Letters, May 6, 1946

More Deserving than the British?

Sirs:

With all the talk concerning a loan to Britain in the air, I feel compelled to put in a bid for aid to a few countries which are a little more deserving. . . .

My friends in the Philippines are unable to buy seeds for their gardens, and they don’t see much help in sight on this score coming from the Americans. From India come reports of an imminent famine affecting hundreds of thousands. Although there seems to be little talk at present of starvation in Indonesia, no doubt there will be by the time the British have finished pillaging that country. . . .

Before even considering a loan to Britain, would it not be wise first to obtain a guarantee from her that none of this money would be used to suppress peoples who are attempting to gain their independence?

(T/5) THOMAS SNIPES

Yokohama, Japan

For Nofer Trunnions

Sirs:

After being envised and cerebrally malleated by 1.5 nofer trunnions [TIME, April 15] from a matitudinative 0451 GMT to an epinocturnal-proximate 1155 EST, I felt the need of a spirianimating filliperative and therefore submersinized my hypersensinate endoderm in a 5% fizzionate bicarboalkali-nating Cepsy-Pola.

ERNEST N. KIRRMANN

East Northfield, Mass. .

Sirs:

. . . May I add that if the bearings are lubricated with warm smortch they will not grunch?

STANTON TOMKINS

West Reading, Pa.

Sirs:

In case you are interested in the reaction of a professional scientist . . . you are advised that he passes through the following stages:

1) “I must be having an ‘off’ day.”

2) “What the hell?”

3) “Comes the dawn.”

DONALD H. JACOBS

Albuquerque, N.M.

Sirs:

. . . What is a “dingle arm”?

W. E. HABIG

Madison, N.J.

¶ An adjunct to the turbo-encabulator, employed whenever a barescent skor motion is required.—ED.

Men at Work

Sirs:

. . . The article on veterans [TIME, April 1] contains a statement to the effect that in Washington USES had announced that calls for workers outnumbered job applicants by ten to one. This statement is not in line with the facts regarding job opportunities for veterans and displaced war workers, and was not given out by the USES.

The facts are that at the present time there is a serious shortage of suitable jobs for veterans and other job applicants. It was because of this shortage of jobs that the USES, on Feb. 21, initiated a nationwide Job Development Campaign, in which all of the 1,700 local USES offices are now participating. At the present time, representatives of these USES offices are canvassing employers in the communities in which they are located, and asking them to list all their job openings with the USES. .

Employer cooperation in this program will not only constitute a service to veterans and other job applicants, but will also provide employers with the best qualified workers.

ROBERT C. GOODWIN

Director, U.S. Employment Service

Washington

¶ TIME erred; the facts are almost, but not quite, the reverse: ten applicants for every job.—ED.

Parted Per Pale

Sirs:

Being a student of heraldry, I found the cover [Laurence Olivier, TIME, April 8] most interesting. In heraldic terms the blazoning (or description) of the shield would be:

Parted per pale; the first argent, a cross gules; second, azure, a swan proper, ducally gorged and chained or.

The pennon carried at the end of the lance would be blazoned:

Quartered per cross; the first azure, three fleurs de lys or, two over one; second gules, three lions passant, couped at the neck, one, one, one of the second; third of the second and fourth of the first.

These insignia . . . were the only possible way of knowing with whom one Was fighting; the duties of the herald required him to know by memory all of the outstanding coats of arms of the day.

Persons who design their own arms . . . seem most often to violate the basic rule of heraldry—namely, that a field of one color can be charged only with gold or silver, not with another color; while a field of gold or silver must have charges thereon in color. No metal can be placed on metal; no color on color.

JOHN GOLDSTON

University City, Mo.

¶ To Reader Goldston TIME’S thanks, couchant; TIME’S warning, passant’ that not all experts will accept his blazoning.—ED.

Hangman Pierrepoint

Sirs:

I find it a bit difficult to understand how the passage of so short a time could have mellowed Captain L. E. Davidson’s recollection of Pierrepoint, the British hangman [TIME, April 8].

