Herewith are excerps from letters come to the desks of the editors during the past week. They are selected primarily for the information they contain, either supplementary to, or corrective of, news previously published in TIME.
Drummers' Slang
TIME Stockton, Calif.
New York, N. Y. Jan. 13, 1925
Gentlemen:
As an Original Subscriber I feel privileged to call your attention to a criticism of the play They Knew What They Wanted (TIME, Jan. 12), in which your critic refers to San Francisco as "Frisco." Should this be quoted from the plays program, all is forgiven (as far as far as TIME is concerned); but should it not be, please do not allow TIME to stoop to its use!
San Franciscans have always considered it drummers' slang of the commonest familiarity.
With deepest appreciation of your high standards.
MRS. C. PARKER HOLT.
The program contains neither "Frisco" nor San Francisco. TIME agrees that "Frisco" is a very low grade of drummers' slang.--Ed.
"Fathed"
TIME Liberty, S. C.
New York, N. Y. Jan. 11, 1925
Gentlemen:
On page 16 of the Jan. 5 issue of TIME you speak of the Pope as the "Fathed." May I ask if this is a typographical error, an error in spelling or an ecclesiastical term?
L. N. FOY.
P. S. In spite of occasional "busts" in proofreading, TIME delivers the facts in such a way that they stick.
Typographical error. "Father" was the intended spelling.--Ed.
K. K. K. Man?
TIME Alameda, Calif
New York, N. Y. Jan. 10, 1925
Gentlemen:
Here's your dollar; trial subscription.
Very bitterly disappointed; and disgusted.
Thought I had found the quintessence of perfection in a review so well-conceived, excellently put-together and in all ways so far ahead of anything else that it has all the others backed off the board.
Ought to have known it was too good to last.
Imagine a decent self-respecting publication which coined the bully-term "Gum-chewers' sheets" devoting a column to advertising the unspeakable Bill Hearst, who . . .*
But I swallowed that insult to your readers --only to open this week to two columns of Papacy and Romish church.
Comment would be superfluous. When, if ever, you get back to running an AMERICAN paper instead of a hybrid of partly anarchy and partly worse, I shall hope to be advised of your reformation. Meantime please kill on mailing-lst.
HOWARD K. JAMES.
Presto !
TIME Evanston, Ill.
New York, N. Y. Jan. 12, 1925
Gentlemen:
The parlor game, participated in by Arthur J. Balfour, Professor Murray and others, mentioned in TIME of Dec. 22, page 18, appears mystifying, but equally so seems the statement that Professor Murray "went completely through the next room and into the empty dining room beyond, where the servants were clearing off the table."
Here is emptiness indeed, where the servants and the objects of their toil count for naught; or, possibly all vanished without trace simultaneously with the entrance of the Professor.
W. S. CARSON.
Train vs. Plane
TIME Lima, Ohio
New York, N. Y. Jan. 15, 1925
Gentlemen:
In your issue of Jan. 5, page 28, it is stated that on the British and Dutch Air Lines, for the last three years, the average number of passenger air miles per passenger fatality was 2,663,000. Reference is then made to a footnote stating that, according to Major General Mason M. Patrick of the U. S. Army Air Service, for a number of years prior to 1923, there was an average of one passenger casualty on U. S. railroads for about every 2,000,000 miles. There is a vast difference between a fatality and a casualty and, even if the information given in the footnote were correct, the comparison is not justified. Believing that you would be interested in accurate data as to fatalitities and casualties on American railroads, I quote the following from a letter 1 have received from Mr. B. B. Adams of the Railway Age, New York, in response to my letter in which I called his attention to the article in TIME:
I find in I. C. C. records printed in The Railway Age Gazette for years ending June 30, 1923, for Class 1 and Class 2 roads:
Passengers carried one year . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,033,680,000
Passenger mileage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .34,575,873,000
Passenger casualties in train accidents,181 killed, plus 8,662 injured .....8,843
Dividing 34,575,873(000 by 8,843 we have not 2,000,000 but 3,909,925; only about half as bad as stated by TIME.
If the airplanes carried a billion passengers a year (as do the American railroads), instead of a few thousand, I should read their records with greater interest; that is, if I contemplated taking a ride myself.
The I. C. C. divides passengers into two classes; 1) train accidents, 2) other accidents. The "other accidents" are largely passengers' own faults, while in the airplane service probably the passengers have no chance to injured themselves.
The American railroad record is now better than prior to 1923.
