Joker

Sir:

...Your "Trust Fund" story of a Dallas citizen named Powell who satisfied two holdup men with a $15 check [TIME, Aug. 8] reminds me of a little-known tale of Texas Jack Garner's adroitness.

Stud poker was his favorite indoor sport...On one occasion during his term as Vice President, an Arkansan visitor ended the evening by collecting a $20 bill from Jack, and then requested that the Vice President autograph the piece of currency as a souvenir for the Arkansan's young son. Whereupon Mr. Garner said: "Hey, if what your boy wants is autographed proof that his dad won $20 from Jack Garner in a poker game, give me back the bill and I'll give you my check for the twenty bucks." Texans will be Texans.

EARL POORE

Little Rock, Ark.

This Way Out, Please

Sir:

As a movie usher, I found "This Way, Please" [TIME, Aug. 8] most instructive. There was a point, however, which really got me riled: "If asked your opinion of the performance, answer: 'The comments are very favorable, sir,' or 'I think you will enjoy it.'"

It is an affront to any self-respecting usher to expect him to live with himself after making such remarks about the latest fare, the worst in my memory. I can truthfully say that so far this summer, no pictures have been worth seeing once, let alone several times, as I am forced to...

MILTON C. SCHLEIN

Woodmont, Conn.

Nationwide Fingerprint

Sir:

Congratulations to Artist Artzybasheff for his clever cover on J. Edgar Hoover [TIME, Aug. 8]. Perhaps other readers have wondered as I have, whose fingerprint is reproduced on such a nationwide scale. Some famous criminal's?...

THOMAS A. CAREY

Stanford, Calif.

P: Artzybasheff, whose right index finger has been purple for several weeks, refuses to incriminate himself.--ED.

Point of No Return

Sir:

"Tests had shown that the [Air Force] officers averaged only 292 words a minute and understood only 83.2% of what they read at that speed" [TIME, Aug. 1]...

Only one task remains...The Pentagon should continue in the direction in which it is now speeding, until the officers read so fast that they will comprehend nothing. Perhaps some unusually perceptive teacher will at that point suddenly see that this amazing end-result could more directly be achieved by selecting for the Air Force young men who have never been taught to read at all...

HELEN R. LOWE

Glens Falls, N.Y.

Right Plane, Wrong Ghost

Sir:

While appreciating your write-up on the Comet [Britain's jet airliner, TIME, Aug. 8], we are sorry to see credit for the De Havil-land Ghost engine given to our competitor Rolls-Royce. We believe the complexity of modern aircraft increasingly necessitates close collaboration of engine and aircraft builder, as exemplified by the intimate association of the De Havilland aircraft and De Havilland engine companies. Furthermore, the Ghost engine, with its distinctive De Havilland design feature of a single-sided impeller, has highest efficiency due to the ram effect, which advantage increases with speed of flight...

GEOFFREY DE HAVILLAND

Hatfield, Herts., England

P: TIME herewith puts Designer De Havilland's Ghost back in the factory where it first walked.--ED.

A Logomachist Named Pegler

Sir:

The language used by a minor columnist who is apparently still writing, in "A Geezer Named Seidlitz" [TIME, Aug. 8], sadly recalls the unwashed minds of journalistic hoodlums rather than the words of those who are an ornament to their profession. But is this columnist's condition to cause no concern?

To prescribe a darkened room, cold compresses, a soothing voice, a clinical thermometer, and possibly a reading of The Three Bears is really not enough! I am reliably informed that these logomachical excesses if indulged in too long may lead to serious danger, a goitrous swelling of the neck, a hardening of the laryngeal arteries causing the voice to croak, a distention of the eyeballs, even change of posture into a batrachoid squat. The mental concomitants are, I understand, delusions of grandeur, of persecution, and acute claustrophobia tending toward fear of incarceration. This is a serious matter. A kindly counsel would be: correct this condition before it is too late!

As to Dr. Henry Seidel Canby, he exists in a far different world from the above morass.

WILLIAM ROSE BENET

Cape Ann, Mass.

The Pope's Divisions

Sir:

Your quotation of Joseph Stalin's scornful question, "How many divisions has the Pope?" [TIME, July 25], recalled to mind a like remark by an early 19th Century dictator of no mean proportions--and its sequel. Said Napoleon of the Pope who excommunicated him: "Does he think the world has gone back a thousand years? Does he suppose the arms will fall from the hands of my soldiers?"

Cardinal Newman described the sequel: "Within two years, on the retreat over the snows of Russia, as two contemporary historians relate: 'Famine and cold tore their arms from the grasp of the soldiers...' and 'destitute of the power of raising them from the ground, the soldiers left them in the snow.' "

Mayhap, God willing, history will repeat itself in essential respects.

MARION KNIGHT

Dallas, Tex.

Two Drumsticks

Sir:

Your report on the wingless chicken [TIME, July 11; Letters, Aug. 1] causes alarm for us epicures who believe that the wing, fried Southern style, is the best part of the bird...I suggest a "neckless chicken."

CHARLES T. CARROLL

Hong Kong

Sir:

...Such a full-breasted bird with shapely drumsticks merits a really high-sounding name, and I would like to suggest "Chicken Venus de Milo."

AUGUSTE A. BOLTE

Toronto, Can.

The Last Chummy

Sir:

With reference to the review of my study of England's Climbing-Boys [TIME, July 11], I should like to bring to your attention...the recent death of 104-year-old Joseph Lawrence of Windlesham, Surrey, the last of the climbing-boys.

Apprenticed to a master chimneysweeper ; at the age of twelve years, Lawrence climbed flues for seven years before he turned from the unappealing work to butchering and then operating a gas plant, occupations which he found more suitable to his inclination to improve his position financially and socially. During his seven years as a "chummy," Lawrence had many surprising adventures as he scraped his way up one flue and down another, usually in the buff. As an old man he was especially fond of telling newspaper reporters how he frightened one maiden lady by emerging from the fireplace near her bed with no protective covering to cover his nakedness. She screamed and he scrambled back up the flue...

GEORGE L. PHILLIPS

Department of English

San Diego State College

San Diego, Calif.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.