Vice President Hubert Humphrey, 56, went riding on Christmas Day, taking Wife Muriel and two of their grand-daughters--Jill, 5, and Vicki Solomonson, 7--out for a swirl on a snowmobile he had rented for the holidays. It was billed as a nonpolitical trip, but anyone could see that his vehicle was--what else?--a Johnson.

Though the time has passed when eyes were piously averted to avoid soiling Japan's Emperor Hirohito with a commoner's glance, the Emperor, 66, still enjoys nearly hermetic privacy within his wooded 200-acre estate in Tokyo. Now the hounds of modernism are baying over the palace grounds. A 36-story skyscraper is going up a mile from the palace, and court chamberlains have made the ghastly discovery that anyone with a pair of 10-power binoculars can peer straight into the Emperor's living quarters. A quick planting of large evergreens ought to solve that problem, but Tokyo's construction bureau is now considering plans for a 30-story building fronting on the imperial moat itself. What thinks the embattled Emperor? "I asked him," reported Tokyo's Governor Ryokichi Minobe, "and he said he didn't mind."

A princess from Italy attended, and a countess from Germany, and a bonnie lass from Scotland with her own bagpiper. But the queen was Barbara Anne Eisenhower, 18, daughter of Ike's only son, retired Lieut. Colonel John Eisenhower, and Wife Barbara. The scene was the 13th Annual International Debutante Ball at Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria hotel, graced by 62 young ladies from 16 countries and 17 states and the District of Columbia. As usual, second-generation Republicans seemed to have a lock on the proceedings. Barbara Anne was escorted by her brother David's Amherst roommate, Don Stolper, and David himself was there with Fiancee Julie Nixon, who had been last year's Queen. It was a bit too much for Barbara Anne, and she fainted away during the opening presentations. "I'm so embarrassed," she murmured when she came to, then gamely returned to her place on the dais.

Most of the excitement in this year's Davis Cup challenge round came after the last match had been played. Led by John Newcombe, 23, the world's top-ranked amateur tennis player, Australia overpowered Spain to win the cup for the 15th time in the past 18 years. Immediately afterward, though, Newcombe and Teammates Tony Roche, 22, and Roy Emerson, 31, announced that they are turning pro--leaving the Aussies without a single player of world rank to defend the cup next year.

Trim and persuasive as ever, former TV Huckstress Betty Furness, 51, now Special Assistant on Consumer Affairs, told how things looked from the other side of the fence in a speech to the American Marketing Association. "It may be revolutionary to suggest that the manufacturer or the marketer give the consumer the basic facts about the design-life of a product," said Betty, "but I believe it's his due. Why shouldn't the housewife know there are 'x' number of hours of service in her washing machine, or that the life expectancy of a toaster falls short of a golden wedding anniversary? The manufacturer knows, and the marketer knows. Shouldn't the consumer also know?"

The Academy Awards they aren't-- at least in terms of box-office push-- but the New York Film Critics' yearly obeisances to movie excellence probably carry more prestige than Hollywood's. Among this year's winners: Actor Rod Steiger, 42, for In the Heat of the Night; British Actress Dame Edith Evans, 79, for The Whisperers; and Director Mike Nichols, 36, for The Graduate. Bonnie and Clyde won the award for the best screenplay, but the critics decided that In the Heat of the Night was, all in all, the best movie.

Having made do without a home of her own since she came to the U.S. ten months ago, Svetlana Alliluyeva, 41, has apparently decided to settle in Princeton, N.J. She has rented a house not far from the homes of two of her closest American friends, former Ambassador to Russia George F. Kennan and Lawyer Edward S. Greenbaum. The presence of Stalin's daughter has caused no flutter in the town, though local police admit having taken "some security precautions." Said Greenbaum: "She does her own shopping. People accept her as one of the community. That's what she wants."

Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and as a big-time swindler Lowell Birrell, 60, was right up there with Ponzi and Ivar Kreuger. By Government reckoning, the brilliant, hard-drinking Birrell suckered investors out of about $20 million between 1955 and 1958 by selling unregistered shares in American Leduc Petroleums, Ltd., a Canadian oil firm. Birrell skipped to Brazil in 1957, returning "dead broke" in 1964 to face a 32-count federal indictment. Last week in Manhattan, a jury deliberated only six hours before finding him guilty on ten charges of selling unregistered stock and one of conspiracy-- which could add up to a jail sentence of 55 years and fines of $60,000.

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