Encephalitis Panic

Sirs:

It is regrettable that press reports of scientific interest in the sleeping sickness epidemic in St. Louis should have produced a psychological effect equivalent to panic through the country. Schools, especially, in this area, have that to combat.

As a matter of fact, doctors, experts and specialists have seized upon this situation with all the impersonal, detached enthusiasm characteristic of the scientific mind, congregating in St. Louis as to a great field laboratory. When a Post-Dispatch reporter asked a woman from the East, distinguished in research, her aim in coming to the city, she replied: "To improve my mind." Meanwhile. Mrs. Smith of Oregon or New Mexico or Virginia, reads of all these famous people from New York, the Federal agencies, Rochester, Minn., etc., etc., and it seems to her like the gathering of shock troops to combat, as it were, the Black Death in the annas.

The doctors, et al. of course will do all they can (which is little enough) to help in the present crisis. Their experimentation really will benefit the future. While in actual fact the epidemic itself, in virulence, incidence, after effects (in this form) or mortality is no more dreadful than an influenza epidemic. Yet it will rival beer as the disease that made St. Louis famous.

HARRIET CONGDON

President

Monticello Seminary Godfrey, Ill.

St. Louis' encephalitis epidemic will indeed make that city famed in medical history. The epidemic, which began to spread in late July, has stricken more than 900 people, has killed 173, is the worst of its kind in the U. S. to date. Fourteen died last week, but U. S. Public Health Service investigators, three of whom anonymously permitted themselves to be bitten by mosquitoes which had bitten patients thought the St. Louis epidemic was on the decline. Understandable is the anxiety which many a Midwesterner feels over the spread of encephalitis. Cause and cure of the disease are still unknown. The Public Health Service has begun field work at Independence, Mo., where 50 cases of encephalitis were last fortnight reported. --ED. "Cheap Bronze Plaque" Sirs: --Harmsworth Cup. . . . There is always one serious mishap in the Harmsworth Cup races. . . ." (TIME, Sept. 11). Let TIME'S sport reviewer note on his diary for September next year that the British International Trophy for Motorboats is commonly known as the Harmsworth Trophy, not Harmsworth Cup. The emblem of speed supremacy for motorboats is no more a cup than is a dinner platter. Taking its name from Sir Alfred Harmsworth, later Baron Northcliffe, who donated it as an international speedboat trophy early in the century, the Harmsworth is a cheap bronze plaque, perhaps 15 by 18 inches, and mounted on a bar wood base. It represents a bit of rough water and an early speedboat, more resembling a fishing dory than anything else, going around a course buoy. Sports writers out of Detroit may be excused for misnaming the trophy because of the fact that for 13 years the bronze has rarely left the precincts of the Detroit Yacht Club where it is housed during Gar Wood's speed monarchy. The last time the plaque saw open daylight was before the second heat of the Harmsworth in 1931, after Kaye Don had worsted Wood in the first trial. Race officials were so confident that Gar's eleven-year supremacy was about to end that they had the trophy brought down to the judges' stand prior to the second heat. A few moments later Don disqualified himself by beating the gun more than five seconds, and immediately after capsized in the wake of Miss America IX.

D. Y. C. stewards lugged the plaque back to the clubhouse, and for all the thousands of words which have been printed about it before and since, relatively few people know what the much disputed Harmsworth Trophy looks like.

More power to you. TIME.

HOWARD B. BLOOMER JR.

Richmond, Va.

The British International Trophy for Motor Boats was presented by the late Sir Alfred Harmsworth to the Royal Motor Yacht Club of England, which put it up for competition in 1903. Approximate cost: -L-1,000. It is 27 1/4 by 125 in., represents two displacement power boats (not one) rounding a can buoy in a rough sea. During the War the base was damaged in London. It now rests on a base made in 1928 from the timbers of Miss America I, with which Gar Wood returned the trophy to the U. S. in 1920. --ED.

Warfel's Buzzard

Sirs:

Thank you for your comments in a recent issue [TIME, Aug. 2 you that resulting from it I have received a daily average of three or four letters, some of which have not been so highly complimentary. So far I have found but little practical use for my Black Buzzard, in that XRA's Blue Eagle peers from each window.

