Heifer to Butcher?

Sirs:

The writer is a subscriber to TIME and LIFE magazines. The former recently carried a picture of a Holstein cow family consisting of mother and six calves [TIME, Sept. 27] and certain comments, associated therewith, on the female sterility of mixed sex dual births, prompt me to suggest that TIME'S Letters column put out a feeler for more extensive and confirming information on this biological fact or canard, whichever it may be.

While I have previously experienced no trouble in getting twin heifer calves bred, I now have a pair of twin purebred Jersey calves six weeks old, one male, the other female. Numerous experienced breeders advise me the female will not breed. On the other hand, about the same number of breeders say they have never experienced any difficulty in breeding the heifer when one of the twins is a male. The veterinary who attended the mother for a mild attack of milk fever says the contention, that heifer calves who have a male twin will prove to be sterile, is just a yarn without foundation. . . .

The dairy breeds do not make first-class beef, hence, a breeder or raiser of dairy cattle would send his heifer calf to the butcher for veal at eight weeks, if he knew she would not breed, produce a calf and become a milch cow later--rather than feed the calf for twelve to 18 months, find she could not be gotten with calf, and then had to go to the butcher. . . .

So as not to withhold from the biologist any essential information: both calves are normal in their sex characteristics. . . . There of course is no question about the bull's future as the butcher will get him shortly, but I hesitate to cut short the life of a potential milk producer without a fair trial. . . .

W. C. CARLISLE

Carlisle Farms

Sylvania, Ohio

Says the American Genetic Association:

Sirs:

Referring to your telegram: That a female calf, twin to a male, is usually sterile, is no myth. Chicago University's Frank Lillie showed some years ago why this is true of cattle and not in species which produce litters, such as pigs and dogs. He found that the sterility and abnormal sex development of female of bovine mixed twins is due to a fusion of the blood vessels of the twin embryos' placental circulatory system, so that twin calves have a common blood supply. Sex differentiation begins in the male embryo earlier than in the female, and the sex-differentiating male hormones (chemical controllers of development) in the blood stream shift the female twin's development in the male direction. The result is that the female is to a greater or less degree a compromise between normal maleness and femaleness. In some cases there are obvious anatomical evidences of this--in others, not; but sterility almost always.

In about twelve cases out of a hundred the female of mixed cattle twins is normal, and able to conceive. This is assumed to be due to the fact that in these cases the fetal circulatory systems remain independent, though proof of this assumption is obviously very hard to obtain. The fertility of these particular female twins would thus be exactly analogous to the situation in human mixed twins, and in species normally bearing litters where there is no common blood supply and where both sexes are usually normal.

For that reason it is impossible to give your correspondent absolutely definite assurance either way. The odds are about 9-to-1 that if he raises the female twin she will be sterile. If she should prove to be fertile, he has won a long-shot bet--he will not have proved very much. That might be too bad, because his veterinarian would probably say "I told you so" instead of looking up the literature. Perhaps Lloyd's who are said to insure anything, might be asked to take a flier on insuring the heifer. . . .

ROBERT C. COOK Editor

Journal of Heredity

American Genetic Association

Washington, D. C.

Alabamian

Sirs:

On p. 20 of TIME, Oct. 11, you speak of an Alabaman. There is no such word. The spelling in universal practice in our State is Alabamian. . .

W. W. BENSON

Superintendent of Schools

Decatur, Ala.

Alabama's Governor Bibb Graves says, "I'm no authority for spelling, but I always leave out the i." But the State historical documents use Alabamian.--ED.

Argentineaninean

Sirs:

During my residence of several years in the Argentine Republic I was disappointed that the citizens of that country were called Argentines. . . .

A name like Argentinean or Argentineanian or Argentineaninean would be a much more succulent mouthful, and would have the further advantage of giving a lot of work to typesetters. Five English newspapers were published in Buenos Aires,--two daily, three weekly, but they persisted in referring to the inhabitants as Argentines. So did James Bryce and W. H. Hudson and other writers on South America. I was becoming discouraged.

But when the distinguished Mr. Luis Firpo visited the U. S., our sports writers not only pronounced his name Furpo,* but also they called him, among other things, an Argentinean. This was encouraging, but it was nothing to the thrill of seeing, on p. 42 of your issue of Oct. 11, the concocted word Argentinean twice repeated.

Mr. Editor, I salute you. You are a great Americanian.

