Civilization

Life and property (in the U. S.) are relatively more unsafe than in any other civilized country in the world--President Hoover to the Associated Press meeting last fortnight.

The North German Lloyd liner Stuttgart docked last week at a Manhattan pier. Purser Emil Remer had a $6,400,600 gold bullion shipment to deliver. Gauntleted, cartridge-belted policemen swarmed up the gangplank. Others, armed with sawed-off shotguns and submachine guns, stood about in anxious readiness on the pier. The heavy gold was stowed into armored trucks, ominously loopholed. The bristling caravan, like a party of Forty-niners crossing Indian territory, moved off varily toward Wall Street.

His transfer receipt in his pocket, Purser Remer grinned broadly over the Stuftgart's rail and said: "When that gold was delivered to me at Bremerhaven, it came in an ordinary express wagon. All it needed to protect it there was one man sitting beside the driver."