Clubs

Cornelius Vanderbilt Sr. of Manhattan enjoys very little private publicity these days. Only through his feverishly active and vociferous son and namesake does he appear headlines.* But last week he appeared in headlines quite independently. He served to make one of Manhattan's fondest illusions come true--that someone with a name like Vanderbilt is "biggest clubman." The 1927 edition of Club Members of New York shows that Cornelius Vanderbilt Sr. belongs to 16 clubs-- Larchmont Yacht, Racquet and Tennis, University, Union, Knickerbocker, New York Yacht, Union League, Century Association, Tuxedo, Brook, Metropolitan, Piping Rock, Turf and Field, Engineers', Yale, Seawanhaka and Corinthian Yacht. Mr. Vanderbilt's nearest competitor is Alexander Smith Cochran, member of 13 clubs. Tied at 12: Harry Payne Whitney and Clarence H. Mackey. Tied at 11: C. Oliver, Iselin, J. P. Morgan, Anthony J. Drexel Biddle Jr. Tied at 10: John G. Agar, Vincent Astor, Preston Davie, Marshall Field, James W. Gerard. John D. Rockefeller Jr. belongs to only three.

Necks

In Manhattan, police were informed by telephone that "200 men are murdering each other" in a Bowery speakeasy. The strong-arm squad found a large room full of tumbling, bashing, roaring, drunken men whom they described as "bummers." Tables, floor and an icebox were strewn with forms knocked unconscious by fists, feet and drinks at 20-c- each. Next day the police arraigned 133 Bowery derelicts, the largest number of culprits that ever appeared in the Tombs court on a single complaint. What could the judge do with them? All were sobered: They would crowd the jail. The workhouse would take them only if they were to stay 10 days. The judge had lights arranged and examined 133 rough necks, 266 trouser pockets. Those with dirty necks and no money for a bath, he sent to the workhouse. Others he freed. Historians recalled that not 100 years ago there were laws against owning bathtubs but no laws against taking a drink.

Canine Exhibit

In Los Angeles, Calif., idlers, bummers, run-dums, hooligans, drugstore cowboys, shuffled into a dime museum "for men only" to gawp at stimulating pictures, grisly specimens, pickled freaks, wax wonders, and at Balto, famed Alaskan husky dog, who pulled the lead trace on the sledge that carried diphtheria antitoxin to Nome two winters ago; the dog to whom Manhattan erected a bronze statue.

Canine Collins

Near Woodruff, S. C., workmen with picks, shovels and dynamite worked day and night in shifts, for 110 hours (four days, 14 hrs.), to cut through the roof of a creekside cave on the farm of one Jonas W. Swink. Mournful howls, deep in the earth, spurred their efforts. Crowds gathered. On the fourth day, they dug out the body of a large red fox bearing gashes of a fatal battle. They hung the fox on a tree. Before dawn of the fifth day, which chanced to be the second anniversary of the exhumation of Miner Floyd Collins who died in Sand Cave, Ky., one Willie Nelson, slim farm lad, slipped into the digging and extricated Rip, prized foxhound owned by one R. V. Kelly, sporting bachelor. After dozing beside a fire and refusing to pose for press photographers, Rip died of pneumonia. His rescue had cast $1,000.

A local correspondent of the Associated Press explained why the animals were found apart in the cave: "Indications are that the fox, mortally wounded . . . drug himself near the mouth of the cave before dying."

*Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., whose tabloid newspaper ventures in California and Florida have failed, lately returned to his journalistic tutor, Publisher Hearst, in the capacity of feature writer. One of his first offerings was a lengthy autobiographical piece blaming Mr. Vanderbilt Sr. and Mrs. Vanderbilt for their son's failure. They promised him, he said, three millions "out of my inheritance" . . . then withdrew support "and left me holding the bag." Hearstly screamers broadcast this implied perfidy, together with a picture of Mr. Vanderbilt Sr.'s yacht, Atlantic, and a touching reference to the $4,000 per day it cost to operate her. At the head of a column in his admittedly vulgar N. Y. Mirror, Publisher Hearst was pleased to print young Mr. Vanderbilt's name and portrait. Young Mr. Vanderbilt's column, headed Now, was modeled after the Brisbanal TODAY in other Hearst sheets. Whenever possible, the self-conscious young paragrapher proved his lack of "false modesty" by dragging in his family's name, pointing to a Vanderbilt "folly," such as belonging to many clubs and building "pretentious" houses.