Letters, May 24, 1937

Long Live Badminton!

Sirs:

Your article on badminton (TIME, April 12) was indeed a very interesting article to me as I have had the pleasure of playing this fascinating sport for the past twelve years in Europe and for the past two years in this country. As I have had the opportunity of traveling throughout the whole of this country—from the Atlantic Coast to the Pacific Coast—playing with and against all the players who were at the National Championships and demonstrating the game to thousands of people, I think I am in a position to take exception to the clause in your article which says that Hollywood is one of the few places where the vogue of badminton has taken root outdoors. This is a very misleading statement. The leading wholesale badminton house in this country sold, during the past three years, more than three to four times the number of racquets and “birds” for outdoor use that it did for the indoor game. This equipment goes all over the country, and while the Hollywood area shows a slight increase on outdoor equipment, it is not appreciably higher than any other area. These facts can be verified by going into any sporting goods dealer who will tell you that the sale of outdoor equipment for badminton is far in advance of the indoor. While it is perfectly true to say the game is not so scientifically accurate outdoors as indoors nevertheless a great deal of fun and enjoyment is to be had by young and old from the outdoor game. In fact, many of the winners of the recent National Tournament owe their start in the game to the outdoor courts. So long live badminton—both indoor and outdoor.

KENNETH R. DAVIDSON

New York City

Reader Davidson, Britain’s professional badminton champion, should know whereof he speaks.—ED.

Wonderful Slaughter

Sirs:

Perhaps TIME in its wisdom can solve a problem concerning monsters. The Loch Ness creature mentioned in TIME, May 3, does not seem to be a very pretentious beast. Fifty feet is about the greatest length claimed for it, and there is no mention of its having spoken to anyone, or even of its having devoured anyone.

In doing some reading among ancient Irish legends a few years ago I found evidence of a much more ambitious lake-dweller. Two thousand or more men did she kill in a single day, it was claimed, the victims being members of the great Irish warrior band called the Fiana. This having a crippling effect on the ranks, their captain delegated the son of the King of Greece, who understood the language of all monsters, to make a bargain with her. For 50 horses or 50 cows a day she agreed to leave the Fiana in peace.

But one day her food was not provided. The next morning she raised a great storm on the lake, and when she came to shore she began to slaughter the men of the Fiana who were assembled there. One hundred and one persons she took at a gulp, and before midday she had finished off more than half the men of the Fiana. She swallowed the son of the King of Greece, and the son of the Fiana’s captain, Finn Mac Cool. Thereupon that hero gave a sudden rush, gripped the monster by one of her joints, and flipped her over on her back.

Then another son of Finn Mac Cool’s leaped into her mouth, and when he had passed into her chest (this is the legend’s anatomy, not mine) he bethought him of his knife. With it, he made a gash in the monster’s side which killed her. ” ‘Twas a wonderful slaughter,” says the tale, putting the statement, for modesty’s sake, in parentheses.

Two hundred of the Fiana came out of the beast alive, including the son of the King of Greece, but their clothes were gone, and they were hairless thereafter. Fionn Loch, White Lake, had been the name of the lake where the monster resided. From that day on, it was called Loch Dearg, Red Lake. Loch Dearg is in Donegal, in Ireland.

My question is this: The Fenian Cycle, of which this tale is a part, is hundreds of years old. It is thought to have originated sometime around the 3d or 4th Century. Various versions of the tales were transmitted to manuscript from the 9th to the 11th Centuries, or even later. The particular manuscript from which this translation was made (by Dr. Gerard Murphy, of Dublin) is dated about 1627. In your opinion is the discrepancy in the size and ambition of lake monsters which comparison makes evident, the result of degeneration brought about by time (small t) or does it indicate the superiority of Irish products? This last, of course, includes imagination.

HELEN LANDRETH

New York City

Scotland’s modest soft. Loch Ness monster “Nessy” at least has this over Ireland’s Loch Dearg creature: photographic views of it have been published by the Illustrated London News and the New York Times (see cut, p. 2).—ED.

Great Readers Sirs:

I read with interest Mr. Starbuck’s letter (TIME, May 3) telling TIME readers of the merchant seaman’s desire for books. This good correspondent from the way he writes is no doubt a deck officer and rudely forgets to include ship’s engineers as also being great readers not only of magazines but the classics.

During my four years at sea, I found that engineers used the Ship’s library more than Master, Mate and Steward put together. Often I used to stay awake in my watch below reading Plato, Virgil and Homer, and before I knew it someone would knock at my door and shout ‘”one bell” which my seafaring friends know to mean “time to get up and report below.”

