Less Smileage

Two years in jail and a $10,000 fine was the sentence meted out last week by a Federal court in Chicago to Esquire's publisher, David Smart, his brother Alfred and their broker Arthur Greene. The charge: milking the public of $1,325,000 by artificially rigging the price of Esquire-Coronet, Inc. stock (which rose from $7 to $12.25 while 153,000 shares were being distributed--TIME, May 12). Lighter-sentenced were four New York and Chicago brokers, three Esquire employes.

But the Esquire manipulators, pleading vagueness about the Securities & Exchange Act, got off lightly. They were told that jail sentences would be suspended if fines were paid by 4 o'clock that afternoon. The smart Smarts raised the money promptly.

Esquire ("More Smileage") is no such bonanza as it was in 1937 (just before the Smarts sold big blocks of stock) when it reached an average 575,519 monthly circulation peak and made $807,865 net. But it still pays a tidy profit. From last year's $221,431 it climbed to $302,060 in 1941 (year ending March 31).

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