The little children rub their eyes and scurry to get upwind. It is their first whiff of tear gas, but they are learning fast. On these streets, they will have no choice.

What will those clever minds at HRS think of next?

The newest scheme is to deny job training to thousands of eligible poor people—then pay for a research study to see how they're doing.

Amazing but true.

This spring, about 5,500 indigent Floridians will be purposely shut out of a program that offers job skills and child-care benefits instead of straight welfare. The theory behind the $25 million Project Independence was to train people for jobs so that eventually they can get off public assistance.

Similar welfare-to-work plans have been advocated as a first step toward fixing the nation's paralyzed anti-poverty programs. Many experts now believe that welfare is hopeless unless it's tied positively to employment.

To test the effectiveness of Project Independence, a private research company will create what is known in science as a control group—in this case, 5,500 people who will be denied the job classes and child care, and studied like human guinea pigs.

Their "progress" over a three-year period will be compared to that of the 11,000 luckier souls enrolled in Project Independence.

Gee, I wonder what the findings might be. Do you suppose a person who gets job training stands a slightly better chance of finding work than someone with no skills?

To answer this and other stumpers, The Manpower Demonstration Research Corp. of New York is being paid $2.4 million. The firm has conducted similar studies elsewhere, and claims that the results enable "workfare" programs to become more efficient.

That sounds like promotional hype, but let's assume it isn't. Let's assume the methodology is sound. If hope is snatched from a single destitute family, then the human cost of this experiment is too high.

Several legislators have joined sociologists in condemning the program as cruel and exploitative. HRS says the study is perfectly ethical.

Maybe a white rat wouldn't put up a fuss, but these are human beings chosen without their consent to be Group A—the have-nots. The selection process is supposedly random, a bleak lottery that will affect the lives of needy people from Dade, Broward and seven other counties. Between 15 and 25 percent of all who apply for the jobs program will be shunted to the control group.

Remember that the outcasts are fully eligible under the law to participate in Project Independence. They are being rejected purely because the state wants to see how they fare without this special help.

Wait until the have-nots discover that somebody is being paid $2.4 million to watch them scurry through the urban maze. It works out to about $436 for every man, woman and child in the control group. The Ford Foundation gave $400,000 to bankroll the study, while we taxpayers are providing the remaining $2 million.

There's nothing wrong with reviewing public assistance projects to see if they really work. Given the miserable history of welfare, it makes sense to take a hard look at each program—but not like this.

The HRS plan is misguided, wasteful, coldhearted and just plain dumb. What possible social insight can be gained by randomly denying opportunity to some indigents while rewarding others? And what do you tell the unlucky ones—sorry, folks, maybe next time?

As long as the Legislature is funding deprivation experiments on humans, here's an interesting one:

Make a random selection of state employees (say, the Secretary of HRS and his top staff) and take away their jobs for three years. No salaries, no state cars, no expense accounts, no health insurance, no pensions.

Then hire several thousand poor people (for, say, $2.4 million) to go around studying the dreary new lifestyle of Mr. Gregory Coler and his bureaucrats. Follow them to the grocery and the bank and the doctor's office. See how they're getting along with no money.

Certainly such innovative public servants wouldn't mind taking a turn being poor, in the name of science.

Nine prostitutes gathered in the library of the Dade Women's Detention Center.

They talked about selling sex in the harrowing age of AIDS and crack cocaine. What they said was: Not much has changed. They carry protection. They get tested for the disease whenever they're in jail. Beyond that, it's business as usual. The Johns don't seem too worried. Most of the time, they don't even want to put on a condom.

Victoria Brown, 26, arrested near Biscayne Boulevard: "If you're a heavy crack user, it doesn't matter if you've got AIDS or not. If you get in a car and the guy asks if you've got AIDS, are you gonna tell him the truth? No way. Not if you want to get paid."

By her own count, Victoria has been arrested 95 times on prostitution-related charges. She is 26 years old, a veteran of county jails.

Sun Kelly, a slender South Korean woman, makes $600 to $700 on Saturday nights—a sum envied by the others. Where does all the money go? "Smoke," Sun said. She's been a prostitute for 25 years.

Ask the group who else smokes rock, and they all raise their hands. "Crack cocaine," said one, "is the biggest pimp there ever was."

To explain their dangerous lifestyle, the women tell of enslaving drug habits and, often, a wretchedly brutal family past. Their customers usually have no such excuse. You see these idiots getting nabbed in police sweeps on the nightly news—blue-collar guys, professionals, Yuppies, college kids. Talk about mindless desperation. Talk about stupid.

A sample of what's out there: Of the nine prostitutes interviewed, most had used intravenous drugs. At least two women (one of them three months pregnant) had syphilis, while another had herpes. Most said they had been tested before for the AIDS virus—all negative, they said. But keep in mind: By the time the results of their latest tests are known, they'll be out turning tricks again.

From Victoria Brown: "I've had over 15 tests, and I never once found out the results." She says she'd quit if she were notified that she'd tested positive. That's what they all said. "I would commit suicide," added Linda McArthur. "I would take an OD of heroin and die." Said another: "I'd lock myself in a room and smoke myself to death."

But, tragically, prostitutes with AIDS often continue working. They have no place else to go—even if they're dying, even if they risk infecting others. The justice system keeps them for 30 days, maybe 60 days, that's about it.

Proposed laws that would keep infected prostitutes in custody have failed in the Legislature; it's doubtful such measures would survive a constitutional challenge. While it's a crime to give another person a sexual disease, prosecution is nearly impossible.

It is not a crime to be sick and alone on a street corner.

Roxcy Bolton, an activist who has been counseling abused women for years, says a halfway house is needed, a facility where AIDS-stricken prostitutes can go. It would be, in one sense, a hospice—a quiet place to die.

There's no assurance that all would choose to stay there, but the opportunity should exist. To continue putting these women back on the streets is madness.

"If something is wrong with me, I want to know," said Tina Green. A prostitute since age 13, she still has no plans to quit out of fear. "This is a career for me," she said.

Although statistics indicate the prostitute is more often the recipient than the transmitter of AIDS, the sexual act puts every customer at risk. And there are other victims of the trade, some of them truly innocent.