B. B. ADAMS
Aside from the statistics given by Mr. upon the value of comparison between casualties in air service, which are almost always fatalities, and casualties on railroads, which are seldom fatalities, will, I think, be of interest to you.
L. H. LARSEN . ,
Skinned a Donkey
TIME Washington, D. C.
New York, N. Y. Jan. 12, 1925
Gentlemen:
I was surprised to find, in your Jan. 5 issue, an item captioned "Strayed," for the real story about the elk which leave Yellowstone Park in the winter and go outside the boundaries to feed was told to me by Superintendent Albright a few weeks ago when he was our guest here in Washington. The real feature of this story was that it was not "unpitying hunters" who slew them but the natives living outside the Park. Each hunter is allowed one elk. Mr. Albright said that men, women and chldren were firing into the herd and, after it was all over, they would pick out their elk, often leaving large numbers on the ground which no one dared to claim. They are so ignorant about it and it was such plain slaughter that a case is known where the people had half skinned a donkey before they discovered it was not an elk!
TOUSSAINT DUBOIS.
Wicked Mothers
TIME L Wayland, Mass.
New York, N. Y. Jan. 14, 1925
Gentlemen:
The article under Chenophobes on page 20 of your Jan. 12 issue I found interesting.
It so happened that, before I had read this amusing interview, I had been reading Mother Goose to my five-year-old daughter. She had begged me to read Hey Diddle Diddle over and over again, laughing heartily after each reading.
"Imagine our Sambo playing the fiddle; and Mr. Hick's cows jumping over the moon!" The picture and idea amused her immensely.
After I had put her to bed, I sat down to read TIME and came across Mrs. Winifred Sackville Stoner's theories. After I'd finished the article, I think I was more amused than my daughter.
"Dear me," I remarked, " there's always someone sticking around to take the joy out of life . . . even out of haloed Mother Goose!"
In Mother Goose, there is some pretty poor stuff. . But on the whole it's good; and so far hasn't been beaten. The combination of word sounds, the catchy rhythm, the absurd, jolly or pathetic pictures evoked--all have their place and appeal. The rhymes are not "criminal," I am convinced by observation as well as by my own memory. Even to the tragic death of cock robin, which has caused many a weep in many nurseries.
So "weep no more my lady" over "the unquestionably evil influence exerted by popular nursery jingles" upon infant minds. But rather join in that nocturnal and nationally criminal chorus of wicked mothers, who love to sing when "quiet hour" comes, that "Old King Cole was a merry ol' soul," with all its accompanying nonsense, even though we know it to be lovely rot.
Meaning no disrespect by this dose, I remain, rather amused.
ELBRA D. GOODELL.
Storm
TIME Owensmouth, Calif.
New York, N. Y. Jan. 13, 1925
Gentlemen:
Let me tell you sirs, that I think, in the Jan. 5 issue of TIME the two paragraphs beginning at the bottom of col. 1, page 18 and concluding the article are as fine a description of a storm and its awful power over man as I have seen in many a day. My commendation will mean little but I felt that I must express myself and that it might interest you to know someone else appreciated a really imaginative attempt to do an age-old subject in a new-age way.
R. H. KEAMER WALTER.
ENCORE :
A great storm arose. Heaven tipped crazily, the long seas towered and swept by. Huddled below decks, the faculty of Novorossiisk University and their families cried out prayers as they were dashed back and forth across the saloon. Ashore there was a famine; here were rocks ahead and stark fear on the faces of the crew.
A woman shrieked, seeing the portholes burst. The vessel groaned, feeling downward for her grave on the cold seafloor. The Black Sea flung its folding mountains on and on toward land and the winter gale hissed a dirge for the works of man.--Ed.
Lauds Outlook
TIME Ashville, N. Y.
New York, N. Y. Jan. 18, 1935
Gentlemen: I do not think I care to continue my subscription of TIME. The stereotyped, encyclopedic account of the week's happenings be comes monotonous to me. There is much in it about which I do not care a great deal. I ought to, but I don't. One might read its book section and still be woefully ignorant of current publishings. For books, I depend on the book section of The New York Times. When I have read a New York daily, The Outlook and my special publications in Science. TIME contains nothing of interest to me which I have not already seen. The first section of TIME, called "Mr. Coolidge's Week" (pardon me if I say it) sounds like the items of neighborhood gossip in a country newspaper.
F. L. DARROW.
* The remander of Mr. James' sentence about Publisher Hearst was necessarily omitted because it contained libelous matter.--Ed.