CHARLES H. PRATT

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Hawk Sanctuaries

Sirs:

Permit me to correct an error in your article on Hawk Mountain Sanctuary [TIME, Oct. 11]. You say that Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is "the only spot in the world where birds of prey are protected." This is not strictly accurate: Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is the only sanctuary in the world primarily for the birds of prey, but these birds are protected together with other species of wild life in the National Parks and certain other sanctuaries. Particularly the National Association of Audubon Societies is to be congratulated on the reversal of its policy regarding the birds of prey. The Association formerly recommended the trapping of hawks, but it now urges that they be rigidly protected; and such protection is given on all Audubon sanctuaries.

ROSALIE EDGE

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary

Emergency Conservation Committee

New York City

Sirs:

For several years the State of Wisconsin has given full protection to all but five of the more than 30 species of birds of prey that are residents of or that pass through our State during migration. The five unprotected species are: Cooper's hawk, sharp-shinned hawk, goshawk, great horned owl, and snowy owl. All other species have proven themselves extremely beneficial to the agriculturists. Many other States give protection to various species of birds of prey.

O. ]. GROMME

Department of Higher Zoology

Milwaukee Public Museum

Milwaukee, Wis.

The National Association of Audubon Societies has established another hawk sanctuary at Cape May, N. J. All hawks, save the bird-eating sharp-shinned, Cooper's and goshawk, are rather beneficial than harmful and are protected in 15 States.--ED.

Man of the Year

Sirs:

For Man of the Year, I nominate Surgeon General Thomas Parran, in recognition of his successful pioneer work in breaking down silly, Victorian public prejudice against a frank discussion of humanity's worst scourges, the venereal diseases.

ROBERT WHITMORE GRAHAM

Philadelphia, Pa.

Sirs:

For Man of the Year, Premier Juan Negrin of Spain!

ALFRED S. MESNOL

Williamstown, Mass.

Sirs:

I respectfully suggest for the "Man of the Year" Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black.

ERNEST DUDLEY CHASE

Boston, Mass.

Sirs:

. . . For reuniting the largest and most ancient country in the world in the face of common danger; for learning perforce to unleash bombs from nowhere, mines from nowhere, planes from nowhere in a land where every gesture is a tradition; for advancing national progress and a New Life in spite of centuries of worship and changelessness, all credit belongs to the Couple of the Year, China's Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek and Mei-ling Chiang.

CHARLES CASSIL REYNARD

Girard, Ohio

Sirs:

. . . Don't forget to look farther than December's headlines. Don't forget the Minimum Wage Case, the Wagner Labor Relations Act case, the effect of these decisions on the history-making Supreme Court Bill, on the history-making rise of Organized Labor.

Elect Mr. Justice Owen J. Roberts the Man of the Year.

JAY E. RUBINOW

Manchester, Conn.

Sirs:

For Man of the Year, 1937, I nominate Congressman Hatton W. Sumners of Texas. Here is a statesman and a great patriot, a man with the courage of his convictions. His speech on the floor in Congress, in opposition to the Court packing plan, will go down in history as one of the most important factors in the defeat of that bill.

ANDRE A. BLUM

Chicago, Ill.

Sirs:

... I wish to propose the name of Tom M. Girdler, of Cleveland, Ohio, Chairman of the Board of the Republic Steel Corp., who, by reason of his righteous wrath and force of logic, broke the steel strike in the spring of 1937.

Mr. Girdler, by reason of his splendid stand for right over might, won a victory for "the right to work, as well as the right to strike," which puts him, definitely, as The Man of the Year.

ERNEST E. DALLIS

Atlanta, Ga.

Ravenscroft Considered

Sirs:

Mr. Joel Chandler Harris Jr. undoubtedly knows the language of Southern Negroes, but before his suggested explanation of "spit an' image" be accepted (TIME, Oct. 11), let your readers consider a passage in a 17th Century play. In 1694, Edward Ravenscroft's Canterbury Guests was given its first performance. Scene 2 of Act III is given over to a trumped-up charge against Sir Barnaby Buffler that he is the father of children by two women of unsavory reputation. One of them, Dazie, accuses him as follows:

Here is the fruit of his labour, hold up thy Head, Tommy. Look you Gentlewoman, is he not as like, as if he was spit out of his mouth?

Is it not likely that the old phrase survived in the South, side by side with other expressions brought from England but no longer in general use ? Certainly I heard it more than once in my younger days.

JAMES G. MCMANAWAY

Folger Shakespeare Library

Washington, D. C.

Again, White

Sirs:

If Joel Chandler Harris Jr. (TIME, Oct. 11, p. 6) will consult some standard works on the English language he will find information which will assist him in "keeping the records straight" concerning "spit an' image" (see my letter, TIME, Sept. 20, p. 2).

