Miscellany, Apr. 10, 1944

Parry & Thrust. In Parry Sound, Ont, Russian Philip Malar stabbed Austrian Ted Kamanarski with a butcher knife, explained to the police that his offense was “an act of war.”

Hoist. In Toledo, Norman O’Neil returned to the library a book six weeks overdue: The Art of Rapid Reading.

Posnickety. In Springfield, Mass., Mailman Fred Anthony got a letter from overseas Sergeant Simon Posnick: “I have learned from [my wife] that it has gotten to such a point that [she] says she could kiss you every time you bring a letter from me. You see what a dilemma I am in. . . .”

Beasts of Burden. In Maryville, Tenn., Times Editor Clyde B. Emert reported that officers who raided a nearby still found that the lazy bootleggers had substituted active mud turtles for their own stirring of the mash barrel.

Just Fun. In Kansas City, Mrs. Betty West and Mrs. Marian Braidwood went shopping, reported that they saw successively pour out of a department store: 1) a wave of women, 2) a rat, 3) a woman who wailed “. . . he’s a pet, he’s just having fun,” and crammed the rat back into her pocketbook.

Second Offense. In London, Ulissee Pellici was arraigned for illegal possession of meats “preparatory to the commission of an offense” against rationing. When told that onetime Italian-resident Pellici had arrested Mussolini as an agitator in 1907, the magistrate snorted: “It is a Serious aggravation of these offenses that he let him go.”

Sleepy Eye. Near Sleepy Eye, Minn., Truck Driver Louis Melzer was recovering nicely from multiple arm-and-leg fractures, after being knocked out in a collision, laid out on the highway by a good Samaritan, run over by a passerby, backed over by the same.

Calf Love. In Omaha, Apartment-house Owner Ted Miller made an addition to his “No Dogs Allowed” sign after a young couple kept a calf in their apartment.

Parapants. In Manhattan, Mrs. Virginia Bell Jack received from herThunderbolt-pilot husband in England a pair of real silk (German parachute) panties.

Draft Jogger. In Idaho Falls, Idaho, 34-year-old Rex Wood still had twelve hours and 420 miles to go for his pre-induction physical— after snowshoeing five miles to reach a plane sent by his draft board and tramping all night to get gas when it was forced down.