Miscellaneous Mentions

Senator Smoot, Mormon Elder, in his office at Washington, picked up a glass in one hand and a bottle of mineral water in the other. The bottle slipped. He caught it with the hand holding the glass. Glass and bottle fractured. Three of his fingers required surgery. John W. Langley, Representative from Kentucky, Chairman of the Public Buildings Committee, convicted for conspiracy to violate the Volstead Act and sentenced to two years in Atlanta, is to be relieved of his post as Chairman of the

Committee, according to plans made last week by his colleagues in Congress.

The U. S. Senate employs 21 pages, and youngsters consider the post of page a rare political sugarplum. But several of the Senate pages will have to be discharged this fall because the District of Columbia Superintendent of Schools has announced that under a law passed at the last session he has power to compel school attendance of all children under 14 years.

The House has not employed pages under 14 years of age since 1908, when Congress passed the District of Columbia Child Labor Law

Some time ago Congress authorized the Patent Office to turn over models of old inventions to the Smithsonian Institution and give away or destroy all models not wanted by the museum. More than 2,000 requests for old models have been made. The longest request was from Thomas A. Edison--five closely typed pages listing all his early inventions. Henry Ford made a blanket request for all mechanical engineering devices not wanted by the Government.

August Heckscher, famed Manhattan philanthropist, felt it incumbent upon him to write a letter to the New York Times explaining why in the recent mayoralty election he contributed to the campaign funds of both parties. He said:

"I did this not to help bring out the vote--most of us knew that the Mayor-elect did not need any special effort--only to help pay the bills. As you are well aware, when a campaign is over the political parties are like the larks in the morning. All their little bills are over-dew."

Seldom does the office go seeking a man, yet just at present the city of Cincinnati is seeking a man to rule its destinies. Cincinnati recently decided to adopt the city manager form of government. The members of the city council are looking for a city manager. One of them, Murray Seasongood, last week went to Washington to consult Federal officials--Andrew W. Mellon, Herbert C. Hoover, Dwight F. Davis. City managers are not so numerous as politicians.

Count Lazlo Szechenyi, Hungarian Minister to the U. S. and husband to the onetime Gladys Vanderbilt, arrived in Manhattan on the Acquitania. Ship-news reporters rushed up to him hoping for a felicitous utterance, since friends of Count Karolyi have credited the Hungarian Minister with inspiring the State Department's attitude toward the Karolyis, Count and Countess. The reporters blurted their questions. The Minister diplomatically replied: "The exclusion of that man is a matter for your State Department.

I should certainly not criticize the

course of your State Department

or your admirable Secretary of

State, Mr. Kellogg.

"If you ask my personal opinion

of Count Karolyi, I think he is a

scoundrel." Woodrow Wilson stamps, 17 cents, will be on sale at U. S. postoffices on Dec. 27. The portrait on the stamp was chosen by Mrs. Wilson. Dec. 28, the day after the stamp appears, was Wilson's Birthday.

The Estate of the late Charles F. Murphy, boss of Tammany Hall, has been set at $2,170,761. This figure, almost five times, that of the $450,000 estimate by his personal attorney, was made public by the Deputy Tax Commissioner in the Surrogate's Court, Manhattan. The chieftain's largest holding was $520,151 in New York City stock. His realty holdings were appraised at $272,200, with $1,601,288 in securities. The report of the appraiser shows that Mr. Murphy was a heavy but careful speculator in all types of securities and dealt with five brokerage houses. He carried no life insurance.