Adrenalin & Cortin Sirs: In TIME, July 29, Medicine, you have an article on ''Cortin for Glaucoma." . . , I have been practicing ophthalmology since October 1902 and am one of the Professors of Diseases of the Eye in the Graduate School of Medicine in the University of Pennsylvania. I have a great many people afflicted with glaucoma under my care, and you have no idea the harm such an article does. . . .

Adrenalin has been used in glaucoma for at least 20 years and in acute elevation of intra ocular pressure is a very helpful drug. The effect of cortin as distinguished from adrenalin is not definitely known at the present time. There is too little evidence to justify an article in a public magazine on it. It at present should be confined entirely to medical publications where the hopes of the public would not be unjustifiably raised and a great deal of emotional stress stirred up and the emotions have a great deal to do with raising intraocular pressure. Anyone who has been practicing ophthalmology for any length of time has seen cases where an emotional storm has brought on an acute attack of glaucoma with complete loss of vision. I realize that an editor of a public journal, such as TIME, is in a rather difficult situation, but I do think that such mat ters should be submitted to some medical authority for advice before being written up as this was in TIME. . . .

H. MAXWELL LANGDON, M. D.

Philadelphia, Pa.

P.S. Since dictating the above, I have had two other inquiries concerning cortin -- people coming in all buoyed up, thinking that something new had been discovered for them, and of course greatly disappointed when told that the whole thing was questionable and never should have been printed in public places. Many medical men have been conditioned to believe that their doings and thinkings enjoy a sacred immunity from the ordinary processes of human curiosity. Well does TIME know the problem of reporting scientific news, but its responsibility toward Science differs no whit from its responsibility toward news of other human affairs.

For every TIME-statement there must he either reliable witness or reputable authority. In this case, Dr. Langdon's quarrel is not with TIME but with Dr. Josephson whose report on cortin in Science, a reputable publication. TIME accurately reported. Whether public hopes rise or fall is the responsibility of Dr. Josephson not of TIME. -- ED.

Moldy Chestnuts Sirs: In TIME, July 15, relative to the political tempest in a teapot in the Virgin Islands, you say: ''Prohibition had ruined the Islanders-- by destroying their chief means of livelihood, the manufacture of rum." This is one of the several moldy chestnuts over which every weekending special correspondent who ever visited these Islands smacks his lips, totally ignorant that the kernel carries within it a crawly worm of error. He has read what the next preceding correspondent said and he repeats it to show what a thorough study he has made of the economic conditions of the Islands. It sounds impressive, but the truth is that the export of rum never amounted to much, if any, more than 4% of the per annum exports of the Islands. ... I will leave it to you to explain how the loss of 4% of a region's annual exports can produce an economic wreck. . . . The very prosaic fact is that the manufacture of sugar constitutes the chief means of livelihood in these Islands and that the rum produced is and always has been a byproduct. . . .

J. F. HENRY Christiansted, St. Croix, V. I., U. S. TIME erred. In 1919 (year before Prohibition), Virgin Islands' exports amounted to some $1,500,000, less than $10,000 of which was in rum. Following year only $150 worth of rum left the Islands. Latest reports show Virgin Islands' principal exports to be: sugar 54%, cattle 22%, bay rum & oil 14%, molasses, horses, mules, hides, vegetables, fruits, fish, tobacco, turtle shell, fence posts 10%.--ED.

Wall Street Joe Sirs:

I have read with amusement your letters published in TIME, July 29. James J. Harrison was a banker here once and now is an appointee of Wall Street Joe Robinson. Solmson's son is in the law firm that Robinson left when one member had the light turned on him when the State highway audit was made. Wall Street Joe has appointed all the old broken-down bankers and defeated and discredited politicians. National Sentiment in this Administration State is and strong much against the stronger against Wall Street Joe. He will have a real fight to be returned to the Senate. I have contacted people in 35 counties in the last week and have made discoveries.

J. ROSSER VENABLE Little Rock, Ark.

That President Roosevelt fears Little Rock may no longer be Gibraltar for his No. 1 Senate wheelhorse appeared last week when it was revealed that the President's forthcoming Western trip would include a stop at Little Rock for a speech in Senator Robinson's behalf. -- ED.

