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With the Government's blessing, New York's tabloid News pulled the handle this week on what it called "the biggest jackpot in history." The News began printing the names of thousands of New Yorkers to whom the Government owes nearly $5,000,000 in old income-tax refunds.

The News was carrying the names as a "public service," but it was also a smart circulation stunt. The paper hit on the idea while getting together a series on income taxes a fortnight ago. When it heard about the unclaimed lode in a single district (Manhattan's Third), it sold the U.S. Treasury the idea of printing the names as an experiment in getting the refunds paid. The city desk assigned a special staff to compile lists of taxpayers owed $100 or more. The News expects to run the lists (totaling about 6,000 names) for almost two weeks. (Its sister papers, the Washington Times-Herald and the Chicago Tribune, began printing their own lists.)

The News plan looked so good that Internal Revenue decided to release names to any paper, thus hoped to find 1,500,000 taxpayers who are entitled to more than $44 million in refunds.

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