Americana

MANNERS & MORALS

Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night, according to tradition (and Herodotus), can stay the couriers of the U.S. mail from the swift completion of their appointed rounds. Actually, there are often unaccountable delays, as Substitute Letter Carrier Willie Brown, 30, an unemployed Chicago machine operator, spectacularly proved on Christmas Eve. Willie took several drinks to brace himself for his work and then wove his way home with his mailbag still loaded. On arrival he jovially dumped 282 Christmas cards on the floor and directed his wife to open the envelopes and remove their contents. Even after Willie was ar rested, the Jackson Park postal station could do no more than ask the 282 mail-less taxpayers to come down and sort through the pile. Postal Inspector F. W. Baleiko, however, was surprised at the public outcry caused by Willie's lapse from grace. "Sometimes," he said wearily, "these substitute carriers just dump their mail in an alley and if it snows we don't find it until March."

> Round Rock.Texas (pop. 1,400) would probably never have had a jail if Sam Bass, the train robber, had not come to town on July 19, 1878 to hold up the Williamson County Bank. "Sam Bass," in the words of a mournful cowboy ballad, "was born in Indiana, it was his native home, and at the age of seventeen he first began to roam; he come way out to Texas a cowboy fur to be, and a kinder-hearted feller you'd seldom ever see." Kind-hearted or not, Bass was laid for by the citizens of Round Rock, who had been warned by a stool pigeon of his intentions. Mortally wounded, Bass died two days later. The jail, a null affair built of heavy timbers, was forthwith erected, since crime was obviously getting to be a problem. But after 73 years of waiting for more gunfire. Round Rock decided that Sam's visit had been a little unusual, and sold the jail to Appliance Dealer Edward Walsh Jr. (who wanted the timber) for $212. Said Mayor Louis Hannan: "Nothing much ever happens here."

>When Kansas-born Mrs. Belle Jennings Benchley got a job as a bookkeeper in San Diego's Zoological Garden in 1925, she had nothing in mind but making a little money. She was 42, had been a housewife for 20 years, and had virtually no formal training. She liked animals, had energy and a knack for organization, and soon found herself all but running the zoo --then a struggling institution with only eleven overworked employees. In 1927 she was made director in name as well as in fact. Last week, retired after 26 years, grey-haired, 71-year-old Belle Benchley found herself a leading citizen of her city and world famous in zoological circles. In honor of her accomplishments (her zoo, with 3,579 animals, is now one of the world's best), San Diego declared a Belle Benchley Day. Eight hundred friends gathered for a testimonial dinner, and the Chamber of Commerce presented her with a trip around the world. Belle was too busy to start at once--she was still hustling around the zoo showing her successor, Dr. Charles R. Schroeder, the ropes.

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