This writer after four hours on watch in the hot stokehold has rushed topsides to finish Homer’s Iliad. Before he completed it a new box of books was brought aboard and then the fun began. Engineers when they heard that the representative of the American Merchant Marine Library Association was on board ran up the engine room ladders two steps at a time. The reason for this, this writer believes, is that engineers are apt to be more philosophically inclined and have more of the “monastic” spirit.

True the Merchant Marine Library has been a Godsend to the American merchant seaman whether on deck, in engine room or pantry.

Mr. Starbuck as a brother TIME reader and fraternity brother in the seagoing profession is just a “wee bit” dramatic in parts of his statement but I feel he speaks the truth when he says, “Many a young officer who is on the first rung of the ladder to command owes his push upward to the books sent aboard.”

GORDON R. MAC ALLISTER

Sometime Marine Engineer

Annandale-on-Hudson, N. Y.

Sirs:

The plea of the seamen is a worthy one. I have read in TIME of their desire for books and magazines. Now, I have plenty of both, that I would gladly send to them if I only had the proper address. You do mention the Merchant Marine Library Association; but where is it? Perhaps many of your other readers are wondering about the same thing, so let’s have the address and let the sailors catch up on their reading.

OTIS PINEO JR.

Worcester, Mass.

The Merchant Marine Library Association receives books and magazines at its Manhattan headquarters, No. 45 Broadway, or any of its branches (Boston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New Orleans, San Francisco, Seattle, Sault Sainte Marie, Mich., Portland, Ore.).—ED.

Help

Sirs:

I’m 65 years old, living alone in an old farmhouse in a little hilltop village in New Hampshire. I’m doing my own cooking and housework, for my beloved wife died in February.

TIME comes to me each week as a sort of savior—helps me to keep myself well-informed as to current events, assists me much in maintaining a correct mental balance. When I read such an admirable bit of writing as “Walking Dean” (TIME, May 3), I feel like telling the writer of it I’ve received my subscription price back again. That’s what I’m doing now.

ERNEST RUSSELL

Acworth, N. H.

Stiff Pace

Sirs:

TIME, May 3, p. 47, fifth paragraph, “the New York Times’s Dr. Finley says: I have walked 70 miles in a day. . . .’ ”

Four miles an hour is a stiff pace to accomplish hour after hour. Seventy miles requires this from 6:00 in the morning until 11:30 that night without a stop.

Correction in order?

JOHN D. MARTIN

New Straitsville, Ohio

Dr. Finley started at midnight, walked 21½ hr.—ED.

Logan’s Speech

Sirs:

In his letter to TIME appearing in the May 3 issue, Mr. Mark W. Cresap denies that his ancestor, Captain Cresap, murdered the family of Logan, the friendly Mingo leader. Logan himself believed otherwise, as appears from his reply to John Gibson, an emissary from Governor Dunmore of Virginia, in 1774. His speech is regarded as a classic example of the simple, direct, dignified style of the Indian. It may be found in Vol. VII, The World’s Best Orations, p. 2569 (1901 edition), and is as follows:

“I appeal to any white man to say if ever he entered Logan’s cabin hungry, and he gave him not meat: if ever he came cold and naked, and he clothed him not. During the course of the last long and bloody war, Logan remained idle in his camp, an advocate of peace. Such was my love for the whites that my countrymen pointed as I passed and said: ‘Logan is the friend of the white man.’ I had even thought to have lived with you, but for the injuries of one man. Colonel Cresap, the last Spring, in cold blood, and unprovoked, murdered all the relations of Logan, not even sparing my women and children. There runs not a drop of my blood in the veins of any living creature. This called on me for revenge. I have sought it. I have killed many. I have fully glutted my vengeance. For my country, I rejoice at the beams of peace; but do not harbor the thought that mine is the joy of fear. Logan never felt fear. He will not turn on his heel to save his life. Who is there to mourn for Logan? Not one.”

In sending Logan’s words to you I do not mean to question Mr. Cresap’s statement that the Captain was entirely innocent of the charge. Logan may have been misinformed, as indeed I hope he was. I send the speech to you because I think it will interest you, as it does me.

LEE OVERMAN GREGORY

Attorney Salisbury, N. C.

After the final battle of Dunmore’s War in October. 1774, the defeated Six Nations gathered at Chillicothe, Ohio, for a peace conference. Governor Dunmore particularly requested that the bereaved Logan be presentment a messenger for him. The messenger returned without his man, but with a “morsel of eloquence.” Comments the Dictionary of American Biography: “The exactness with which [Logan’s] speech was repeated at the conference must always be open to question. . . .”—ED.