PEOPLE

In the Music Room of Buckingham Palace, Dr. Geoffrey F. Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, using water from the River Jordan, baptized lace-robed Prince Andrew Albert Christian Edward, the seven-week-old baby who stands second in line of succession to the British throne. Before the royal family and 60 guests, the archbishop turned to Prince Andrew's five godparents, including the Duke of Gloucester and Princess Alexandra, and intoned: "Dost thou, in the name of this child, renounce the devil and all his works, the vain pomp and glory of the world, with all the covetous desires of the same, and the carnal desires of the flesh so that thou wilt not follow nor be led by them?'' Replied the godparents in unison: "I will renounce them all'

Is the Supreme Court of the U.S. overworked? By many an outsider's accounting, it is woefully burdened with an ever-mounting case load. But last week a veteran insider, Associate Justice William O. Douglas, offered a dissenting opinion. Speaking at the Cornell University Law School, Douglas said: "I don't recall any time in my 20 years or more of service on the court when we had more time for research, deliberation, debate and meditation." The number of cases filed in the court has nearly doubled in the past two decades, but Douglas attributed most of the increase to a "flood" of paupers' claims, "for the most part frivolous and often fantastic." Most such cases are swiftly decided, and the court has streamlined many of its other functions. The upshot, according to Douglas: "We have fewer oral arguments than we once had, fewer opinions to write and shorter weeks to work."

The most twittering lovebirds of the year. Remington Typewriter Heiress Gamble Benedict, 19. and her Rumanian-born ex-chauffeur. Andrei Porumbeanu. 35, rushed off from Manhattan to South Carolina with matrimony in mind. Gamble's watchful grandma, Katharine Harper Benedict, soon swung into action, successfully blocked their plans to marry in South Carolina. But Granny could do little to halt issuance of a marriage license to the couple in North Carolina, where they then journeyed. Technically, Andrei had run off with the ward of a Manhattan court, but. armed with proof of his very recent Mexican divorce. Porumbeanu made "Gambi" his bride. At that point, Grandma Benedict gave up the fight, said she was washing her hands of the pair.

Planning a return to West German stages after a 30-year absence, Berlin-born Glamour Girl Marlene Dietrich, 55. was aware that her'reception might be chilly. Reason: during and after World War II, Grandma Marlene damned Hitler and his works so roundly that many Germans still believe she is downright anti-German. Marlene's impending return created a spate of mumbling in the West German press. She shrugged it off: "The only thing I'm really afraid of is eggs. I have a swans-down coat, and if an egg ever hits it, I don't know what I'll do. You couldn't clean it in a million years."

To those who believe that Africa's big game is being driven to extinction by native poachers and trophy-happy white hunters, New York Zoological Society President Fairfield Osborn had words of cautious cheer last week. Just back with his wife Marjorie from a wildlife-conservation survey of British East Africa, Big Gamester Osborn, who hunts strictly with a camera, reported: "While poaching continues to be a very serious problem, there is a growing awareness among African leaders that big game is a prime tourist attraction and must be saved." His prediction : the U.N. will soon be establishing game sanctuaries all over the world as "longterm assets in all countries."

Close after the 15th anniversary of the fateful Yalta Conference, U.S.S.R. bureaucrats changed the name of Yalta's main thoroughfare from the just plain Russian word Bulvarnaya (i.e., Boulevard Street) to Roosevelt Boulevard.

The least Victorian of all Victorian authors, Oscar Wilde, observed in his novel, Picture of Dorian Gray: "There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about." He would have had no cause for complaint last week in England, where segments of his life were being filmed in two different movie studios. At Elstree Studios, Producer Irving Allen, shooting The Trials of Oscar Wilde, threatened a court action to stop the work of Director Gregory Ratoff, whose production is succinctly titled Oscar Wilde. Then Allen told the London press: "I don't really recognize Mr. Ratoff and his film. It's just a quickie." Retorted Old Hollywood Hand Ratoff in his fractured English: "Hokay. The blawdy baddle is on." The squabble, snickered the London Evening Standard, would have been laughed off by "the Great Oscar himself" as "the pursuit by the unspeakable of the unfilmable." Chortled the London Daily Express: "May the worst side win!"

When she was only two, Joannah Felicity Touchet Clapton, only child of stout English stock, became one of thousands of British children sent to the U.S. to escape the London blitz. In suburban Mendham, N.J., Joannah found a second mother on a pleasant, ns-acre estate. Florence Whitney, the childless wife of a well-to-do broker and an heiress in her own right, found in Joannah a bright, ingratiating girl who soon became her whole life. Joannah's father, an infantry captain, was killed in Normandy, and Joannah's mother remarried, now lives in South Africa. Mrs. Whitney took over Joannah's upbringing, put her through fine schools, was pleased to see her ward win a national essay contest. Now a senior at Sarah Lawrence College, Joannah is a literature major, a talented painter, a graceful athlete. Last week she learned that she is also an heiress. Mrs. Whitney, dead at 82 last February, left Joannah nearly all of her considerable wealth. Chief legacy: an estimated $1,000,000-plus trust fund, guaranteeing a handsome life income to Heiress Clapton, plus access to the principal in "emergencies" after she is 25.

Britain's spry old (72) Laborite Herbert Morrison, now Baron Morrison of Lambeth (TIME, Sept. 28), is not a rich man. But few Britons actually realized until last week 'ow sharp an eye "our 'Erb" 'ad for a shilling. As a dues-paying member of Britain's printers' union for some 40 years, Morrison, long ago an errand boy for London print shops, recently applied for a life pension. He will soon be getting his weekly pittance--of $1.75. Rejoiced Morrison: "I'm entitled to it, and I need it."

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