Americana

P: Handsome, curly-haired Bigamist Leroy Holzman, a New Orleans tourist guide, explained that polygamy was simple enough if a man budgeted his time: he lived with wife No. 2 from midnight to 8 a.m., with wife No. 5 from 5 p.m. until midnight, and with wife No. 4 whenever he had some spare time. He admitted, however, that he had found it necessary to divorce wife No. i and split up with wife No. 3 before his schedule clicked. Said he in jail: "I'd like to get some rest."

P: After more than a year of legal sparring, Underworld Czar Frank Costello got out of his limousine at New York's U.S. Courthouse, surrendered to the U.S. marshal, held out his wrists for handcuffs, and was taken off to serve 18 months in prison for contempt of Congress.

P: Danville, Va. cops gave visiting motorists the benefit of a unique form of hospitality: instead of writing traffic tickets for overtime parking, the bluecoats simply dropped a nickel (from a fund supplied by the chamber of commerce) into the nearest parking meter, and passed on.

P: Marine Corporal Frank Farkas painted the word lemon on the side of his secondhand sedan after it suffered repeated breakdowns, was promptly arrested by Washington, D.C. police and found guilty of an American form of lese majesty under a local regulation which forbids displays which "ridicule" the make of an automobile.

P: Although his pushmobile racer suffered tour smashed wheels and he was badly bruised in a first-heat crackup, eleven-year-old Joe Lunn of Thomasville, Ga. effected repairs, got bandaged up, and pressed on to win the 15th running of the All American Soap Box Derby at Akron, Ohio. Time for the 9754-ft. course: 27.77 sec.

P: Mrs. Lidia Serpa, 25, startled the captain, two copilots, stewardess, purser and 51 passengers (including herself) of a Pan American plane flying between Puerto Rico and New York by giving birth to a 6-lb. girl 8,000 ft. over the Atlantic Ocean.

P: After years of listening to a tuneless whistling sound his wife made whenever she wished to taunt him, Emile Scheermaeker. a 52-year-old Woonsocket. R.I. machinist, could stand no more. Raging like a wild beast, he smashed her head with a clawhammer, ran the bathtub full of water, and held her under until he was sure that she was dead.

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