Jugoslavia
Your recent sensational articles about events in Jugoslavia (JUGOSLAVIJE) are perhaps true and confirmed by reliable correspondents but will give readers a false idea of the political situation there and in addition an idea that life in Jugoslavije is held lightly, in words, a glorified Chicago sort of existence. A situation far from true. The political position of Jugoslavije is undoubtedly a trying one, that of a new government for an old country whose Slavic culture is not less recent than 700 B. C. and a country entirely surrounded by aggressive neighbors whose good intentions may be interrogated.
An extended visit late summer to early winter in this country leads me to believe that anyone may travel for weeks and months even into the interior and remote banovinas with perfect safety. Your ominous Sarajevo I found quite sunny, pleasant and even amusing.
Cetinje, the ancient capital of Montenegro, Podgovica and Danilograd on the route of an amazing motor route into Albanija.
Travelers, in the know, who as a rule keep several years ahead of the Baedecker tourists and Raymond-Whitcomb enthusiasts have found Losinj. Trau (Petronius's Satyricon) Korcula. Hvar and Dubrovnik-Kupari in Jugoslavije as smart as Brioni and Cap Antibes and without, the sourness of the Lido.
Certainly distant Lake Ahrid and Doiran are resorts for international fishermen who do not angle for political fish.
In reference to the visit of Chancellor Schoboer at Ratkersberg where he was received by a Jugoslav representative (TIME, Feb. 17). you are perhaps aware that since 1918 this town prides itself with the slavic name Rakek.
DONALD V. SENOUR HAHN
Cleveland, Ohio
Pollution?
Sirs:
Pollute is too strong a term to be used often or recklessly, but I feel justified in asking once and for all this:
''Why do you pollute the pages of TIME with news of decorations accepted from foreign Governments by men and women who are citizens of the United States and owe their sole loyalty to our country?''
I pass over your account of how "Mysterious MacDonald," apparently a rich and powerful New York financier, recently accepted the title of Marquis from the Pope.
It is all but impossible that the Ruler of the Papal State should ever declare war upon us. The worst harm that George Marquis MacDonald of 149 Broadway can probably do by carrying his new loyalty to its logical conclusion is not apt to involve the crime of High Treason. But what of the long roll called in your last issue of men and women who have just received decorations from Greece. Italy, Spain and France?
I have known several men, one of them a close relative, another a dear friend, who have received the Cross of the Legion of Honor. Without exception they have gotten to be Francophile. They have warmed up from cold or luke warm to hot in shouting that we oughtn't to collect from France what they certainly owe us! You know the men I mean--such as Myron Timothy Herrick. If Kaiser Wilhelm had given him the Iron Cross and if he had become as pro-German as he became pro-French, only Heaven knows what might have happened!
It is an unwholesome, disastrous and if I may use emphatic language a damnable thing that our fellow citizens should be allowed to feed their vanity on a dish which dulls and warps the brain. If there is a law against this, I should like to see TIME advocate its strict enforcement. If there is none, at least do not swell and pamper vanity by giving to the snatchers after Chinese, Papist or French ribbons the free publicity in which they dote. REGINALD SUTTON
Boston, Mass
Mon Dieu !
Sirs:
Monsieur
Tardieu said, selon TIME last week,
"JE REPRESENT"
Le pauv' enfant!
Mon Dieu!
Bon Dieu!
Tardieu!
(M. le Premier probably pronounced the "T" and would have spelled it r-e-p-r-e-s-e-n-t-e.)
CRAWFORD McGinnis
Washington, D. C.
Mal-secreter
Sirs:
Have just read "Criminal Glands" in your Feb. 17 issue. Recall another article about bulldogs suffering from undersecretion of pituitary in a former issue. Why not let your gullible readers know why Nero fiddled while Rome burned, why one of Proust's characters got a kick while another spit on her grandfather's picture, and of course why "Alvy Siawaski Suffers?" Then you could have some doctor work out statistics on why ''lovely lady stoops to folly" and graduate into a metaphysical aspect and prove that we are all foreordained.
I am a pronounced mal-secreter victim. At least so informed by doctors. And many a consultation have I had. And Will Rogers is right when he stated that a horse doctor had to know more than a M. D. For I did not know where I ailed exactly. When twenty, gained 45 pounds in six weeks, slept anywhere, anytime, had a pronounced disturbance of the sympathetic nervous system followed by muscular contractions in legs and shoulders. But as yet no cast iron dog in a front lawn. Long since decided that some doctors are good nurses, some good midwives, some good butchers: but few have any business in doing more than squirting pituitary extract in a to-be mother. For this extract will not help such as I either in pill form or serum. Am 26, single, bulldog head, (ed) and flat feet. And when my pituitary snaps, loquacious.
