Social Equal

Herewith arc excerpts from letters come to the desks of the editors during the past “week. They are selected primarily for the information they contain, either supplementary to, or corrective of, news previously published in TIME.

Library, College of William and Mary, Williamsburg, Va. TIME Dec. 20, 1924. New York, N. Y. Gentlemen: In your issue of Dec. 1, you have a disparaging reference to Charles Bellini, the first professor of modern languages in the College of William and Mary. The writer of the item gives the impression that Bellini was one of the vine dressers who accompanied Mazzei, under Jefferson’s encouragement, to Albemarle County, Virginia, in 1775; and that after his failure to develop a successful vineyard, Jefferson raised him from the rank of laborer in a vineyard to the position of professor of modern languages in the college of William and Mary. Carlo Bellini was a clerk in the treasurer’s office in Florence and accompanied his friend Mazzei as a social equal to Virginia. Mazzei was an Italian physician, who had been a merchant for a few years in Smyrna, and later in London, before coming to Virginia. After Mazzei’s return to Europe from Virginia, he held various important positions, among others, financial agent for Virginia in Europe, and privy councillor to the King of Poland. The two friends corresponded for years on intimate terms. In the Library of Congress there is preserved the correspondence between Jefferson and Bellini, covering a period of 20 years. It does not seem that Jefferson would write long letters to Bellini on the political situation in Europe, or ask his advice as to the best translations of the Latin and Greek Classics into Italian, as these letters show, unless Bellini were a gentleman of considerable attainments and learning.E. G. SWEM, Librarian.

That Dr. Bellini was a man of learning and attainments is obvious enough in that he was appointed Professor of Modern Languages at the College of William and Mary. That a man should at one time or another have tended grape vines is no cause for his friends to be ashamed. The popular Abel was a stockbreeder; Abraham Lincoln functioned as ploughman; King David tended sheep—as did Ramsay Mac-Donald; Cincinnatus was twice called from the plough to the Dictatorship of —and twice returned to it; Rousseau was a son of a humble Geneva watchmaker; the famed Dr. Johnson was a son of a poor bookseller; Christopher Columbus helped his father to comb wool; Thomas Alva Edison started life as a newsboy; John Keats, before he became a medical student, used to help his father tend the horses at the Swan and Hoop livery stables; Mohammed was a lowly caravan conductor.—ED.

Not a Cripple

The Federal Council of the Churches of Christ in America New York, N. Y. TIME, Dec. 15, 1924. New York, N. Y. GENTLEMEN: My daughter, who is a diligent student of TIME (as I am also) at her school, writes regarding your issue of Dec. 8 with mingled gratification and consternation.

Your description of her father as a cripple moves her to wonder if she is needed to come and care for him.

I share her appreciation for your kindly expressions, but I am fearful about your description of iny physical decrepitude in relation to my commission in the U. S. Army.

You see the examining surgeon, who is ordered to be very thorough, found so little evidence of what you have discovered that he sent back the papers without any qualifications and marked “Fit for active service with troops.” This means occasional long and forced marches by the chaplain. I fear the surgeon will be court-martialled.

Oh, I forgot. My boy also thinks I might as well hand in my commission as Field Scout Commissioner, because the Boy Scout program is pretty stiff; they do not furnish conveyances on their hikes and my knapsack and pack are a bit heavy for weak shoulders.

What bothers me is that I hadn’t found it all out before. I must join the Life Extension Institute and get examined every month. (REV.) CHARLES S. MACFARLAND, General Secretary

TIME intended no disparagement of Subscriber Macfarland’s physique. He was referred to in an item proofread by those whom TIME believed to be his friends as “stoop-shouldered, square jowled, limping a little.”—ED.

Worried Old Concord, Pa., Dec. 21, 1924. TIME, New York, N. Y. Gentlemen: I am worried. Twice verbally have I heard it and now I see it in a letter in black and white, published in your Dee. 1 issue, that there are some who do not like the expression “one Bill Jones” or “one ‘Mabel Smith.”

Please, Mr. TIME, don’t change it. How is one so ignorant as I to know when people are famed and when not so if TIME does not tell me?

Other folks may complain about your style, but as for me and mine we will read TIME as she is. We like your style and the only change we want to see is to make it more so. . . . J. EDWARD STREBIG.

Sport News New Britain, Conn., Dec, 13, 1924. TIME, New York, N. Y. Gentlemen: On page 29 of your issue of Dec. 15, you say, “Vance, called ‘Dazzy’ from the dazzling velocity of his pitches. . . .” This is incorrect. I was under that impression myself for a long time, but I understand now that he is given such a nickname because “dazzy” is, or was, one of his favorite adjectives. It seems to be a truly remarkable coincidence that his speed should be dazzy, too.

I note ex-Subscriber Ratzlaff’s protest against your phrases relative to the Illinois-Minnesota football game. I agree with you that your terminology is justifiable. I don’t know who writes what Mr. Ratzlaff calls your sport “stuff” for you, but I want to congratulate him on getting away from the everyday sport formulae of the newspapers and injecting a touch of whimsy and novelty into his items.

While I am on the subject of sports, I should like to defend our President’s knowledge of baseball. After the World’s Series, you printed a paragraph about his being glad that Walter Johnson had made a hit in the final game, and you pointed out that he was incorrect, as the opposing shortstop was given an error on the play. Johnson’s hit to Jackson of the Giants was a very hard-hit ball and the scorer would have been justified in giving Walter a hit on it. President Coolidge, having no telegraphic arrangements with said scorer, was showing no ignorance by taking the other side in this doubtful matter. K. E. PARKER.