Libido, Liberty & Lenses

John E. Mellish, 46, is a person of importance to U. S. astronomy. He is a grinder of telescope lenses, which he, with infinite pains and patience, can polish to within one one-millionth of an inch of perfection. Last week, and every weekday for the past nine months--hour after hour--he has worked under the surveillance of the Kane County, Ill. sheriff.

John E. Mellish 17 years ago read an advertisement in a Chicago newspaper: "Wanted--A perfect husband, one who wants the happiness not of a day, but of a lifetime; who would receive the fullest pleasure in staying home at night talking to me and would be just as wrapped up in me as in his work. Jessie Wood, Glencoe, Ill."

Jessie Wood chose Lens-Grinder Mellish from among scores of applicants. She subsequently bore eleven children, nine living. Astronomer Edwin Brant Frost and Mrs. Frost were Mrs. Mellish's first accoucheurs when her time came at the Yerkes Observatory at Williams Bay, Wis.

Last year Mrs. Mellish caught her husband with a 15-year-old girl in his lens-grinding shop. Mrs Mellish had him arrested. Last week Professor Frost was trying to get him free. But Lens-Grinder Mellish objected. Liberty and libido were inconsequential to him. In jail or outside he wanted to go on grinding lenses. "I transgressed Society's laws," said he. "I must do penance."

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