Inflation Consternation on High

AS the first cold gusts of autumn sweep the land, wage earners are settling down to the realization that a long siege of freezelike controls on pay increases lies ahead. But come the winter of their discontent, Americans can warm themselves with the thought that by keeping a weather eye out for surreptitious or unintentional price increases, they can use their private protests to make Phase II really work.

The war of the little man against rising prices is already causing consternation in high places. Among last week's skirmishes:

> In Detroit, a Free Press reporter alerted federal agents that the Sheraton-Cadillac Hotel was replacing the 10-c- locks on its men's room pay toilets with 25-c- locks. Hotel Manager Patrick Birmingham, flushed with embarrassment after word of his overpriced plumbing began to seep out, ordered the old, noninflationary devices reinstalled.

> In Brooklyn, Rudolf Wiesen, a store designer, caught the city of New York trying to reduce the time limit on the 10-c- parking meter in front of his office from two hours to one hour. After Wiesen reminded the city's traffic department about the freeze, the department agreed to reconvert other parking meters around the city to pre-Aug. 15 prices. > In Hopkinton, N.H., some 30,000 New Englanders flocked to a county fair over the Labor Day weekend. After visitors complained that this year's $2 admission charge, 50-c- more than last year's, was an unfair fair fare, the event's organizers offered a refund last week to anyone who could present a ticket stub. Since few people had retained their stubs, fair officials were still trying to figure out what to do with $10,000 of unclaimed but illegally collected cash.

> In Evanston, Ill., Northwestern University raised the price of its football programs from 50-c- to 75-c- this season. Irate fans cried illegal procedure, and last week the IRS threw Northwestern for a loss: the programs have dropped back to 50-c-.

> In Atlanta, an exterminating firm picked the wrong customer to bug with a raise on his monthly bill (from $7.50 to $8). The victim was Ed Hicks, a staffer at the Office of Emergency Preparedness. After he promised that the matter would get close attention, the company decided that the raise was a mistake and withdrew it.

> In San Antonio, an apartment owner was enjoined by Federal Judge Adrian Spears from collecting $10-a-month rent increases from two of his 104 tenants. The raises were written into the rent schedule last April, but were not due to take effect until after the freeze began. It was the Government's first court victory against a freeze violator.

> In Joliet, Ill., Robert DeMary, an inmate at Stateville Penitentiary, filed a suit in federal district court charging that prices in the prison store have risen unfettered by the President's dictum. DeMary asks that Warden John Twomey and Peter Bensinger, the state's director of corrections, each be held liable for $125,000 that prisoners have paid in unlawfully inflated prices.

> In Raleigh, N.C., a woman complained to the IRS that the manager of her apartment had been hounding her for a $200 security deposit on her dog. The deposit was to be refunded when she vacated the apartment, provided that the dog had done no damage. She refused to pay, and IRS officials informed the manager that he was barking up the wrong fee.

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