersburg and wouldn't I please rectify. The report was that the prostitutes who crowded the jail were being marchod through the principal street in gangs to the clinic for treatment. How the picture stimulates the imagination! This gave me a good excuse for visiting that very interesting city, although I cannot see just why anyene should think that PotersburgMroubles 6&e mine just then. As the trouble was in Miss Brown's territory, I told her about it, and she decided it was time she made an initial visit to the place. I know you will be glad to hoar that I had the ploasurc of traveling with an interesting Jgung lady, I did my usual race to go out to my room to pack a bag in five minutes and make thh tdaia- tho five five in the afternoon. We reached Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy in two hours rf riding through the woods. Cool, ferny, damp woods that are probably there because mosquitoes have fought offtho settlers for hundsods ef years, and have devitalixed them with frequent doses of the plasmedia of malaria. At Richaond we took a car between stations inte* ing to check @ur bags a& get semething to eat before starting for Petersburg. But just as we appraachod the station, a priest in a touring car called out and asked me if I was going to Potersburg. I# both khoppod in and had a delightful1 trip of twenty-two miles over a highway wet by a recent thundershower. me passed several big places although mast of the aompam country was just WOedB. One large place had a large dairy heard grazing ovor a lawn, while nearby under the trees was a herd ef elk. We reached PatOrBburg at 8:30, an hour earlier than wo had expected, and had dinner at the hotel. Rooms had been ongaged for UB by the extra-cantorment lieutenant, Lt. Orcutt . AS it was too early for bed and too late to do any bush088 w0 took in a movie to wind up the day. When my long-distance phone mosoage4arrived $olonol Carter was around. Ho evidently 4 a little deaf, because he protested against reoorvirng two rooms in a crowded town for two officers traveling on expense account. H o always shared his room with another officer ond took people ini )rhe other berth of his otatoroom,& etc.,otc. They finally made him understand that the other officer was a lady and I 2 suppose he hao forgiven me my gro se extravagance. Colomohr. Carter is the Public Health Service man who helped Cergas clean up Panama. He is traveling around bossing the anti-malarial work in the vici.nUy if the camps. And the next we did our work. We called promptly at nine at the office of Lt. Orcutt , but like many of tho night-working vice huntors ho was not yet there. So we left a noto and took a look at the town. m foundthe city hall and went inside, whore we found a talkative old janitor, who gave us considerable information, and opsned the council chamber for us, The building was not very old, having beer built as recently as 1835, or thereabouts. Never%holoBs the steeple was a queor thing suggesting occontricity much greater than its antiquity. At one side of the city hall was the jail, and the women whose parades had Bcandalised the communit$a were very mch in evidence. The jr almo et bulged outbetween the bare , seemingly, particularly the black ones. They wore engaged in thocossnandable past ime ?a% washing their clothes and hanging them on the bars to dry. The wa8hingB gave t la q its a decorative effect. The good old janitor diroctod us to a park nearby w oro the seldiors of Petersburg drilled in the war of eighteen twelve. We road the inscrip$ions, and believed thorn implicitly. I had hawever, a lurking doubt aB to the authenticity of Pecohontas' washbowl, or whatever theyUlled it. It WB a stone thing sot up in the park In a little pedestal. I didn't see it close by, so I learned' nethint about early Indian systoies of fnumbing or oven of sculpture. It &k&r' didngt seem juot proper to me that she should have had her bathroom in the park. Rhen wo returned to the office wo found Lt. Orcutt expecting us and also Miss M&ally, Protective worker who is ooon to leave Hopwell for the noighboring city if Hopowoll, where the Iu Ponts have their big powder fectory. I also saw Bdio s What 'B-hOr&mo who would have been Gertrude's superion officer if $ertrudo had o ccop tad thr positiea that was offered hor.It was at Petersburg that ~.Mppin wanted t o station her. We found that thinge were not as serious as they might have boon, and that they ceuld probably be soon greatly improved . The parade9 