Americana

Notes on U.S. customs, habits, manners & morals, as reported in the U.S. press: P: New York's Industrial Commissioner Edward Corsi gave his answer to the old question of how much to tip. His scale of average tips: taxi drivers, 12%; barbers, 15%; waiters, 71%; bootblacks, 5-c- a shine.

P: South Carolina's House of Representatives made its second attempt in two years to amend the state's 52-year-old constitution to permit divorce. The House suggested as suitable grounds: incurable insanity, habitual drunkenness and physical cruelty. But chances of approval by the stand-pat Senate were slim. P: Jack McVea's raucous tune Open the Door, Richard! (TIME, Feb. 10) was running through the country's veins like a low-grade fever. In San Antonio, a man named Richard was kept up all night by people ringing the doorbell and chanting the refrain. And in Manhattan old Jake Ruppert's brewery made it the slogan of an advertising campaign. ,

P: A Manhattan cut-rate drugstore resolutely fought inflation with a sign: "All nickel candies 5-c-."

P: The Franklin D. Roosevelt Library in Hyde Park received the Fala Papers, a collection of letters, Christmas cards, and gifts sent to the late President's black Scottie.

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