In A New English Dictionary, edited by Sir James A. H. Murray and others, under spit (Vol. IX, Pt. I, p. 628), he will find cited such English colloquialisms as: "you are a queer fellow--the very spit of your father." ... In The English Dialect Dictionary, edited by Joseph Wright, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Comparative Philology in the University of Oxford, under spit (Vol. V, pp. 669-670), he will find other examples of old English usage: "that barn's as like his fadder as an he'd been spit out of his mouth." . . . The same saying is to be found in France: "C'est son pere tout crache;" ". . . y reconnut man portrait tout crache," (Voltaire, Crepinade; see crache, Vol. I, p. 878, Dictionnaire de la Langue Franc,aise, edited by E. Littre; Paris, 1873).

Turning to America, we find in Dialect Notes (Publications of the American Dialect Society), Vol. 1, Pt. 5, p. 232: "the ve'y spit an' image o' him," reported from Kentucky. . . . And, finally, in Uncle Remus, in "Mr. Rabbit Finds His Match At Last," Joel Chandler Harris (the distinguished father, I assume, of our present correspondent) writes: "He had a wife en th'ee chilluns ole Br'er Tarrypin did, en dey wuz all de ve'y spit en image er Je ole man." It will be noted that Mr. Harris indicated the omission of the sound r in very with an apostrophe (as in the first example cited in this paragraph), but he does not indicate any such omission in the word spit. . . .

It should be fairly clear from the foregoing that "spit an' image" has not "originated among the darkies of the South," as Mr. Harris and many other TIME readers who have written to me believe, as a corruption of "spirit and image." It is an old English, if not indeed European, colloquialism, quite independent of the American Negro. . . .

LESLIE A. WHITE Department of Anthropology

University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, Mich.

Awed, TIME concedes that the weight of evidence lies with Anthropologist White; reaffirms its decision to use the form "spit-&-image" when occasion demands; drops this controversy.--ED.

Misled Dishwasher

Sirs:

Damn your souls! You advertise in a full page ad of TIME, Oct. 11 that you will be on the air tonight at 9 p.m. Having nothing better to do, I dry the dishes and run the vacuum cleaner from 8:30 to 9. I then ascend the stairs to the den and turn on the radio. I check the paper to find out the correct station. I am burned up to discover that you or the Blue Network or some other fiend has again changed the time to 8:30, and I have missed the program. . . .

THOMAS S. NICELY

Lansdowne, Pa.

TIME'S advertisement announcing the MARCH OF TIME broadcast's move to the Blue Network of National Broadcasting Co. was prepared several weeks in advance and printed in early, color-advertising pages. Originally scheduled to be broadcast from 9 to 9:30 p.m., E. S. T., the MARCH OF TIME was at the last moment advanced another half hour (too late to correct the advertisement) when a shift of other radio programs on the NBC Blue Network made available an earlier period (8:30 p.m. E. S. T.). To Reader Nicely and others who came in for the tail-end of its first broadcast over NBC, the MARCH OF TIME extends an invitation henceforth to listen in every Thursday--at 8:30 E. S. T., 7:30 C. S. T., 6:30 M. S. T., or 5:30 P. S. T.--ED.

Canard

Sirs:

TIME, Oct. 25, reporting the repercussions in New York City politics caused by the MARCH OF TIME'S filming of Fusion Mayor LaGuardia, says that Tammany Hall controls Radio City's Music Hall. This is such a gross canard that I do not see how TIME ever dared to foist it on the public.

On top of this TIME adds that ". . . after the film had played a week to 150,000 people at the Music Hall, the management deemed it advisable to substitute a Mickey Mouse cartoon." This is not untrue, but grossly unfair. The Music Hall has only twice run any one issue of M. O. T. for more than one week.

Does TIME consider this good news reporting?

WILLIAM A. SCHROEDER

Lyndhurst, N. J.

The Music Hall canard is worse than bad news reporting; it is a printer's error. TIME wrote two statements coupled by the word "and": "Tammany Hall still controls the Borough of Manhattan pretty thoroughly, and Radio City's Music Hall, M. O. T. first-run house in New York, is the finest theatre in Manhattan." The last six words were omitted--with horrifying results.

The reference to the Music Halls failure to run the LaGuardia pictures for a second week is the fault of no printer, but nevertheless unfair to the Music Hall, which has an option to run M. O. T. for two weeks, only occasionally exercises it.--ED.

*Correct pronunciation: Feerpo.--ED.

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