Nature Notes

Bolstered by the complete works of Henry David Thoreau, newly bought, Novelist Sinclair Lewis abandoned his Manhattan duplex for rustic life in his home state, Minnesota. He told a reporter that a reading of Thoreau would explain all, but admitted: "I don't mean I want to go around in a sheet like Gandhi." Next fall, he will do some public debating on rusticity, said he.

In gamy Memphis another clean-up campaign was in full swing, and as usual owl-eyed, benign Boss Ed Crump, 67, was the prime cudgel-wielder. This time he was after the cats. Memphis songbirds were in peril, said the boss, so cats must go. A "nice house cat" was all right, but tramps of either sex were out. Promptly cattraps began to appear in Memphis back yards, particularly those of county and city employes. County Commissioner Francis Andrews trapped three right off.

"These young naval officers that we see about the place, all wearing terrific piratical beards, are now the lucky fellows," sighed Novelist J. B. Priestley in a BBC broadcast in which he modestly boasted that he had been using the same razor blade for a month. "Women say they dislike beards," said he, "but that, I fancy, is because women can't help having a secret and uneasy respect for the bearded male, a respect they don't feel for us smooth-faced fellows."

Sons

For photographic reconnaissance on the Northwest African front, the Air Medal was awarded to Colonel Elliott Roosevelt, who last December got the Distinguished Flying Cross. In Auckland, N.Z., on leave from command of a raider battalion in the South Pacific, older brother Lieut. Colonel James Roosevelt was reported headed for the San Diego Naval Hospital with a light case of malaria.

The Berlin radio said King Mihai of Rumania, son of ex-King Carol, had measles. Rome radio said it was scarlet fever.

Victim of infantile paralysis since last October, redheaded Alain Darlan, 29, son of the late French Admiral, turned up at Georgia's Warm Springs Foundation Hospital--almost certainly by the kindness of Franklin Roosevelt. With him were his mother, his pretty blonde wife Annie, a French physician, and a French orderly. Flown out of the Algiers danger zone last December, Darlan arrived in the U.S. by ship three weeks ago.

Wonderland

Johnny Weissmuller, unhurt in a bus crash, extricated another passenger from the wreckage; gunpowder from a prop revolver burned the hand of Erich von Stroheim. Reporting the incidents, the Los Angeles Daily News earnestly began: "Not all the heroism, nor all the pain is on Guadalcanal or in North Africa."

Getting Ahead

Dapper Diplomat Anthony J. Drexel Biddle, 45, who used to be five Ambassadors and two Ministers (all to London-resident Governments in exile) became six Ambassadors and one Minister when the U.S. and Czecho-Slovakia upped their diplomatic relations a notch, from legations to embassies.

Just as the honorary-degree season opened, Leighton Goldie McCarthy, Canadian Minister to the U.S., advised graduates of Queen's University that "for rapid advancement among the intelligentsia" there is nothing quite like a diplomatic career. The 73-year-old diplomat cited his own case as proof; no college graduate, he got his first degree (honorary) within a month after he became Minister, within the next 18 got two more.

Wartime Ascot

To the Royal course at Ascot, once synonymous with grey toppers, pigeon-pout cravats, floppy picture hats and parasols, went George VI in his field uniform, Queen Elizabeth in a neat lilac ensemble. For the first races at Ascot since the war began, the Royal Enclosure (peacetime sanctum sanctorum of the nobility) was open to the public. After forgoing the long-standing custom of driving the royal mile, the King & Queen watched four races, saw the King's horse, Tipstaff, come in last.

Daughters

To the U.S. from London came news and a picture (see cut) of 23-year-old Jadwiga Pilsudski, daughter of Poland's late great hero; she is ferrying planes for Britain's Air Transport Auxiliary.

To Domestic Relations court in Manhattan, from her Valley Cottage chicken farm, came mink-coated Mrs. Rose Hovick Thompson to start nonsupport proceedings against her novelist-stripper daughter, Gypsy Rose Lee. "Mamma is sore," said Gypsy, "because I won't pay the income tax on the money I give her." Mamma's complaint was that daughter had simply stopped giving. Daughter denied it, said Mamma had had $3,900 from her to finance the chicken farm, and next thing she knew Mamma had spent the money on a new house and was back for more to finish paying for it. (Daughter recently bought a 30-room home for herself.) "I have two little duodenal ulcers," confided Gypsy to the press, "and if I start worrying about Mamma I'm going to end up back in the hospital again."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.