Before the Los Angeles Advertising Club, Speaker Thomas Hambly Beck, president of Crowell Publishing Co. (Collier's, Woman's Home Companion, American Magazine) dramatically gave up the British ghost: "The bombing that is going on is so terrific that no people can withstand it. In my opinion, the British Empire will be finished by the end of this month."

In a Fort Wayne hotel 19-year-old Waitress Ethel Gaff saw to it that a lean, greying old man ate his luncheon in peace, stood popeyed when one of his associates left a $46 tip (for a $4 check), thought it must be a mistake. Next day in Detroit Harry Bennett, personnel director of Ford Motor Co., explained: "I left the money purposely. . . . She did a very good job. . . particularly in keeping curiosity seekers away from Mr. Ford."

As the Interstate Commerce Commission held hearings in Cincinnati to determine the legality of 10-c--a-parcel porter service, Red Cap Clinton McDuffy testified that on one occasion he had been unconsciously underpaid (50-c- for a 70-c- service) by Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

For being "the outstanding flyers of the world for 1939," the Ligue Internationale des Amateurs (headquarters: Manhattan) awarded the Harmon International Trophy to two New Yorkers: Jacqueline Cochran and Major Alexander P. ("Sascha") de Seversky. Pretty, 31-year-old Aviatrix Cochran is the wife of Wall Street Tycoon Floyd Odium, has won the award twice before.* In 1939 she became the first of her sex to make a blind landing, set five national and two international records, some of them in planes designed by Major Seversky. Sascha Seversky himself holds a handful of records despite having lost a leg in a crash at sea as a Russian ace in World War I, is proudest of his feat in designing the first pursuit plane to exceed 300 m.p.h.

Because Detroit's dowagy, elegant Mrs. Hugh Dillman hates to think of her granddaughter, Christine Cromwell, as a glamor girl, she planned a simple debut for the 18-year-old daughter (by his first wife) of onetime Minister to Canada James H. R. Cromwell. For the party last week at her Grosse Point, Mich, estate, Mrs. Dillman brought Emile Petti's orchestra by plane from Manhattan, tied up the family yacht at the edge of the lawn (which drops into Lake St. Clair), served breakfast on solid gold plates, summoned photographers from all Detroit papers for a mid-afternoon snap-session. Same day dark-eyed Christine was named "Debutante of Today" by the national Debutante Register.

From Manhattan's Democratic National Campaign Headquarters, Franklin D. Roosevelt Jr. junketed to Philadelphia to set up a First Voters' League. Winding up a list of alleged benefits from the New Deal in a speech to young Philadelphians, Franklin asked and answered a rhetorical question: "Who did it? My old man."

*Other recipients: Wiley Post, Amelia Earhart, Edwin C. Musick, Charles A. Lindbergh, Howard Hughes.

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