Lost: 142,000

When the New York Worlds were bought by Scripps-Howard, all Manhattan publishers began to scramble for pieces of the late World circulation (TIME, March 9 et seq.). Last week suggestions of who got what pieces of the World pic were found in publishers' statements for the first six-month period since the change, compared with Audit Bureau of Circulations figures for the same period (April-October) of last year. If the World pie had been the only source of increased circulation for other papers since last year, the slices went like this:

Morning & Sunday Pie & Pieces Present Totals WORLDS 339.323 PIE American 102,297 442,774 Times 39,791 499,937 Herald Tribune 32,565 344,424 Mirror/- 84.301 585,502 News 46,424 1,402,259 Lost crumbs 33,945

Evening Pie & Pieces Present Totals

WORLD 276,267

World-Telegram ... 176,597 413,178

Journal 16,212 645,366

Post 1,779 Loss 100,833

Sun 5,423 Loss 293,368

Graphic 17,518 Loss 262,721

Lost crumbs 108,178

In all probability the gains of World-Telegram, Times and Herald Tribune were definitely World pie pieces. Some of the gains made by Hearst's American came from the same source; but much was due to a costly Hearst promotion campaign which should have brought results under any circumstances.

The impressive gain made by the tabloid Mirror could hardly be accounted for by former World readers. And it is a question whether Hearst's evening Journal drew more of its new readers from the late Evening World or the vulgar tabloid Graphic.

Clear it is, however, that 142,123 circulation was lost in the shuffle--33,945 from the morning & Sunday field, 108,178 from the evening.

Death Business

Every year in the U. S. approximately 1.386,000 persons die; an average of 3,800 every day. To prepare these dead for burial there are 30,000 funeral directors & embalmers. There are 20 embalming colleges, an army of makers & sellers of hearses, caskets, embalming tables, embalming fluids & cosmetics, deodorants, artificial wreaths & grasses, grave markers, white gloves, folding chairs. The past month was an important one for that industry and its press: important for the industry because it witnessed a large number of regional conventions, culminating last week in the Golden Jubilee Convention of the National Funeral Directors' Association in Detroit; important for its press because there was big news to be reported and because of the advent of a new magazine, Mortuary Digest, published in Los Angeles by Fred Witman.

Dominance of the mortuary press is disputed by two magazines, The American Funeral Director (edited by able Albert R. Kate) and Casket & Sunny side (whose editor Harry J. Daniels died two months ago) each claiming close to 9,000 circulation. Runner-up in size is Embalmers' Monthly. Lesser voices are Undertakers Journal (Chicago), Southern Funeral Director (Atlanta) and Mortuary Management (San Francisco). Publisher Witman of the new magazine formerly edited Mortuary Management, was looked upon with disfavor as a "radical"' by many conservative morticians.

First issue of Mortuary Digest was not impressive in appearance--32 pages with scanty advertising & illustration--but it was pungent in its discussion of funeral problems. One of Editor Witman's first editorials pooh-poohed the profession's effort to popularize the term "mortician."

Excerpt:

"Why there should be a stink attached to 'undertaker,' I don't know. ... As long as the public insists on thinking of morticians and funeral directors as 'undertakers,' I feel that the sensible thing . . . is to follow the lines of least resistance, and admit that we are undertakers."

Other editorials: a foreboding of war between undertakers and cemeteries if the latter persist in the alleged practice of urging patrons to pay less for caskets, more for memorials; an argument in favor of high-pressure injection of embalming fluids; an alarmed view of "directories of funeral directors" charging high fees for listing names.

There were articles on funeral prices, cut-rate practices, arrangement of the casket display room so that the prospect will not always select the cheap ones. Only once was the delicate (to the undertaker) subject of cremation mentioned; thus:

"The greatest objection to cremation is the usurpation of the funeral directors' rights by the crematory people. Though they have stoutly maintained that a funeral director cannot profitably own his own retorts, this is not the case. They simply want to cremate so that they can sell the urn and the niche. Funeral directors often take bodies to crematories, and have a devil of a time getting the ashes. The crematory people want to get into the families, and spread the high-power selling racket." Editor Witman's solution: Let the funeral director carry a sideline of urns at a modest price and "sell" a bigger funeral. As in most trade magazines, there is a page in the Mortuary Digest reserved for informal shoptalk. It is headed "The Back Room." Advertisements in the funeral press are quite different from the subtle "institutional" advertisements of casket makers, cemeteries and crematories which appear in popular magazines. Some are outspoken : "This casket will be a wonderful seller. . . ." "The casket of the month-- Rustless Zinc." . . . "Nature-Glo--Rivals Cosmetic Effect of Living Blood." . . . "William H. Doty! The Fluid Man." . . . Also there are classified advertisements. Sample:

FOR SALE: N eon electric crucifix, with case, in good condition; $35 takes it; 150 dozen pall bearers gloves. . . . One new prayer rail with case $55.

Washington Pinsticker

In recent months the monthly Washingtonian, which was established about five years ago as an innocuous houseorgan for the Hotel Mayflower (named The Mayflower's Log), has been publishing less & less news of Society, more & more pungent comment on politics. Last fortnight The Washingtonian definitely abandoned its conservatism, came out as a magazine "which pokes pins into almost everything and everybody in town," began its pinsticking with a cover caricature of a button-nosed Herbert Hoover in red-white-&-blue.

The change in caricature was doubtless more sensational to the magazine's staff than to the Washington public, which is now fairly accustomed to seeing statesmen and politicians baited. However some 2,000 copies of the revamped issue were bought in the Capital. Usual sale there is about 1,000. Instigator of the change is The Washingtoman's new General Manager Frederick G. Brownell, onetime editor & publisher of Buffalo Town Tidings, brother-in-law of Editor Peter Yischer of Polo. Mrs. Marion Banister, sister of Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, continues as editrix. Newsmen Robert S. Allen, George Abell and Drew Pearson, reputed co-authors of Washington Merry-Go-Round, were reported helping to finance the magazine with their royalties from the book, but that might have been suggested by the fact that Pearson and Abell are announced contributors to the magazine, and that the principal page of chit-chat is headed "Merry-Go-Round."

High points of the current issue: a satirical sketch of Representative Sol Bloom of New York who "allows George [Washington] to share in his publicity stunts'' as director of the George Washington Bi-Centennial Commission; an assault upon President Hoover's Unemployment policy as "a food dole substituted for a money dole"; description of Illinois' Governor Louis Lincoln Emmerson's bewilderment when President Hoover curtailed the duck-shooting season: "What do you know about that guy! He must think that ducks vote in Illinois."

Odds, Ends

P: Grafton Wilcox, onetime Washington correspondent for the New York Herald Tribune and for five years assistant managing editor, was appointed managing editor to succeed Armstead Richardson Holcombe, resigned.

P: Dapper Major Frank Earl Mason, recently resigned president of Hearst's International News Service, returned from Europe to become a vice president of National Broadcasting Co.

P: Subscribers to Metals & Alloys, magazine for metallurgical engineers, found the current issue bound within a cover of real aluminum, cold rolled to 2/1.000 in. thickness. The publishers stated that other magazines had appeared with metal foil applied to paper, but never before with a cover of rolled metal. Future issues may be bound in lead, copper, nickel, brass, steel, zinc, molybdenum if manufacturers can be induced to follow the example of Aluminum Co. of America and donate the metal.

P: Publishers of Chicago's Jewish Courier announced a cut in salaries. Editor S. M. Melamed & staff walked out on strike, proceeded to publish their own daily. The real Courier suspended publication.

/-Sunday edition scheduled to appear in January

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