was quits an orderly affair ,- something like a fashion show, I presume. The main trouble was that the city needed an isolation hOBpita1 where it could treat this mob of infected prostitutes in a decent way before patting them to work under oupervioion or sonding them OR to one of the prison farms. Wring the remainder of the forenoon Bier WoCully showed Miss Brown and me the Detention Home, the interior of thd jail ,and the clinic of the public health s&vice for veaoreal diBOaSSB. .Tho detention home where Gertrude would have . slept was an old house which weB built when its location was in the fashionable part of town. l;rf fayetto is said to have called them. Woro@contly the neighborhood became loss reopectable, but the place still has Borne 0 f theJ air of ito former grandeur. They hare only ten girls wndor observation there. In the afternoon the health officer of the city took as all in his car and we visited a building at the Fair Crounde and one at the Poor Farm to ooe if they could be converted into a hoopttal. .But I mutt skip there foolish dotailo and g gQt out into the country. CQ `\. I told thr doctor that,wanted to see two things if they were easily 8ecos~i~~, the groat Potoroburg crater and peanuts growing. As wo had finished our afternoon's I work the kctor dovoted the net of the afternoon showing us some true Southern Horph itality . We went out nMxaf&h east of the city and walked around over the earthworq which the Confederates had used durina the tmo&%nths of the siege. Far away over tho rolling $round we could BOO whero the Federal troops had their lines from which they threw their cannon bells ix&the oity. Dr. Martin the health Officer kept us interooted with a fund of auocdotes not found in the ordinary hiator-y, He was one 3 year old when the siege ended, and h%s father was shot thrlugh the lung durirgths fighting in -front of the city. He cays the boye used to watch the shells corn&n@; through the air and weuld 6houtThat one's mine!" and #hen would Moward the spot where it fell to pick up the pieces. We saw the monument6 erected 3~ the varEous Un@or troop6 which uere engaged in the fighting-+ As we approached the .crater we palssed a monument erected to Massachueete aoldiere , and between the monument and the crater was a field of peanut8 in full bloom. And for the firet time it dawned on me that the .peanut was a pb& nut b,ecauee it grew on a pea vZne and in a pea pod. 1 had always suppoeed that it was merely a matter of re6emblance. Here were these neat rows of legumea nicely hilled up, and looking like a field of dwarf beans except that the leave6 were more like pea leaves , and the pod6 were burked fn the ground. I did not exclaim .lAke Lt .Orcutt -that there were no nut6 on the plant6 a6 ye.. No, I proceeded to aig-aay the'eartb and,;2-.unasirered.the nicest little bunch ,of baby'Poanut6 attached to the feet o f the' stalk by juicy lit%le stems V I picked a few sf them, and am eending them as 6euve&?&rs~ of -)he Peterwrg eater au~woll a6 botanieti ape~$&enu. If fteggy ha6 reached the .srpllee-ber stage `she ,-could,meunt the+ on a card with proper label and .start&he historical `sect&en o.f her muueum* For-the -botanical 6ectfon I am - aending porn& o.$ the fslimge and ;eowe of .-&he wither.ed little .yellew ~~OBUOIBB, Please ka hand `them to the curator, It is a mystery to me how the pods ever wers able to work their way down iti into the Barth 60 far from `the blos6oms. It is a still greater ryrtery how the fertil- izing elements of the pellen can travel from the tiny yellow bloasom6 in the top of t the plant down the stem and out to the embryo peanuts. Doeen't that have te happen, PIfas Wild- flower Petaai6t? After having excavated for peas ,`we. wwnt to thr nearby crater. The Confederate battery which w&6 blown up had been located at the point of a salient o The remnant6 of the earthwopku leading from it are still distindt. On the near side of the crater is a little house filled with-all 6orts ef old junk cilleeted from the battle `field, such ae- riflea, bullets,and piece6 of expleded Ohells-. The pit it&f is overgrown with frem df eonriderable .BiLe, ~11 of which have taken root and grown eince the war, giving an idea of the lrpee of time. The trees give xr quiet beauty to, the place @$ch must have been entirely lackidg when the ifelds were disfigured- by entrenchmen)ro 6&h& ehrY- -4 shell.; 2%. `grarsgrewn crathr it-self `has doubtlees been partly gilled by .+&&$ r am r@ndiq$ a pit#,we. pestal-