Florida Justice
Sirs:
Trustworthy TIME is grievously in error when it intimates that Arthur Maillefert was done to death in a Florida "sweat-box"' for the petty crime of "stealing $30" (TIME, Oct. 24, "March of Time," Oct. 21).
Maillefert was prosecuted in the Criminal Court of Record of Volusia County under two informations in which I charged him with: i) Robbery While Armed and 2) Larceny of an Automobile, both of which are high crimes in most States. On the first charge he was sentenced to seven years imprisonment and on the second to two years, both in the State Penitentiary. In view of the circumstances under which the crimes were committed and because of the utter lack of extenuating facts, the punishment was fully warranted and eminently fair. The tragic consequence of the imprisonment should not be confounded with the propriety of the prosecution and punishment.
Florida is entitled to a correction in this matter so that the public will know that justice in Florida is not only swift and sure but also lair.
HERBERT B. FREDERICK County Solicitor, Criminal Court of Record Daytona Beach, Fla. Upon Captain George Washington Courson, prison guard found guilty of manslaughter in the death of Prisoner Maillefert, Florida Justice (Judge George Cooper Gibbs) imposed a sentence of 20 years in prison (the maximum).--ED. Appeal to a Husband (Making exception for an extraordinary case. TIME prints the subjoined letters without names, address or obligation. If enough readers desire such service, TIME will establish a special lineage rate for "personal"' advertisements, to be printed in a fixed position in the magazine each week.--ED.) Sirs:
Jusl one month ago today my husband . . . left . . . with about $60,000 in cash and securities belonging to [a bank] of which he was teller and as yet has not been heard of.
About two and one-half years ago my mother, father and I signed a personal bond covering my husband and unless we locate him and the money very shortly it is assumed by the insurance company covering the bank, to whom we made this bond, that they can claim all of our property which reaches far below $60,000, but which nevertheless is all that we have in the world.
Now my reason for writing you is this: My husband has been a subscriber of your magazine for several years and never failed to read it from cover to cover and I feel that if he is anywhere where your magazine can be bought, he is still reading it. Therefore I am asking you to either publish my enclosed appeal to him, as I really mean every word of it, or print the equivalent in your own words and to make your charge as nominal as possible as I have very little money to tide me over until I can find some way to support myself. . . .
MORGAN: Please think of Mother and Dad, don't make them pay for our mistakes. If you will come home we will all stand by you and do everything we can to help you. You still have lots of friends. Give me a chance to help you start over, we can do it together. I am not writing this at anyone's orders, no one knows I am doing it. I am only hoping you are still reading TIME and will see it and let me hear from you. L. and I are both waiting home for you. EDITH
Perfect Host Mikimoto
Sirs:
Apropos of the Pearl King's unique custom of serving pearls with the oyster course (TIME, Oct. 31):
While it is true Mr. Mikimoto serves fried oysters and pearls together, the edible oysters are joined by the pearls only at the table. Furthermore, I know that the pearls ten American engineers, who three years ago were guests of this gracious and generous host, discovered in their fried oysters had suffered no loss in lustre or color. And after lunch we ourselves extracted the pearls from other oysters, which the thoughtful Pearl King had previously X-rayed so as to insure perfect scores in our treasure hunt.
Kokichi Mikimoto is more the perfect host than even fact-finding TIME realizes.
GEORGE OTIS SMITH
Federal Power Commission Washington, D. C.
Latest Pearl Decisions
Sirs:
When Mr. Mikimoto annoys an oyster it may produce a "cultured pearl" but when he refers to decisions of the French courts he should do so from the latest records instead of from memory.
In an article headed "Three-Minute Pearls" in the Oct. 31 issue of TIME, Mr. Mikimoto is reported as having quoted a decision of the French courts as follows: "Japanese culture pearls (Mikimoto) produced by scientific stimulation of the oyster are in no sense false or imitation pearls. . . . They can be sold as real pearls without any indication of their origin."
On May 10, 1930. in the Tribunal Correctionnel de la Seine. Paris, a dealer was sentenced to two months' imprisonment and fined 1,000 francs for selling "cultured pearls" as real or "fine."
On Feb. iS, 1931, in the Tribunal Civil de la Seine, a decision was rendered restraining the use of the words "perle fine, de culture" which in English equivalent mean ''real cultured pearl."
These, the latest decisions of the French courts, are matters of record.
Mr. Mikimoto's achievements are most interesting but his memory is either capricious or closed to the present status of French court decisions. . . .
MILTON TOWNE
New York City
Lionhunter Wright's Version Sirs:
Your article published in TIME of Oct. 31 in which I recognize but little true facts concerning the Lion Hunt of Denver M. Wright, was not at all satisfactory to US nor to the many of your readers and subscribers here in this vicinity.
I trust that you will publish the REAL and TRUE facts of this Lion Hunt in the next issue of your valued paper.
I am enclosing herewith a photostat copy of an article published in the South East Missouri paper of Oct. 21, which Mr. Wright wrote for said paper, upon request of the editor. The absolute True Facts of the Hunt are contained in this article. . . .
L. H. MEIDNER
Personal Manager
Denver M. Wright Lion Hunt Expedition St. Louis, Mo.