A. C. WARFEL

St. Louis, Mo.

Hum for Crackle

Sirs:

TIME'S expressions are usually so accurate as well as terse that I feel impelled to inform you that (TIME, Sept. 18, p. 9, col. 3) radios have not crackled for about nine years in the Navy's first line ships. They whistle, hum or talk. The spectacular crashing spark has long since been superseded by the silent but much more efficient vacuum tube as a radio transmitter.

F. J. HOOVEN

Dayton, Ohio

Hereafter modern radios shall cease crackling in TIME.--ED. Public Educators Pleased Sirs: Pages of Sept. 18 TIME are now spread on the Office of Education bulletin board. May I assure you of our appreciation of the accuracy and condensed thoroughness of the article. Previously I have heard educators complain that TIME paid too much attention to private schools and educational trifles. I am sure that articles like this one and others appearing in recent issues will win TIME a host of friends in the very large world of public education.

WM. D. BOUTWELL

U. S. Department of the Interior Office of Education Washington, D. C.

Spirits of Pestalozzi, McGuffey

Sirs:

TIME, keenly and intelligently edited in most of its departments, has at last, to the infinite gratification of hitherto disgruntled pedagogs, published an educational article worthy of the name. The opening of the school year (TIME, Sept. 18), the first public appearance of Commissioner Zook in a matter of major consequence or something, apparently inspired TIME'S educational editor to treat the system of public education of the U. S. with something other than the frivolous snobbery, the tycoonophilia, and the sociolatry that have been the besetting vices of this section of your magazine for years past. For once, education received something like its due in space, in fairness of treatment, and in dignity.

There is rejoicing in Heaven over the sinner that repenteth. May the guiding spirits of Pestalozzi, Froebel, Spencer, and McGuffey keep your feet from backsliding!

JULIAN M. DRACHMAN

Morris High School New York City

Cactus House Worker Re the half-century plant (TIME, Sept. 11): Six years ago I was a student at the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, England, and worked for six months in the Cactus House. Burins this time I wore out three pairs of trousers, due chiefly to the spines of Agave americana, these spines are so hard that they can be cut off and hammered into a piece of wood, just like nails. During the summer of 1928 a large plant of Agave americana flowered in the cactus horse at Kew: it grew up some 15 ft. to the root of the glasshouse and after a few panes of glass had been removed, continued on its way and flowered very well.

JOHN BIRKEXTALL

Woodbury, L. I.

Deer Points

Sirs:

Under Animals, on p. 32 of the Sept. 11 issue TIME, reference is made to ':the handsome velvet-horned, seven-point buck deer."

The photograph illustrating the article is of a three-point buck. To the best of the writer's knowledge it is common practice throughout the U. S. and Canada to rate a deer by one horn only and by the horn with the least number of points, if there be any difference.

MORRIS M. LONG

Fraser, Colo.

Zoologists count antler points on each antler, speak of a 5 + 6 point deer. Hunters usually add the points on both antlers --ED.

Real Benefit

Sirs:

In today's testimony in the trial involving the Urschel kidnapping here in Oklahoma City, a statement was made by Mrs. Chas. F. Urschel, wife of the kidnapped man, which I thought would be of interest to you. I am passing it along in case no one called it to your attention.

Mrs. Urschel said, in substance, that after the kidnappers left with her husband and Mr. Jarrett, who with his wife were dinner and bridge guests, she went upstairs and phoned the Federal officers. After they arrived, a long distance phone call was made to Mr. Hoover at Washington and report was made to him of the kidnapping. She said she did this because "that afternoon, we had read in TIME that this was the thing to do in case of a kidnapping."

I am associated with the defense attorneys for the Shannons, R. G. (Boss), his wife, Mrs. Ora L. Shannon, and Mr. Shannon's son, Armon Shannon. Just thought you would like to know that TIME served a real benefit in this case.

JESSIE ZIEGLER

Oklahoma City, Okla.

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