Like Paul I bear my thorn in the flesh, try to keep from going to sleep when Coolidge reads a propagandized speech over the radio, "and listen like a three-years child" when Fosdick so graciously modernizes. And I will submit to an operation on aforementioned when a doctor satisfactorily explains to me how Tschaikowsky wrote his tragedic waltz "De Fleurs," or where Clara Bow found "It."
Say, will you drop over and ask Dobbs if they will make a hat for me? You know, for a square head. Maybe they could develop a field.
"Order of the Square Heads.'1 All fat circus freaks, Big Bill Thompson, and Charles M. Schwab. Probably no more exclusive a field than "Disciples of the Pear Head" in which class you included Andrew Mellon, wear a 7% "polymathic, polyperverse."
No forger yet, but do get an hilarious kick when someone accuses me of being a crooked damned insurance agent.
C. H. McWILLIAMS
Wilmington, Ohio
Britannica
Sirs:
I am writing in regard to the statement that appeared on p. 30 of the issue of TIME for Feb. 17--a statement which I am frank to say strikes me as being as gratuitous as it is libelous and unfair. [Reference to Britannica's article on Chiropractors, wherein TIME needlessly accused it of error.]
I need hardly remind you that the Britannica is a work of some 35,000,000 words; the text matter is the equivalent of 500 ordinary volumes. We spent more than $2,000,000 to make the work the most authoritative and most up-to-date book of reference in existence; and the standard of accuracy in the new edition is as high as, if not higher than, it has ever been. Certainly no edition has ever contained the writings of so many first rate authorities.
As a matter of fact, the most eminent scholars, men such as President Angell of Yale, President MacCracken of Vassar, Dr. Raymond Pearl of Johns Hopkins, and hundreds of others have testified in the most emphatic terms as to the scholarly accuracy of the new Britannica.
Yet your flippant writer finds it possible to dismiss this whole enterprise in a dozen words. Such tactics are contemptible, all the more so in view of the fact that the alleged error which he cites is not an error at all. Our article might perhaps have contained more information; yet what is given is perfectly correct.
W. J. Cox
President
Encyclopaedia Britannica New York City
To the Encyclopaedia Britannica, an apology for stating that it contained errors. Possibly it does contain errors, but TIME, never having discovered a flat misstatement, makes regular use of it on all subjects.--ED.
Earliest Objects
Sirs:
On p. 59 in TIME, Feb. 3, you state that the scientific staff of the Field Museum-Oxford University Joint Expedition found pottery and sculpture dating back to about 6000 B. C. Unfortunately this is totally incorrect, since the earliest objects cannot be dated before B. C. 4200. Since this may be of interest to archaeologists, I shall be glad if you will correct this error.
HENRY FIELD Field Museum of Natural History
Chicago, Ill.
Fencing
Sirs:
At last you have fulfilled my long suffering trust in you. I have been waiting, ever since TIME began, to read in your columns some of the news about fencing without having to write to you a special request. My wait was all in vain until your Feb. 10 issue. You came through beautifully with the article on Nedo Nadi.
But in mentioning Nadi and his father, why fail to mention his younger brother, Aldo, who is the greatest amateur fencer in Italy and probably next to Lucien Gaudin, the Frenchman, in the world.
Now that you have made such an auspicious beginning, why not keep up the good work, and include fencing events under your "Time Table."
Fencing, the manly art, is growing in popularity in America, especially in colleges and prep schools, and among physicians and professional men. Yale last year gave major letters to members of her fencing team; and fencing has been recognized as a regular competitive sport in the Big Ten.
You remark in your article on "First Fencer" that Nadi's use of the "advance thrust" is an offensive few dare attempt. The movement may seem daring to Americans who mainly follow the French School, but it is not unusual in an
Italian fencer. In fact, all Italians (and Argentines) prefer the advance thrust to the lunge, thrust of the French (and Americans, English, and Belgians). The advance thrust, also, is a favorite device of short fencers when they compete with fencers of long reach, a fact which may explain the preference of short Italians for the movement.
W. LLOYD WHITE
Cleveland, Ohio
TIME will hereafter consider fencers in the preparation of the Time Table. --ED.
Louisville's Taxis
Sirs:
Louisville, the Gateway to the South, in addition to leading the World in 17 industries, has a cheaper taxi rate than the "cheapest in the U. S." mentioned on p. 18 of your issue of Feb. 24. Here, the tariff is two miles for 25C and "Four Can Ride As Cheap As One" so bring the family when you come.
C. BECKHAM KNISKERN
Louisville, Ky.
