Helpmeets. In Los Angeles, Mrs. Robbie Emerson complained that her husband made long-distance telephone calls to her, collect, and never said a word. She won a divorce on the ground of cruelty. In Minneapolis, John Hilton Stiles won one on the complaint that his wife lived with a dozen rattlesnakes, a number of copperheads, coral snakes and water moccasins, a 9-ft. Indian python, a Siamese hooded cobra, an African green mamba.

Patriot. In Brooklyn, N.Y., Bernard Schwartz, charged with evading the draft, explained that he was a bum and had been afraid of demoralizing the Army.

Arts & Crafts. In Hollywood, tragediennes started considering retirement: war had produced a shortage of menthol spray, which had produced tears. In the same town, Producing Artists, Inc. devised the first invisible movie title--just a long, admiring whistle on a sound track.

Pay-Off. In Philadelphia, H. Ellsworth Bennett, who attributed his good health to four hard-boiled eggs at breakfast, a glass of beer at 3 p.m. and 15 cigars a day, reached the age of 103, still collected the dollar-a-day injury award thrust on him by a railroad back in 1876.

Visiting Firemen. Near Sprague, Wash., the Ritzville fire department, 20 miles out of its way and lost on a back road, encountered the Sprague fire department, lodged in a mudhole.

Straws for the Camel. In Asbury Park, N.J., two 14-year-olds said they had thrown some stolen money into a lake, let the police drain the lake to look for it, then led them to where it really was--on the bridge overhead. In Terre Haute, Ind., the young man who held up Detective C. D. Thompson and ran away with his trousers brightly explained: "This old head of mine just tells me to do things sometimes, and I do them."

Stoic. In Trenton, N.J., Street Cleaner Edward Ware, hard at work, found an envelope stuffed with $4,945 in endorsed checks and negotiable securities, stuck it in his pocket, kept on with his work, shortly encountered police, threw them the envelope, went on sweeping.

Oust to Oust. In the Yakima (Wash.) Herald appeared a want ad: "SUCKERS ONLY. We drink, smoke, gamble and use profane language. We have two children, a boy and a girl who are professional housewreckers, breaking anything handy. We have been ousted from every house we have rented, but still need a place to call home. Does anybody have courage enough to rent us a furnished two-bedroom house?"

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