I too was attached to the 6833rd Guardhouse Overhead Detachment, the Army’s execution plant at Shepton Mallet, England, and as I remember Mr. Pierrepoint, he fell far short of Captain Davidson’s picture of “a farmer who had come to the village to sell his produce.” As far as I’m concerned, he was straight out of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and would have been right at home with Inner Sanctum.

C. J. ANZULEWICZ

Shamokin, Pa.

Dollarettes

Sirs:

I propose the name “Dollarette” for the new unit of money which we are adopting by upping wages and consequent prices. There is no need of kidding ourselves that a dollar is still a dollar.

L. F. HASZA

Chicago

Absolute Zero

Sirs:

Re TIME, March 25:

“. . . cooled by liquid hydrogen to minus 432°F. At this temperature—close to absolute zero—columbium nitride becomes. . . .”

Did you suffer a “lapsus typographicus,” or has absolute zero retreated over 159° since I went to school ?

A. R. L.

Mexico City

¶ Neither. Reader L. was thinking in Centigrade (absolute zero: —273.18°), TIME in Fahrenheit (absolute zero: —459.72°).—ED.

Darker Night?

Sirs:

. . . Your remark about “night falling over Russia 29 years ago” [TIME, March 25], small though it may seem, has quite an effect on a reader’s mind.

Is it true though that night fell over Russia because no “gilt-edged landlords” are feasting any more in Petersburg? What actually went on in Russia was as unknown then as it is now. I wonder whether it is always realized that Russians aren’t a hand-picked people like the Americans, that they consisted in ’17 of a great mass of illiterate farmers plus a handful of masters and intellectuals, that at the time of the Gettysburg Address their serfs were fed to the dogs when their masters had a bad day. It is not probable that real Western democracy would have worked there.

The Communistic night doesn’t look darker to me than the Czarist one.

H. KONIGSBERGEN

Amsterdam, Holland

Engineers Do It Too

Sirs:

… If one more famous airplane is suddenly pulled out of nowhere and sketched on the back of an envelope [TIME, April 15], I think I will blow a gasket. Why don’t we get together and work real hard in compiling a list of airplanes that were hastily sketched … on an old potato sack, on the back of an uncashed check, in an unglamorous pocket notebook—or even possibly … on the drawing boards” of the engineers who actually worked out the design?

MAX KARANT

Managing Editor Flying Magazine New York City

Lloyd’s & Gouzenko

Sirs:

I refer to the article … in which the Montreal Herald forecasts a gloomy future for Igor Gouzenko, due to the refusal of Lloyd’s of London to insure his life [TIME, April 15]. It is suggested that the following not-so-secret information be passed along to your worthy Canadian colleagues: Lloyd’s (as you have indicated) will insure almost anything—one exception being the underwriting of-life insurance.

S. C. GREIDANUS

Upper Montclair, N.J.

¶ Lloyd’s does not give ordinary life insurance; it has taken short-term risks against death on hazardous trips.—ED.

Mr. Downes Did So Go

Sirs:

“The New York Times did not even send a critic to Carnegie Hall I to cover Maryla Jonas’ debut].”

This statement, which appeared in TIME of April 8, is entirely incorrect.

The Times sent its “second stringer,” Roger Lafferty, to the first concert, and the Times’s “first stringer”—that is to say, the undersigned—reviewed her second concert, at greater length and in stronger terms than any other review of Miss Jonas’ art which appeared in any other New York newspaper. . . .

OLIN DOWNES

New York

¶ TIME’S thanks to First Stringer Downes for setting the record straight. —ED.

Strolling in the Park

Sirs:

. . . You made it quite clear to Stateside readers that we have nothing to do but make love to Japanese women [TIME, April 1].

I live in the heart of Tokyo and I spend a lot of time in Hibiya Park taking pictures, watching the people, and enjoying the beautiful flowers. I have never seen G.I.s “lolling amorously on the grass” with Japanese women, nor have I seen them strolling “arm in arm” along the Imperial moat.

I’ll admit I have seen Japanese women riding around in jeeps, and I have seen G.I.S on the street with them, but never arm in arm. When 200,000 men get together, you are bound to find a few who have little pride or have little respect for their loved ones back home. . . .

(T/4) JAMES A. RATEKIN

Tokyo