Lark

In Mt. Vernon, N. Y., some nudists calling themselves The Nudist Theatre Guild recruited a few professional actors and put on a half-clothed version of the old stock company chestnut, retitled The Girl from Childs in 1950. Beforehand the director had announced: "Serious [i. e., stark naked] presentation is not possible at present. We have to cope with the law. The cast will wear as little as possible." The pressagent said: "As was the case when Columbus spoke of a new route to India, tremendous obstacles have been placed in the way of the new enterprise. . . . protests. . . . boycott. . . . We have refused to be intimidated." Hefty Heroine Theodora Peck said: "You're just a nudist when you are one. You aren't directed by a vision." Lily de Lyse, who once played with Jimmy Durante in a Manhattan night club, sniffed: "Me nude? I'm an actress. This is a job, non?" A Guild manifesto requested newspaper critics "to view the show with an open mind, and not as writers out on a unique lark."

Nearly the entire civic administration of Mt. Vernon, representatives of every church and the Bible Society, showed up for the preview performance. After watching the cast bridle through its paces, the women in baggy underwear and aprons, the men in shorts and collars, the audience voted the nudist lark "depressingly modest."

Cusser

In Raleigh, N. C., just before he was electrocuted for murder, Sidney Etheridge, 45, Wartime machine-gunner against the Hindenburg Line, gave his recipe for enjoying Hell: "The first thing is to boil your black cat. You get your pot and go into the woods. Just as you get ready to boil your cat, a wind will come through the woods and bow down the limbs of trees and sweep the ground clean for a place for the pot. After you boil the black cat, you pull the bones, every one of them, between your teeth. But first the wind blows and sweeps the ground clean around the bones. Then you walk to a signboard for nine straight mornings. Each time you walk backward nine steps and forward nine steps, cussing God and Jesus Christ with every breath.

"Suddenly you hear a voice and the devil appears before you. He puts a 50^ piece in a horse track. You take the 50^ and go to the hospital and have them put it in your stomach. Then you're possessed of the devil. He's your father, and your mother. Hell will be a fine place for me." From the adjoining cells came the moaning sound of Negro prisoners chattering their prayers.

Gentleman

In a New Orleans French Quarter night club, John Irving Pierce, 23, free-lance writer, handed his open knife to his companion, Marian King, 23. Miss King stabbed him in the heart. Pierce pulled the knife out of his heart, folded it and put it back in his pocket, handed the girl his wallet, said, "Will you pay the check?" With a roomful of patrons watching him in strict silence, Pierce took five steps toward the door, fell down dead. "That, gentlemen," Miss King told police, "is the way a gentleman dies."

Food

In Lynbrook, N. Y., John W. Martin, driving a wagon laden with half a ton of apple, custard and lemon meringue pies, collided with an automobile, was extricated by a boys' baseball team who ate their way to him.

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