Terns
Sirs:
Clippings of the article on p. 32 of TIME, Feb. 3 concerning the recoveries of my banded Arctic Terns have been forwarded to me by several friends. May I presume to correct your statements? Here are the facts.
On July 22, 1927, I banded 500 nestling Arctic Terns in a breeding colony on a small island in Turnevik Bay, northeastern Labrador. One of these was picked up dead on a beach near La Rochelle, France, Oct. i, 1927. It had flown about 4,000 miles in less than three months.
On July 23, 1928, I banded 700 more young birds of the same species at the same place. One of these was picked up dead the following Nov. 14 at Margate, near Port Shepstone, Natal, South Africa. It had flown at least 9,000 miles, and its flying time was certainly not over 90 days.
Both these recoveries obtained considerable publicity soon after they occurred. I published scientific accounts of them in an ornithological journal, and I have no less than sixty clippings cut from various newspapers and other periodicals dealing with them. They run the gamut from the New York Times and the Boston Transcript, through the Christian Science Monitor and sundry farm journals and the like, to the New York American and the tabloids, the last of which headlined the first recovery as ''Lindy's only rival a three months old baby."
Of all these accounts, yours has the somewhat doubtful honor of being the most garbled, the most inaccurate, if not the most original. It would be of interest to me to know the sources of your information. It is really remarkable how facts can be altered in two short years, and I should enjoy seeing the original item you misquoted to make your "news."
OLIVER L. AUSTIN, JR.
U. S. Biological Survey St. Paul, Minn.
Snobbery ?
Sirs:
Why the snobbery in "Milestones" Hypothetical examples: I) Engaged. William V. Astor Jr. of New York and Miami to Miss Murial C. DuPont of Washington and Tucson.
2) Engaged. William V. Astor Jr. of New-York and Miami to a Miss Virginia Lorimer of Kalamazoo. It seems that TIME wishes, in the second in stance, to inform its readers that Mr. Astor is, regrettably, throwing himself away on someone who is neither rich nor prominent. This a is a most discourteous slap on Miss Lorimer's hypothetical face.
B. K. S. WAPPAT
Pittsburgh, Pa.
TIME does not consider it discourteous to indicate that a person is neither rich nor prominent.--ED.
Affair
Sirs:
I hereby add myself to the ranks of self-appointed TIME-saviors.
What is, I believe, the original form of the limerick quoted in "Miscellany," TIME, Feb. 24. fits your story less well but has, to me. rather more point of its own:
THE MENDELIAN THEORY
There was a young fellow called Starkcy
Who had an affair with a darkey. The result oj his sins Was quadruplets, not twins:
One black, and one white, and one khaki.
It is not, of course, strictly scientific, as this ratio of dominants, recessives, and hybrids would not appear in the first generation, and the hybrids would be likely to look like the dominants, but see how great is the influence of Science on Art!
LOUISE T. LOWRY
Eastern Kentucky State Teachers College Math Department Richmond, Ky.
Peep
Sirs:
Take a peep at the enclosure--all the way down, please, and you may note more flattery to imitation of TIME than of Brisbane or Broun. Besides, I am an objective Afric--have to be because my vocation is chief executive of this going concern--the Brotherhood of Dining Car Employees, which has at least a dozen white cooks among the membership personnel, to say nothing of those expected to be got and hundreds who enjoy the 240-hour month and increased wages as the indirect effect of our work.
RIENZI B. LEMUS
President of the Grand Council Brotherhood of Dining Car Employees New York City
President Lemus enclosed a sample of a news column, conducted by himself in the Boston Chronicle, Negro newspaper. In objectivity and style it exhibited the influence of careful TIME reading.--ED.
Che, Chis, Chim
Sirs:
Some time ago by kindness of Mr. Frank C. Harper, columnist for one of our daily papers. I was given opportunity to present to our comparatively small public the freshly minted words, die, chis, and chim, as common gender pronouns, designed to avoid certain awkward situations frequently arising in English composition.
TIME found itself in such a situation, Feb. 10, last, in its article, "Bennington Experiment," and extricated itself as follows:
'Faculty members will be paid on a sliding scale, depending upon individual living expenses. Should a married pedagog's tribe increase while he (she) is serving the college, an increase in tuition may necessarily be made to cover a raise in her (his) salary."
While TIME'S characteristic touch (displayed in the interchange of pronouns in the foregoing) would be lost, would not the following paragraph show a way of convenience for use of the ordinary manipulator of the language?
Should a married pedagog's tribe increase while che is serving the college, an increase in tuition may necessarily be made, in order to cover and give chim a raise in his salary.
W. E. FOHL
Pittsburgh, Pa.
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