Remembers Mrs. Thayer

Sirs:

In your issue of Dec. 2 under the caption "Education" you comment on Dr. William G. Thayer's retirement as Headmaster of St. Mark's School. TIME'S lack of space undoubtedly prevented the correspondent from writing many complimentary things about Dr. Thayer, of his influence on the many hundred boys who have been placed under his care for six years and in what high regard and affection he is held by all graduates, but irrespective of the lack of space, no mention of St. Mark's School or Dr. Thayer is complete without mention of Mrs. Thayer.

For the 36 years of Dr. Thayer's Headmastership, Mrs. Thayer has been his constant and never failing assistant. From the day a boy enters St. Mark's at the age of twelve as a first former he is always conscious of Mrs. Thayer's care and thoughtfulness. For 36 years on an average of five nights a week she has given her time and charm to entertaining the boys of the various six forms, and to numberless returning graduates, their wives and children she invariably offers the warm welcome of a home. To St. Mark's graduates Dr. and Mrs. Thayer are synonymous names with that of St. Mark's and St. Mark's School is never mentioned without likewise mentioning Dr. and Mrs. Thayer.

PHILIP D. ARMOUR St. Mark's 1912

Union Stock Yards Chicago

duPont Organ

Sirs: In your issue of Nov. 11, page 58, you announced the purchase and early arrival of a one quarter million dollar pipe organ by Pierre Samuel duPont in Philadelphia, and as such superb musical instruments as this are so rare, would like to know if this music will go on the air and if so from what station.

If this gentleman has not already indicated his intention of making this music available for the radio world I hope you will do all in your power to induce him to do so and make it known through the columns of TIME.

In this connection I wish to express my appreciation of TIME; Saturday night would be void without it. O. R. DAVIS

Eutaw, Ala.

The answer:

Sirs:

. . . The new organ to be installed at my countryplace, "Longwood," Chester County, Pa., containing 10,374 pipes and 205 stops, is now being installed by the Aeolian Company in the conservatory at Longwood, where concerts are given from 3 until 5 o'clock every Sunday afternoon On the first and third Sundays of the month the conservatories, gardens and greenhouses, and organ concert are open to the public at an admission fee of 50-c-, receipts being divided between five hospitals, two in Chester County, Pa., and three in Wilmington, Delaware. (The conservatories and gardens are open free of charge every week day.) The organ was designed by Mr. Firmin Swinnen, noted concert organist, who plans and executes the weekly concerts at Longwood.

No provision has been made for radio broadcasting but I suppose that the instrument is open to this use, although I have no definite information as to the requirements. . . .

PIERRE S. DUPONT Wilmington, Del.

Mother Goose Censored

Sirs:

Can it be that TIME, always timely, was not aware of a collection of amusing little verses now being widely circulated under the title Mother Goose Censored? It seems to me that you might have made use of it in your article "Goose Dispute," in the Dec. 9 issue. The editor of the poems leaves a blank wherever the absence of an innocent word might imply the presence of a naughtier one. The result should be a good lesson to some of our scurrilousminded censors. Here is a mild example: Doctor Foster went to Gloucester In a shower of rain; He stepped in a puddle up to his -- And never went there again. HARVEY C. LEECH

Dover, Del.

Mother Goose Censored, copyrighted by one Kendall Banning, sells at well-equipped bookstores for $1. -- ED.

Third Stud Sirs:

Refer TIME (Sept. 2, 1929) quote "From what I know I would say that his [Prince Mohammed Ali of Egypt] main interests are confined to breeding the best horses in the world. His stud in Egypt and Wentworth's stud in England are the only two horse breeding establishments in the world where one can find an unpolluted strain of the blood etc." "TIME will tell."

From the enclosed newspaper clipping and the photograph of the Earl of Feversham with "Shelif," taken at the Kellogg stables just before shipment. W. H. RATHBUN

W. H. Kellogg, Arabian Horse Ranch

Pomona, Cal.

P.S. "Shelif" is a pure-blooded Arabian three-year-old stallion registered No. 591 A. H. C. descendant of the Homer Davenport Importation direct from the desert in 1906.

North Carolina's Debit

Sirs:

In a paragraph on page 14 of your issue of December 2 you debit North Carolina with one lynching in the year 1929. This is an error. There has been no lynching in this State this year. Fact is, there has been no lynching in North Carolina since 1921.

The people of this State will appreciate your making the correction.

DENNIS BRUMMITT Attorney General Raleigh, N. C.

