Whence "Racket" Sirs:

Very fine and praiseworthy your insistence that ''racket" be kept a word undefiled by loose usage. But why not, while you were at it, tell the origin and specific applications of the word so that we can know how to use it properly. . . .

JACOB TINSMAN

Providence, R. I.

"Racket" seems to have come originally from the vaudeville world, where it connoted the form of entertainment in which a performer specialized. "His racket is mammy songs." "She's got a good racket --clog-dancing and trained poodles." From this it entered general circulation to connote any method, especially an easy one, a hackneyed one, or a smart new one with an element of trickery, by which people got along in the world. Its later, criminal adaptation has two shades of meaning: 1) the whole general ''Racket" of preying on society by any and all illegal means, especially by selling dope, liquor, women, gambling; 2) the specific racket, as perfected by Chicago's underworldlings with many variations, of making tradesmen join a "union" and pay "dues" for protection from the gangster's "mob," who smash florist windows, overturn laundry wagons, bomb grocery stores, burn unfinished buildings.--ED. P. 52,600

Sirs: You will have incurred the wrath of all border readers of TIME, by your reference to the -'Scotch city of Carlyle" (TIME, Nov. 17, p. 22, col. 3). The gazetteer gives: "Carlyle. co. bor. Cumberland, Eng., on River Eden; important railway centre, anc. castle and cathedral, p. 52,600; also t. Penn. U. S. A." In spite of this TIME remains the best of weeklies. W. D. PUGH

Sheffield, England

Before receipt of this letter from England, TIME had been faithfully corrected by 62 eagle-eyed U. S. geographers.--ED. Pop Corn, Cashier, Governor Sirs: Your issue of Dec. 1 carries a TIMEworthy account of the recent election--accurate and to the point. Except perversely enough your illustration was the likeness of Frank ("Chief") Haucke and not that of Governor-elect Woodring. Also Elk City, Kans. rather than Neodesha, Kans. [about ten miles away] was the Woodring birthplace. His early activities with a pop corn stand attracted the attention of the Elk City banker which resulted in young Woodring's choosing that vocation [banking] at an early age. His present home is Neodesha. L. E. SMITH

Madison, Kans.

Sirs:

Candidate Haucke is a fine looking chap, but it would have been more appropriate to have shown Harry Woodring's picture over the caption "Governor-elect of Kansas. . . ."

Should you want it, I can loan you a photo of Cashier Woodring taken when he was a lieutenant in the U. S. Tank Corps.

WALTER H. BLAKE

West Haven, Conn.

Herewith is Subscriber Blake's photograph. Governor-elect Harry Woodring. first Democrat to win the governorship in Kansas since 1922, was born in Elk City in 1889. Only boy in a family of several girls, he early learned crocheting, a feat much stressed by his political opponents in the recent campaign. However, his pop corn venture, his banking success, his Tank Corps experience proved him man enough to be elected State head of the American Legion. Thus both he and Republican Frank ("Chief") Haucke, another onetime State Legion head, gained local prominence. Gubernatorial Candi date Woodring defeated Candidate Haucke Nov. 4 by the close margin of 319 votes, following a campaign in which most of the color was interpolated by the Independent Candidate, Dr. John Richard ("Goat-Gland") Brinkley (TIME, Dec. 1). --ED.

"Stool Pigeon"

Sirs:

In The Story of San Michele, a current "best seller," (TIME, Nov. 24) Dr. Axel Munthe describes with righteous indignation the practice in Italy some years ago of putting out the eyes of song birds, which were then used as decoys for the capture of other birds.

I find a parallel for this cruelty, and at the same time the origin of our name "stool pigeon," in The Passenger Pigeon in Pennsylvania, a book compiled some years ago by Col. Henry W. Shoemaker, at present U. S. minister to Bulgaria.

He tells us that in netting passenger pigeons the trappers would blind the decoy birds or "stool pigeons" by sewing their eyes shut with a fine needle and silk thread. The decoys were then fastened by their feet to the stool, which has a circular piece of board six or eight inches in diameter, fastened to a stick four or five feet long, the opposite end of which was placed in a slot in a stake, thus forming a hinge so that the bird could be raised and lowered by pulling a string running to the fowler's hiding place.

Col. Shoemaker says: "By raising the bird and dropping it suddenly it Avas made to flutter as it was going down; and the flying birds, seeing it, would begin to circle around, coming nearer and nearer, until they finally lit on the bed around the stool pigeon. Then the net would be sprung. At once there would be a mass of fluttering, struggling pigeons, with heads protruding through the meshes. The fowler and his assistants would rush to the massacre, which was the crushing of the head of each individual bird between the thumb and forefinger."

MAX HENRICI

Coraopolis, Pa.

Wheat's Life-Span

Sirs:

In the Dec. 8 issue of TIME appeared a statement in reference to the Canadian wheat situation that when the Royal Tomb of Tutankhamen was opened in 1922 some wheat grains and other foods were found; that in 1926 a friend sent a few of the grains to Farmer Sydney Cunningham of Alberta, who in turn sent grains produced by his original "King Tut wheat" to Farmer Charles Borry, who grew new wheat from a crop produced by the original old grains.

Is there anything to substantiate the truth of the statement that the wheat planted by Cunningham actually was found in King Tut's tomb and was wheat originally deposited therein when the tomb was first sealed? You know that this legend is similar to older legends of wheat grains being found in the old tombs which thereafter reproduced new grain upon being planted. . . .

These legends or facts, as the case may be, have been employed in many cases as proofs of immortality and have been used in some beautiful ritualistic ceremonials upon the same subject. If the statements are facts TIME would confer a favor by reciting the evidence in support of its statements above quoted. . . .

HENRY PIRTLE

Cleveland, Ohio

Expert opinion at the New York Botanical Gardens is that the maximum life-span of a grain of wheat is about seven years. The Tut and other tomb stories, though widely current, have no scientific sponsorship.--ED. Strong Habit Sirs:

I was very much interested in the letter from Mr. W. A. Winterbotton in the Dec. 8 issue calling attention to the fact that you had referred to a radiogram as a cablegram.

You state that your habit has now been broken, but I have some bad news for you.

On p. 46 of the same issue, I read that Mrs. Jessie Maud Keith-Miller "cabled her mother from Nassau, Bahama Islands."

This indicates that you have had a sudden relapse, as there has been no cable communication with Nassau for many years past, the regular route for telegraphic communication being by radio between Nassau and Miami.

I learned this from a bootlegger who said that he has had occasion to make a very careful study of communication with that important port.

T. P. GUTHRIE

Washington, D. C.

TIME will fight the habit harder.--ED.

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