Monday, Sep. 13, 1937

Bradna's Birth

Sirs:

In your issue of Aug. 23 reviewing "Souls at Sea," your critic said Olympe Bradna was "picturesquely born of two bareback riders between performances at the Olympe Theatre in Paris."

He is wrong twice. Mme Bradna told me at a cocktail party recently that she and her husband had a trained dog act. Had Olympe been born of a bareback rider immediately after a performance, it would have been picturesque indeed! Secondly, the theatre is the well-known Olympia.

OTIS CHATFIELD-TAYLOR New York City

The Manhattan publicity representatives of Paramount, who gave TIME its information on Actress Bradna, should get around to more cocktail parties.--ED.

Polyglot Party

Sirs:

The picture of General Semenov in TIME for Aug. 23 recalled vividly an encounter with the General in March 1918. A refugee train was on its way from Petrograd to Harbin carrying a polyglot group of diplomatic officials, business men and bankers. On board were the staff of the American embassy in Russia, headed by First Secretary Bailey; the staff of the Japanese embassy, headed by Viscount Uchida; the staff of the Chinese and Brazilian ministries; and the Crown Prince of Turkestan. American civilians included part of the staffs of the Petrograd and Moscow branches of the National City Bank of New York (including myself) ; YMCA and YWCA workers; trade representatives; and George Sokolsky, editor [at .that time! of the Russian Daily News.

We had spent an interesting but uncomfortable and. at times, hair-raising three weeks in our hegira. As we crossed Siberia we began to hear more about the elusive guerrilla commander of the White Russians, General Semenov (pronounced Sem-yon-off). At Irkutsk, while our train was delayed for a fews hours, I hired a scared izvoztchik (cabby) to drive me around the downtown part of the city. Fresh shell scars on the public buildings and a great pit in the public square containing several hundred lime-covered bodies were mute evidences of a recent raid by Semenov. Farther east our train was forced to spend a day at Chita because the single track east of there had been torn up in a clash between Bolshevik and Semenov troops. When track repairs had been completed, our train crept slowly on into White Russian territory.

Unexpectedly, our train was halted at a small town and surrounded by Russian troops with fixed bayonets. An officer boarded the train and ordered all American bank men to come with him. About a score of us were lined up in "column of twos" and marched into the village between files of soldiers. I must confess to an attack of cold sweat as we marched down the street not knowing our destination but fearing the worst.

We were marched into a ramshackle building. Immediately the tension was broken, for we were introduced to General Semenov in person and informed that we were not under arrest but that a banquet was being prepared for us. The building was the village hotel which had been converted into temporary headquarters for the General and his staff. Later the General posed for me while I took the enclosed picture (see cut).

There followed an excellent banquet with a surprising variety of food. When the banquet was over, General Semenov announced that every man in the room was to prick his ear and mix a drop of blood with that of the Russian or American sitting beside him. He explained that this was a traditional Rus-sian custom among friends and that it made them blood brothers. After this ceremony the General made a flowery talk proclaiming his friendship for the U. S. and the American people, and urging us as representatives of American finance to tell the U. S. Govern-ment when we returned home about his army's need for American money and munitions. The banquet closed with all of the Americans filing past General Semenov who embraced each American and planted a bushy kiss on each cheek in the European fashion.

O. S. POWELL Minneapolis, Minn.

La Salle & Marquette

Sirs:

Referring to your article on p. 30 in your issue of Aug. 9, entitled "Franciscan into Jesuit" and describing the historical inaccuracy of the garb of Marquette, which was changed from a Franciscan to a Jesuit habit, as a student of history I am reminded that Father Marquette died near the present site of Ludington, Mich, in 1675, and La Salle did not start on his Western trip until 1679 and his spiritual companion was Father Hennepin while Marquette's companion was Joliet. . . . I do not find any historical record that La Salle ever saw Father Marquette.

CLAUDE HAMILTON Grand Rapids, Mich.

As it now turns out, Sculptor James Fraser, whose Michigan Avenue Bridge reliefs were thought to represent Marquette and La Salle, intended his explorer and monk to be merely allegorical. The city of Chicago will not permit the statuary to be changed.--ED.

Barratry

TIME, Aug. 23--"barratry (encouraging quarrels)." The only definitions of barratry I have heard are these:

1) Maritime Law: An act of the master or crew of a ship detrimental to the interests of the owner.

2) Canon Law: The sending of money to Rome to buy a benefice (Catholic version of simony.)

3) Scottish Law: The acceptance of a bribe by a judge.

I should be happy if you would explain this.

ROBERT ALMY KNOWLTON Washington, D. C.

Reader Knowlton may now hear of a fourth definition of barratry, given in the Webster International and Oxford dictionaries: The "practice of exciting and encouraging or maintaining lawsuits or quarrels; persistent excitement of litigation."--ED.

Whop, Crack, Smash

Sirs:

My grandfather's pet pastime at dinner was to pick news stories apart. "Mrs. John Jones has been ill for some time" he would read. "What the devil does some time mean?" was his protest. "A week or a year?"

Perhaps I reflect his habit when I am amused occasionally by some TIME writer when he takes a high dive after your elusive style and comes up covered with teeaweed.

"Death at Daytona" in your Aug. 23 issue, for example: "Suddenly, just after the big transport had drummed some 25 ft. above the highway at the south end of the field, there were three rending crashes, whop! when the ship slammed full-tilt into a foot-thick pine power pole, crack! when the motors ripped out and thudded to earth, and smash! when the rest of the stricken plane bashed into a palmetto thicket."

That writeup struck me as juvenile, dis-Jionest, trite and unconvincing: because a tragedy cannot adequately be described by such comic-strip adverbs as whop! crack! and smash! TIME'S customary understatement was missing. We are not only asked to visualize three distinct divisions of what must have been a confusing accident, but we are expected to do so through the medium of a whop! etc. when the writer has already said there were "three rending crashes." Does he mean that a whop! is a particular type of crash? . . .

BOB DE LANY Boston, Mass.

To TIME'S ear, a trimotored airplane, colliding with a pole, breaking apart in mid-air and striking the ground, makes noise. As near as TIME and the English alphabet could catch the sound, it was whop, crack and smash. Do other readers agree with Writer de Lany?--ED.

Chatter

Sirs:

I have just learned of an article about our paper the Chatham Chatter in your Aug. 16 issue [p. 58].

On behalf of the staff I wish to thank you for your kind mention of our paper the Chatham Chatter.

L. B. CULBERT Chatham, Mass.

Taster Titterington

Sirs:

In your issue of Aug. 9, p. 19, you described Eric Titterington Bey as a taster of food for the King of Egypt, to guard him against poisoning. In the royal palaces at Cairo and Alexandria and on the royal yacht, used by the late King for his frequent trips to Europe, are well appointed laboratories in which Mr. Titterington and his staff analyze much of the food used on the royal table. On a visit to the laboratory in the Abdin Palace, Cairo, I found Mr. Titterington was analyzing a keg of butter, part of a large shipment recently shipped down the Nile to Cairo.

Incidentally, the expression "a bold little English licensed pharmacist" scarcely fits Mr. Titterington, who is the spare type of Englishman, over six feet in height.

F. A. UPSHER SMITH Minneapolis, Minn.

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