Miscellaneous Mentions

Elihu Root celebrated his 81st birthday in Manhattan by holding no festivities, saying "It's just an ordinary day."

Late one evening Joseph P. Tumulty returned home in Washington from a dinner. He had a severe cold. He thought he smelled gas and went upstairs to find his wife and daughters, Grace and Alice, violently ill and coughing. A physician was called and found them suffering from monoxide gas poisoning. The kitchen stove was suspected.

James J. Davis, Secretary of Labor, was frequently mentioned last week in Washington as a candidate for the governorship of Pennsylvania to succeed Gifford Pinchot. The Pennsylvania Senators, (Pepper and Reed) and Secretary of the Treasury Mellon are understood to be supporting him. Mrs. Mary Key McBlair, a retired Government clerk, 72 years of age, lives in Washington. She has a pension of $20, a month because of Government service. Last week Representative E. Hart Fenn of Connecticut introduced a bill to give her a pension of $1,200 a year, saying that she is in destitute circumstances. Mrs. McBlair is the widow of a Washington attorney, who left her no money. She secured a clerkship in the Department of Labor. President Harding made her position permanent. President Coolidge allowed her to serve two years beyond the regular retirement age-- 70. The reason for this universal desire to serve Mrs. McBlair is that her grandfather, Francis Scott Key, wrote "The Star Spangled Banner."

In Florida, Republican leaders have espoused the cause of dividing the state into North Florida and South Florida. The reasons given for this dichotomy are that Tallahassee, the capital, is too difficult to reach from the southern part of the state; that the northern part of the state should not be taxed for the extensive improvements needed in the southern part; that the two parts are different climatically and industrially. The proposed dividing line would cross the state east and west from a point on the Atlantic about 40 miles south of St. Augustine, to the lower part of the Suwanee River, which would be the boundary--thence to the Gulf--leaving 33 counties in South Florida and 34 counties in North Florida.