Pilgrimage

Sirs: TIME is excellent for news ordinarily and we all enjoy it in my family, but we are astonished to find omitted this week both from the Religion and the International departments an event of great significance in the religious world, viz., the visit to this country of the British Congregationalists on their twentieth century good will Pilgrimage. Could you have been privileged to sit at the banquet in the Hotel Astor the night of Friday June 15 and listen to the thrilling addresses so expressive of British-American fellowship and peace made by men like Fred B. Smith, S. Parkes Cadman, Harry Emerson Fosdick, Charles E. Burton and Clarence Hall Wilson (Americans) and Alfred G. Sleep. Sir. Murray Hyslop and John D. Jones (Englishmen)--could you have heard these men and the messages of King George and President Coolidge (himself a Congregationalist) you would have been so thrilled that you would surely have had the whole trip reported in TIME. TIME'S Religious Editor seems to have been caught napping. ROGER S. BOARDMAN

Bloomfield, N. J.

Two Hammonds

Sirs:

On May 7 a letter from John H. Hammond Jr., Hotchkiss School, Lakeville, Conn., was published in your paper. In your subsequent editions of May 21 and June 4 you have referred to it as John H. Hammond Jr. and consequently this has been attributed by some to John Hays Hammond Jr., the well known inventor and scientist at Gloucester, Mass.

I wish you would make it clear in your paper that the John H. Hammond Jr. referred to is not John H. Hammond Jr., the well known scientist.

LESLIE BUSWELL

Vice President

Radio Engineering Company of New York Inc. Gloucester, Mass.

The John H. Hammond Jr. referred to is John Henry Hammond Jr., no relation to John Hays Hammond Jr., the famed inventor. -- ED.

Mr. Menjou

Sirs: In a recent issue of TIME in your Cinema column you print, "Those who knew Adolphe Menjou when he was a waiter in a Cleveland chop house. . . ." If facts are of any interest to your valuable publication I shall be very happy to furnish a complete history of my life. Although I have followed a number of professions, I have up to the present never been a waiter in real life.

Also, further your writer continues, "Two years ago, his entertainment was impeccable. Since then his expression has taken on a tired, wooden, what-does-it-matter manner." I wonder if the writer has seen Service for Ladies, Gentleman of Paris, Serenade, all made within the past year.

ADOLPHE MENJOU

Los Angeles, Calif.

P. S. I am an original subscriber to TIME.

TIME erred. The father of Original Subscriber Menjou was the owner of a Cleveland chop house on Prospect Street, famed for its beer; young Adolphe, home from Cornell University, helped in the management, greeted customers, but donned no waiter's costume. Yet, Adolphe Menjou, by his cinema roles, has done more than any man alive to glorify the profession of waiters, both plain and head. . . . With the exception of two brilliant scenes, Mr. Menjou's recent films have not been up to the high standards of his earlier ones (such as A Woman of Paris). Let Mr. Menjou return to those standards, as easily as he sets the standards of a cosmopolitan gentleman who is at home in three languages (English, French, German).--ED.

Ignorant Wells Sirs:

May I ask you to view with alarm the apparent ignorance of a man who once felt himself competent to write an outline of history? In The World of William Clissold (1926) volume II, page 604: "I do not know enough of the American press to say whether there is any periodical at all over there, daily or weekly, which gives as competent a digest of the general news as Nature does of scientific happenings."

Can you not enlighten William Clissold and, through him, Mr. H. G. Wells?

PHILIP B. GOVE

Department of English, New York University, University Heights, N. Y.

Thirteen

Sirs:

. . . My classmate, Woodrow Wilson, after dropping Thomas out of his name, had left just 13 letters. By doing something of the same sort with my own name I acquire the same lucky number of letters, and in my correspondence with Woodrow this little fad was a source of amusement and interest.

I notice that Herbert Hoover has dropped the letter C. out of his name, which gives him just 13 letters, also that the name Charles Curtis, without any adaptation, is made up of just 13 letters, also that TIME published Herbert Hoover's picture on the cover of Number 13, of its Volume n. . . .