TIME'S source for lynching information was the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which set down as a "lynching" the shooting of Ella Wiggins, white, in Gastonia last September. She was killed when a mob sprayed bullets in a truckful of men and women going to a Communist mass meeting (TIME, Sept. 23).--ED.

Feme Sole

Sirs:

In your issue of Nov. 18, referring to the Senate Committee's investigation of the Southern Tariff Association, you state: "The sum of $77,936.44 went to Lobbyist Arnold and his three chief assistants, one of whom, a Mrs. Darden, had a stage name for collecting money."

I am the Mrs. Darden to whom you refer and I am enclosing for your information a copy of an order from the District Court of Tarrant County, Texas, issued in 1924 giving me the right to continue the use of my name for business purposes, although married to a man of another name. . . .

IDA M. DARDEN Fort Worth, Tex.

TIME regrets any embarrassment caused to Mrs. Darden by its report of her name. Excerpt from her court order: ". . . It is therefore ordered, adjudged and decreed by the Court, that the disabilities of coverture of the said Ida M. Myrick be and are hereby removed, and that she be and is hereby declared a feme sole for mercantile and trading purposes, under the name of Ida M. Darden."--ED.

Grocer Feldman's Seventh

Sirs:

Wrong again! In your issue of Nov. 25 under "Miscellany" you state that Grocer Feldman has been robbed six times by the same Negro. This is an inaccuracy, for while your issue was on the press, Grocer Feldman was held up for the seventh time by the same "glib, ebony thief." Grocer Feldman states that if this happens again, he will close up his business. WILLIAM C. MORROW Atlanta, Ga.

According to the Atlanta Constitution, the seventime robber got $20 in cash, $1 in stamps. Said Grocer Feldman to the police: "It's just too bad. All I do is lose money!"--ED.

Dreads Chicago

Sirs: Reminded by an advertisement of the Canadian National Railway in your Dec. 2 issue that they run through cars from Montreal to the Pacific Coast I would like to ask the question: "Why do not some of our enterprising American railroads run through cars from the Atlantic to the Pacific Coasts?"

Many reluctant travelers dread the experience of changing in Chicago, with the attendant wait and new reservations, etc. On a recent journey we were requested by an elderly woman for aid who stated that she had traveled all over the world but never suffered the nervous dread that came on entering and leaving Chicago during a transcontinental trip. CHESLEY BUSH, M. D. Livermore, Cal.

The Southern Pacific R. R. does run one inexpensive through sleeper, Washington-San Francisco, via New Orleans. Reasons why there are no others:

1)) through traffic is not heavy enough to warrant the interroad agreements necessary;

2) the monopolistic aspect of such agreements;

3) high cost of switching 4) it is more sanitary to change cars.--ED.

Angel With Lute

Sirs: Your reference to the obsoleteness of the lute in the Dec. 2 issue of TIME interested me. To residents of Northampton, Mass., the instrument is happily familiar because of the presence there of a charming German graduate student at Smith College, whose lute was made especially for her two years ago when she returned to the Black Forest to visit her parents.

Anyone who has heard her singing the old German Christmas songs to a group of children at a Christmas party--standing with her lute under a wreath of candles hung from the ceiling, such as the German peasants make for themselves at the holiday time: or sitting on a sofa before an open fire, dressed in a quaint old taffeta gown which had been her mother's-- singing old folk songs to a group of young people; or standing under the trees on a moonlight June night singing to a group of girls in the preparatory school where she teaches . . . cannot but feel deeply thankful that they have seen "the Angel with the Lute" come to life.

VERA CAMPBELL DARR Claremont, Cal.

To address this lutist, address: Miss Hildegarde Kolbe, Northampton School for Girls, Pomeroy Terrace, Northampton, Mass.

--ED.

Stanford's "Differents"

Sirs:

It was with a high degree of satisfaction that I, with many another Stanfordite, read of Secretary-President Wilbur's work in TIME, Dec. 9. Can one statement in particular, ". . . bring to his job an attitude of mind different from the general run of office holders," be considered as TIME'S apology for calling Secretary Wilbur President Hoover's "prime 'yes' man" (TIME, March 11) ?

Mr. Wilbur's alertness and abilities are shown in his accomplishments with problems of education, conservation, Indian affairs, pensions, parks, public domain.

David Starr Jordan, first President of Stanford University, has often remarked: "We do not wish to put the Stanford 'stamp' on a man; each Stanford man is as different as another Stanford man." WILLARD F. BARBER New York City

TIME offered (and offers) no apology for having pre-estimated for each & every member of the Hoover Cabinet the likelihood of their becoming "Yes Men" to their busy Chief.--ED.

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