Sequel in Seattle

Sirs:

The story in TIME (Feb. 5) of the boy brutally tortured and killed in Seattle's King County Jail is one that should rouse to action every juvenile officer, jail warden, mayor, policeman and governor in the U.S.! It comes as a climax to the stories already being spread by investigators all over the country as to local jail conditions and the pitiful care being given juvenile delinquents.

What kind of a warden or caretaker is in that King County Jail, or any other jail, that would turn a deaf ear to the screams of an inmate? And a blind eye to wounds that must have been evident from the cruel beatings given? . . .

MRS. MERLE K. SHUMWAY St. Johns, Ariz.

. . . There must be a sequel to such brutality, a sequel, I pray, of retribution. What has been done with fascist murderer Red Thomas and his gang of cutthroats? What is being planned for Seattle's callous jailers that might jar them back into the 20th Century? . . .

JEFF CARLSON New York City

P: Results to date: 1) Red Thomas and two fellow delinquents have been charged with second-degree murder; 2) the remaining boy prisoners have been moved to new quarters with a new supervisor (the University of Washington's boxing-wrestling coach); 3) Seattle has a new county jail superintendent; 4) eight mothers working in a Seattle factory quit to go back to housekeeping.--ED.

Invisible Appendix

Sirs:

Your medical editor passed quite a "boner" in your marvelous tale from Brazil (TIME, Feb. 5) in which it is stated that "X rays proved that Spiritualist Bernardi's appendix had actually been removed [during a seance in a dark room]." Every medical man knows that the barium shadow of the appendix when in situ [in the body] is rarely seen. . . . The absence of such a shadow cannot possibly prove that the appendix is missing.

JOHN D.SINGLEY,M.D. Pittsburgh

P: To alert Reader Singley, whose X-ray facts are substantially correct,* TIME'S red-faced congratulations for a likely solution of the "Spectral Appendectomy" mystery.--ED.

Monocle in Myitkyina

Sirs:

After reading the issue of TIME (Nov. 20) in which you tell of the jeep-operated Myitkyina Mogaung railroad, I thought you would be interested in seeing a ticket on that important transportation line.

This ticket was given me by Major Shuttleworth, one of General Wingate's officers and a Mogaung conqueror, on our return trip from Myitkyina the day after the capture of the railroad.

Incidentally, Shuttleworth is one of the two men in the Wingate outfit who wear monocles. He is a master at monocle manipulation. During a hazardous plane ride at treetop altitude and a subsequent bottle of Scotch whiskey in celebration of our safe return, the monocle remained clear-eyed and steady and was never once removed. To me this was a clear demonstration of steel nerves.

After four months in the Burma jungle, plagued with Delhi sores, and drinking water from mud holes polluted with long-time dead Japs, holding a small disk of glass in one's eye with complete aplomb calls for steel nerves.

DELK SIMPSON Major, U.S.A.A.F. Washington

Where Is Kansas?

Sirs:

The missing links in our educational pro gram . . . have been repeatedly brought to public attention, and in TIME (Feb. 12) you present a phase that is in line with my own experience. . . .

Some years ago, in New York City, I set aside an entire day to a survey (calling at approximately 50 business offices) in which I asked the front-office personnel one question: "Can you tell me where Kansas is located?" Here are a few of the responses:

"He doesn't work here." "You mean Kansas City, don't you?" "Never heard of it." "It is away down south." "Out near Pennsylvania." . . .

Not one correct answer was given to the question throughout the day. . . . When relating this experience to a member of the staff.* The barium shadow of the appendix can be seen often, not "rarely." But Dr. Singley's main point still holds: as proof of the absence of the appendix the X-ray test is unreliable. of Columbia University Library, she sadly bemoaned the ignorance of the average person of facts pertaining to our country. I broke in with, "Can you tell me the location of the State of Kansas?" She could not! . . . The Little Red Schoolhouse had its points.

H. TOM COLLORD Detroit

Not the Grimms

Sirs:

Your reviewer of Grimm's Fairy Tales (TIME, Feb. 5) must have been referring to the wrong page in his history of German literature when he wrote that "their [the Grimm brothers'] first publication, in 1805, was a collection of folksongs, Des Knaben Wunderhorn." This well-known collection of older German folksongs was published by the German romanticists Achim von Arnim and Clemens Brentano. . . .

L. E. GEMEINHARDT Wesleyan University Middletown, Conn.

P:TIME slipped on its dates. The Grimm brothers, proteges of Von Arnim and Brentano, collaborated on later volumes of the Wunderhorn (1806 and 1808).--ED.

From G.I.s to Hollywood

Sirs:

The movie industry has presented Hollywood Canteen (TIME, Jan. 15), as I understand it, as a portrayal of the job it's doing as a war industry. . . . We saw the picture last night. . . . It catered to one of our most grievous needs: there were lovely American girls in it. But an uneasiness crept over us early. When the hero came out of the Canteen with Joan Leslie . . . and stood staring at the beautiful car likewise awaiting his pleasure, the guy sitting next to me called, "Watch out, buddy--it's a booby-trap!"

That, I submit, is a one-line review of Hollywood Canteen. The whole glittering intricate thing blew up in our faces, and when we made our way back to the tents, stumbling and trying to avoid the foxholes in the dark, there was a fierce resentment burning like acetylene in each of us. . . . It was as though we'd been taken into a millionaire's home, treated like uncouth fools to whom a debt was unfortunately owed, then sent back, dazed by the splendorous kindliness of the mighty, to our six-by-three lives. . . .

Afterward, three of us talked it over in our tent. We were too angry to be moderate. . . .

We were angry not only with [the film's producers], however: Hollywood Canteen is not only the narcissistic self-tribute of Hollywood; it is an easy payment of a debt all the people at home feel uneasily that they owe us. . . .

(SGT.) TROY GARRISON (SGT.) N. R. A. SCHWARTZ (PVT.) ARTHUR WESHARTS (CPL.) HERBERT SELIG

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