Americana

MANNERS & MORALS

P: Ornithologist Roger Tory Peterson urged bird watching upon U.S. neurotics, but warned: "Beyond a certain point even the birds can't help."

P: Don Sinnott, 18, smashed seats, uprooted radiators and unhinged doors in a Los Angeles theater, to prove that he deserved a part in a new Superman film.

P: The Indiana Unemployment Compensation Bureau in Gary ruled that out-of-work prostitutes may not collect unemployment insurance. Reason: they are "independent contractors."

P: Detroit's Fire Commission Chairman Paxton Mendelssohn sought to equip battalion chiefs with hand extinguishers. He explained : "As it is now, if the chiefs come across a small fire all they can do is [wait] for the regular fire trucks. People hoot at them."

P: In accordance with his last wish, the ashes of Herbert Wood, a $2 bettor, were scattered on the home stretch of the Saratoga racetrack.

P: The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad was sued for $50,000 by the mother of one of two men who held up a B. & O. streamliner in West Virginia. Mrs. Ruth Ungar complained that her boy had had a few when he got aboard the train. He was allowed more drinks in the diner, became "intoxicated and insouciant," and that's what led him to armed robbery, she argued. She didn't mention that George was on probation from an Ohio reformatory or explain why he was packing a pistol.

P: Philadelphia's Judge Curtis Bok, himself an author (Backbone of the Herring), ruled thoughtfully that nine novels (including works by James T. Farrell, Erskine Caldwell, William Faulkner) seized in vice-squad raids were not obscene. Said the court: "I should prefer that my own three daughters meet the facts of life and the literature of the world in my library than behind a neighbor's barn, for I can face the adversary there directly."

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