At Swedesboro, N. J., for its tercentenary last August, Prince Bertil of Sweden told his guard of 72 New Jersey traffic policemen that he would like to make every mother's son of them a sergeant in the Swedish Navy. Last week each of the 72 received from the Swedish Embassy a gold pin emblazoned with the royal coat of arms, and several telephoned the local consulate to make sure of their new rank. The consul replied that Bertil, though grateful, had a sense of humor: even the Swedish Navy has no sergeants.

Newest gift of Viscount Nuffield, greatest nonroyal giver in British history, is to be an iron lung, free of charge, for each and every medical institution in the Empire. Part of his tremendous motor car plant, England's biggest (which made the millions he gave to Oxford University), the bullnecked Viscount last week put in commission to make the first 5,000 lungs. Estimated cost: $2,500,000. His inspiration: a movie made by Oxford's anesthetics department which he founded.

Interviewed in Manhattan, 78-year-old Naturalist Ernest Thompson Seton and his second wife, Julia Buttree Seton, 49, proudly announced that they were the parents of a five-month-old daughter, Beulah. Said Mrs. Seton: "People do look askance at us, and want to know if Beulah isn't our adopted daughter. They do not understand that Mr. Seton, despite his age, is just as youthful mentally, physically and spiritually as he has ever been." Interviewed again by a newshawk who had discovered that last June in Santa Fe they had filed adoption papers for the child, she said: "We were going to make the adoption public. . . . We wanted the world to believe until that time that Beulah is ours." In Toronto Mrs. Martin Kenny, 35, mother of 16 (some stillborn), who told newshawks during Toronto's Stork Derby: "I never felt like this before. . . . I am going to nave eight--like I told you--octopuses" (she later won a $12,500 consolation prize), was arrested last month on charges of setting her house on fire four times in four months. Psychiatrists examined her, last week recommended she be locked up because she had a mental age of eight.

Having made his debut as a professional actor last summer at Cohasset, Mass, (in It Can't Happen Here), Sinclair Lewis joined Actors' Equity Association to make his Broadway debut next spring (in Angela is Twenty-two). Said he: "This will create a major issue. . . . I'll have to go home and say, 'Darling, I don't know whether you can stand this or not, but I joined the A. F. of L.'* This makes me a reactionary." Then publicity-wise Author-Actor Lewis kissed his sponsor (Helen Hayes), posed for pictures, chortled: "Thank God for the photographers. I didn't know Actors' Equity was like this. Why didn't I join before?"

Bronzed, beauteous Alice Marble, No. 1 U. S. woman tennis ace, spent five days having her face "peeled" of its sunburn in order to sing professionally at Manhattan's Waldorf-Astoria. Her repertoire includes: I See Your Face Before Me, Two Sleepy People, This Can't Be Love.

Vexed by sly digs at Nazi measures made by the more daring cafe comedians of Berlin, Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels cried with righteous indignation: "Why don't they make fun of the Jews?"

Vittorio Mussolini, cinemogul son of Italy's dictator, voiced his fears that the decision of U. S. distributors to withhold their pictures from Italy would keep Italians from the movies. Then he added for his father's sake: "Personally and politically I am content that American films produced in that Hebrew Communist centre which is Hollywood, are not to enter Italy."

Newporters approved plans for a $100,000 frame and stucco pavilion on seaweedy Spouting Rock Beach (vulgarly known as Bailey's Beach), to take the place of the one demolished by hurricane.

In London Mrs. Neville Chamberlain reluctantly admitted that she had sent one of her husband's old shirts to a U. S. shirt collector. Said she: "If it gets about that 1 am giving away his clothes there would be no end to it. Why, he would very soon have no clothes left."

Said Headmaster Roger Hill of Woodstock, Ill.'s Todd School for Boys of Orson Welles: "From the day young Orson landed at my school, looking uncommonly like a playful puppy, he was searching for some bizarre way to disturb people."

Back to the U. S. after 20 years spent in Europe went Catherine Wolff of Philadelphia, now Baroness Eugene Rothschild, whose brother-in-law, Baron Louis Rothschild, has been in "protective custody" in Vienna since last May, and she refused to talk about Nazibusiness.

Magda Lupescu, henna-haired mistress of King Carol of Rumania, always says, "The interests of Rumania weigh . . . more than any other consideration." Suiting the action to the word, she last week journeyed to Paris, put up at the Hotel Meurice (where the Duke & Duchess of Windsor were also resident) in order to be on hand for the state visit of Carol before he went on to Berlin to discuss trade relations with Field Marshal Goring.

*His independent wife, Columnist Dorothy Thompson, is a member of the C. I. O.'s American Newspaper Guild.

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