Sovietisms

Teeth Takers. Thieves and murderers seized, in Odessa last week, the 75-year-old Italian Vice-Consul Signor Kozzio. Having beaten him to death, they extracted and escaped with his several gold teeth. Observers wondered whether Il Duce, justly wroth, would exact "a tooth for a tooth."

"Shameful Total." That 10% of the factory employes in Soviet Russia were "excessively drunk" during the holiday season and returned to work one day or more late was charged, last week, by the Workers Gazette of Moscow which headlined "Shameful Total!"

Scrub-a-Dub.. "Lay on cream!" "Scrub lowers!," "Scrub uppers!," and "ALL rinse!" were envisioned, last week, as commands soon to be uttered by drill masters of the Red Army. The public was informed that "toothbrush drills" would be inaugurated throughout the Army as soon as the Commissariat receives $200,000 worth of toothbrushes and toothpaste which have been ordered abroad.

10 Mothers: 32 Children. In Russia no practical distinction is made between children born in or out of wedlock and either sort have legal claim to paternal support. Theoretically the Russian law is a sharp curb to carnality, since no man wants his entire income to be claimed by promiscuous children. Last week, however, a test case was curiously decided in Moscow when 10 unmarried mothers claimed support for their 32 children from a rich peasant, Ivan Bourov. In Bourov's case, the Court laid down a broad, general principal: "One third of a citizen's income is the maximum percentage which can be claimed for support of his children, however numerous."

Midnight Gift. A pomegranate hurtled, one night last week, through the bedroom window of Soviet Dictator Josef Stalin. When pouncing police collared the fruit thrower he pleaded tipsily: "L'l gift! L'l present, my lasht pomegranate! . . ."

"Let him go," said Stalin, later, then ordered jailed and disciplined the policemen who had not prevented the possible throwing of a bomb.