. . . This note is only to call attention to the fact that the Republican candidates for the Presidency and Vice-Presidency have the lucky number 13 in the letters of their names, and therefore I hope are bound to win.

ALFRED McCLURE (13 letters)

St. Leonards School by the Sea,

Ventnor, N. J.

Nice & Helpful

Sirs: I read TIME, so do most of my friends--my copy. Then I put it in the window of my Travel Information Office. It conveys to American travellers that we are an up-to-date firm. Sometimes they come in and ask to be allowed to look through it & then finding us nice & helpful may book an excursion to Monte Carlo or a seat in a car returning to Paris or Rome. If there is anything we can do for you here that might be mutually beneficial we should be delighted. We should like details regarding your European tour. I am the proprietor, editor, publisher & office boy of the local English language paper here-- have been for 10 years; am well known to the U. S. Consul here (Dr. Glazebrook--one of the most charming men in France) also to the American Express people, Cooks, Barclay's Bank, British Consul etc., etc. My hobby is collecting modern coins. . . . JOHN J. DEMPSEY

Continental Lije Nice, France

"Pope" Offensive

Sirs:

Kindly discontinue my subscription to TIME. As a Catholic, I consider the reference to Samuel Insull as the public utility pope of Chicago offensive. Every Catholic in the world, and almost every non-Catholic, realizes that there is but one person who bears that honored and respected title, the Pope of Rome. It is not to be classified commonly like other titles as Tsar, Mogul, Sheik, etc. JOHN F. WELCH

Chelsea, Mass. Sirs: Has TIME noted the safety slogan, helpful to it, injurious to newly reorganized Life, with which the streets of Baltimore, Md., are placarded? The slogan: "TAKE TIME, NOT LIFE." ROGER P. BUTTERFIELD

Wayne, Pa.

Another traffic safety slogan is: "YOU WOULD NOT TAKE A CHILD'S LIFE." --ED. Sirs:

Well, I see by your letter page that Life also has a letter page. So I buy a copy of Life and see that it now has a political department, a sport and radio column. And then, that sap, Will Rogers, bigger than any of TIME'S saps, is writing for Life.

I tell you, TIME, they all lay down sooner or later!

MORRIS ("AL") EPSTEIN JR.

Brooklyn, N. Y.

On Aug. 15, 1927, TIME requested Subscriber Epstein not to make unbridled use of the term "sap." -- ED.

Utter Caddishness Sirs: I read with surprise in your current number, which lies before me, in a footnote on page 18, a most uncalled for and venomous attack on the members of various London clubs which I note are carefully not mentioned by name. That the editor of a paper to which I have for some time subscribed should lower his magazine by allowing some member of his staff to vent his jealousy and malice on men, who, being unnamed, cannot defend themselves ... is inconceivable. If the writer of this paragraph is not a hypocrite, who is? Such sickening cant is unworthy of the attention of any sane and intelligent reader--an uncalled for affront to men of a friendly nation, which could only rouse contempt and resentment. The utter caddishness of the writer is ... apparent. JULIA L. TERRY

(Mrs. Arthur Terry)

Short Hills, N. J.

P. S. May I ask the source of your writer's information? It would seem that the Holy Trinity has picked him out of the Universe for Its defense.

An explicit cabled despatch was the source of TIME'S footnote to a story of how the Revised Prayer Book of the Church of England was debated in the House of Commons. TIME'S footnote said: "An astounding and unprecedented affront to the Holy Trinity was the laying of very heavy bets at leading London clubs during the two days of prayer and debate. Odds of 7 to 4 favoring the Prayer Book narrowed rapidly to even money, and finally reached 5 to 4 against. "Since nearly all members of the exclusive clubs where such betting took place are professed Church of Englanders, the hypothesis that all upper-crust Britons are congenital hypocrites may be said to have been strengthened." -- ED.

Fillet de Cheval Sirs:

Having described how horse meat is palmed off upon Americans in Paris, why did you not add that "smart Americans" who make any pretense of being gourmets now occasionally demand fillet de cheval in Paris, simply because it is more delicious than what I suppose TIME would call "many a beefsteak."

CYRIL ISLEN SIMMONS

Greenwich, Conn.