Monday, Dec. 07, 1931
"Names make news." Last week these names made this news:
Mrs. Muriel Vanderbilt Phelps put on her ocelot coat and went out on the lawn of her estate at Middletown, R.I. to bestow the prize (a live turkey) for a charity treasure hunt; to squeal in glee with 500 other socialites while a horde of urchins from Middletown, Newport and neighboring villages chased and caught two small, frightened, buttered pigs.
Ill lay: Mrs. Bernarr Macfadden, wife of the publisher, in Manhattan, of nervous collapse suffered in a theatre; Prince Kemaleddine Hussein of Egypt, explorer and big game hunter, in the American Hospital, Cairo, following amputation of a leg; Morris Gest, theatrical producer, in Jamesburg, N. J., of a nervous collapse partially induced by grief over the death of his father-in-law, David Belasco; Cinemactor Tom Mix in Hollywood, of peritonitis following operation upon a ruptured appendix; Premier Ismet Pasha of Turkey, in Istanbul, of injuries suffered in an automobile crash ; Yale Footballer Albie Booth, in New Haven, of pleurisy; William Reynolds, 18, son of Richard Samuel Reynolds, onetime tobacco tycoon, in Great Neck, L. I., of injuries suffered in an automobile crash; ("Bad") Bishop William Montgomery Brown, former Bishop of Arkansas, deposed by the Protestant Episcopal church in 1925 for heresy, in Galion, Ohio, of heart disease; Cinema Director Fred Niblo, in Hollywood, of appendicitis.
Said Lady Nancy Langhorne Aston "I never even let my husband know what money I have. It is a great distress to me that my bankers should know. ... I like to have a little in my heart that nobody knows about." Few days later Lady Astor, a native Virginian, allowed the Press to learn that she had telephoned from London a pledge of $200 to the Community Chest Fund of Richmond, Va.
From Miss Elizabeth Frances Sybil Stuart of Bath, England, direct descendant of William Penn, the last remnant of the Penn family's holdings in Pennsylvania was bought by Henry Steinman Snyder, onetime vice president of Bethlehem Steel Corp. In purchasing Green Pond, near Farmersville, Pa., Mr. Snyder discovered that 3.69-acres of the pond were still owned by the Penns, traced ownership to Miss Stuart, had a copy of the original deed sent to the U. S.
In his catalog of items in an exhibition of 200 first editions in Manhattan, Dr. Abraham S. Wolf Rosenbach, famed bibliographer, included this entry:
MUNCHAUSEN, BARON
Narrative of his Marvellous Travels.
Oxford, 1786.
12mo. Calf.
FIRST EDITION--and Damn Rare!
Mayor Edward Ewing Roberts of Reno raged when he discovered between 75 and 100 prized, costly ducks floating dead on a pond at his Spanish Springs Hunting & Fishing Club, near Reno. Two guests, Jack Vandershoot and Henry Nelson, son of a Reno councilman, had shot the birds by mistake. They were live decoys.
Grounded by fog at Flagler Beach, Fla., Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh declined an invitation of John Davison Rockefeller to attend church.
The nasal, twangy accent of Alfred Emanuel Smith was described by Professor William Cabell Greet of Barnard College as "coastal," typical of speech everywhere on the Eastern seaboard.
After deliberating 65 hours, a jury in Los Angeles acquitted Alexander Pantages, 59, theatre operator, in his second trial on the charge of criminally assaulting Eunice Pringle, 19, dancer. Courtroom spectators cheered loudly, leaped atop their chairs, milled about the rich showman and his wife. On his first trial, two years ago, Mr. Pantages was convicted, sentenced to prison for 1-to-50 years. Promptly Miss Pringle began suit for $1,000,000 damages. The convicted man was freed on $100,000 bail while he appealed for--and won--a new trial because the court had forbidden testimony relating to Miss Pringle's character. The defense charged a conspiracy by Miss Pringle and her partner, one Nicholas Dunaev, to blacken Pantages' reputation after he had rejected their stage act. Following his acquittal the showman announced he would open a new circuit of 30 theatres.
To Bishop William Thomas Manning's rich Cathedral of St. John the Divine, long abuilding in Manhattan, Banker William Woodward, whose racehorses (Gallant Fox [retired], Sir Ashley, Sir Andrew, et al.) have won $89.543 in purses this year, gave $80,000 for a rose window 40 ft.in diameter, in memory of his parents and his uncle James T. Woodward (from whom he inherited his estate at Bel Air, Md., his large holdings in Central Hanover Bank & Trust Co.).
Mrs, De Forest A. Spencer, wife of the assistant commercial attache of the U. S. Legation in Vienna, searched the pawnshops for a 1764 Cremona violin which had been stolen from her automobile, found it had been pawned for $4.28.
Mrs. Edith Kane Baker, wife of Manhattan Banker George Fisher Baker Jr. (First National Bank), was asked for $500,000 damages by her cousin Mrs. Mary Emma Calhoun, Manhattan real estate broker. Mrs. Baker was accused of describing her cousin to others as "a narcotic addict" who "bribed doctors and nurses to give her narcotics, and was a liar and not to be trusted."
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