Excerpts from Lionhunter Wright's version:
"After some considerable time, it is stated Mr. Chesley remarked to Mr. Wise that the gun was becoming tiresome to carry and asked that he carry same for a while. Mr. Wise had the submachine gun in his possession for a lew minutes when the two lions were discovered lying close to each other on the ground, whereupon he opened fire and killed both of the liberated lions almost instantly. . . . "The several hundred men. women and children, who had turned out to see the hunting exhibition, were bitterly disappointed and criticized the interlopers. "It was indeed a disappointment to myself, inasmuch as I had so carefully planned the hunt and guarded against danger and criticism. When I interviewed Mr. Tom Scott the following day. he assured me that he was sorry for the occurrence and that Tom Hodgkiss was not nor never had been a deputy sheriff in that county and that the submachine gun was taken from his home without his knowledge and consent. Everyone whom I came in contact with in that and adjoining counties expressed their sincere regret. . . . I was assured of their greatest co-operation in the event I cared to put on another lion hunt in their county. "I am proud of the contact and the many friends which I have made, brought about by this proposed lion hunt and I am now convinced that there are as many good people in Scott County and Southeast Missouri as there are in any other part of Missouri. . . ."--ED. Mrs. Hutchins, Mr. Adler & Plato
Sirs: I understand the theory of the continuity of TIME and for that reason your use of tense in the Oct. 31 issue might be anticipatory. But if as I believe TIME pretends to History and not prophecy, may I make my first correction in your article entitled "Diagrammatics" under the caption Art as follows: "Two hundred and fifty favored subscribers will receive"--rather than "received." It may be two weeks before anyone will have read Diagrammatics--regardless of imaginary reviews which have preceded it. Other corrections are: 1) I never work with a "blank mind." Concentration is necessary to complete an involved line drawing without correction. 2) I have never shown my drawings with or without a magic lantern "at parties." Mr. Adler and I have given two lectures at two clubs by invitation. 3) Mr. Adler is no "friend'' of mine, he is my collaborator. 4) My drawings do not "illustrate" Mr. Adler's proses--nor do Mr. Adler's proses "explain" my drawings. 5) Sculpture is not my "'hobby." It is my profession. 6) Diagrammatics is not privately printed. The first edition is limited to 250 copies. MAUDE PHELPS HUTCHINS
P. S. 7) My use of the word dialectic in connection with my drawings is as Aristotle might have used it and as Kant did. Mr. Webster is not my authority--Plato is. Chicago, Ill.
Sirs: . . . The book contains no illustrations and no poems, in free or any other kind of verse. It contains drawings and proses which have nothing but a formal, not an illustrative or explanatory, relation to each other. If you don't know what "formal" means, don't look it up in Webster's dictionary. You won't find out. . . . Ordinary dictionary meanings of technical terms, such as "dialectic,'' should always be eschewed. If you insist upon reading the dictionary on matters where you are technically incompetent, you can't help things being obscure to you. If you had read the book instead of talking through your hat about it, as a result of reading garbled news stories, you might have received some enlightenment. But no, on second thought you probably wouldn't. . . .
I don't know whether you offend Jacob Epstein and Gertrude Stein as much as you do us, by comparing us to them or them to us. The comparison could only rest on the fact that all the things you don't understand look alike. . . . MORTIMER J. ADLER
The University of Chicago Chicago, Ill.
Slipping Digest
Sirs:
In the Oct. 22 issue of the Literary Digest under ''Slips That Pass in the Night'' is a quotation from your financial section reading, "An $8,000,000,000 investment in subsidiaries, including Insull, Son & Company, was valued by the auditors at $00000" (TIME, Sept. 26).
Which of these figures, if either, does the Digest regard as a "slip''? I imagine the first figure is too high, but unless I misjudge your scribes, the latter is only a forceful way of indicating the enormity of the Insull failure.
HERBERT D. CANNON
Parker, Ariz.
TIME'S first figure was correctly printed in millions, not billions as the slipping Digest misquoted it. And $00000 precisely expressed the auditors' valuation of the crashed Insull subsidiaries.--ED.
Old Russian Embassy
Sirs:
Doubtless the accuracy of advertising copy is outside your jurisdiction. Whether it is or not, there is an error in the advertisement on p. 9 of the issue of Oct. 24 which might well be called to your attention.
The advertisement depicts "The Imperial Russian Embassy" in November 1931, "after 14 years on the downgrade." But the building pictured is located at No. 3322 O Street, in Georgetown, and is now the residence of Whitney North Seymour of this office. True, it once was the Imperial Russian Embassy, but not since about 1850, more than 80 years ago. The last Imperial Russian Embassy, vacant these past 14 years, is located at No. 1125 16th Street.
Furthermore, the picture must have been taken long before November 1931. Even an architectural advertisement hardly seems to be entitled to so much of the license ordinarily accorded only to poets.
ERWIN N. GRISWOLD
Office of the Solicitor General Washington, D. C.
Writers of advertising copy are not licensed; architects are. The point that thanks are due to the architect for intelligent remodeling is still true. Leader Griswold states the facts regarding the former embassy, omitting only that Francis Colt de Wolf is owner of the residence, Whitney North Seymour is a tenant.
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