Steamy Twaddlers Sirs: Three cheers for TIME'S refusal to shed crocodile tears over the terrific heat in Washington [TIME, July 29]. After reading daily in newspapers that our legislators are lying exhausted in their air-cooled chambers and can do nothing but drink lemonade and fan themselves, it is refreshing to those of us who are spared from such a terrible fate to know that TIME is not overcome by the heat. If our steaming Representatives would cease their Intellectual twaddle and their blowing off of hot air, they could finish their business and give us all a vacation.

HENRY W. THORNTON Schenectady, N. Y.

"Pure American Imagination"

Sirs: Surprising to South Africans was the announcement in TIME, May 20 that General James B. M. Hertzog, Premier of the Union, had suggested in London his Dominion would recommend the seizure of the Liberian Republic to hand to Germany as League of Nations mandate. Even more surprising was your news that Premier Hertzog was recommending Southwest Africa be handed back to Germany. If he had indeed cherished these ideas, he had shrouded them in deep secrecy from his own people.

Hoping TIME, from a distance of 10,000 miles, had handed me the scoop of the year, I showed your story to General Hertzog. ''Pure American imagination," said he.

Seldom enough South Africa figures in your animated pages. Pleased am I, therefore, to place it there, if only in this negating capacity.

South Africa knows or cares even less about Liberia than the U. S. does about South Africa-- if that be possible. And Southwest Africa is regarded by South Africans as South African.

Apart from our capital invested there, in the Union Treasury's vaults lie precious piles of diamonds from Southwest Africa, awaiting better markets. Any Prime Minister gratuitously offering to return this mandated territory to Germany would swiftly, surely be voted out of office. . . .

JOHN M. BARKHAM

Rand Daily Mail Pretoria, South Africa

Forlorn Brethren

Sirs:

It has been a source of considerable amusement for me to see how the Negroes of this continent have taken up the impassioned defense of Haile Selassie, the Conquering Lion of Judah, and his myrmidons [TIME, July 29] when the Ethiopians have never considered themselves as blacks, and would feel greatly insulted if anyone so misnamed their proud Semitic race as to term them Negroes. For the Semite, be he Jew or Arab, is always pureblooded, no matter what his ancestresses were. Thus with the Ethiopians, and to prove their superiority and contempt for the poor "niggers" of the Dark Continent, they have, from their first conquest of Ethiopia 3,000 years ago to the present day, seized, ravaged and enslaved every tribe of blacks within their reach, torturing and mutilating their captives, and heaping upon those co-nationalists of Power of Trinity's Americanized defenders all the vilest and most ghastly degradations man can inflict on man. The Negroes of U. S. protest against lynching; they ought to protest for their forlorn brethren whose lives are made wretched by a constant terror of slave-raids, and who, without hope and without aid, lie perpetually crushed beneath the hideous menace of the Ethiopian slaver. CHARMIAN BROWN

Vernon, Canada

Horn Blowers

Sirs:

In TIME, July 29, under "Card's Cup." you state that Harold Keates Hales, M.P. claims to be the only automobile driver in the world who has never once blown his horn. This, in truth, is an honor.

Among gentlemen and ladies of supposed culture, good breeding, refinement, who are gentle, courteous, educated, and understand the physical and mental detrimental effects of noises on the human race, knowing that our insane asylums are filled to overflowing with individuals, beyond a doubt, there, because of the automobile horn noises, I am glad to know that there is one gentleman, who has never made a disturbance, startled and shocked the public on the streets, in their places of business and in their homes. It is indeed a compliment not only to the man, but to the country [Great Britain] of which he is a citizen.

I desire to extend to him my appreciation of him as a great and progressive human.

CECIL P. BROWN

Portland, Me.

Traditional Stuff

Sirs:

TIME usually bats over .300, which is tops in most leagues.

Thank you for the traditional stuff in my write-up, TIME, July 22. English-born father, mother of Dutch descent, married to woman both of whose parents came from Aberdeenshire, I voted for T. Roosevelt, W. H. Taft, W. Wilson, (ten years abroad), Al Smith and F. D. R.

That premium item is worth more than a footnote. But one "bogged down in tradition" can only hope that clear weather is just ahead.

ARTHUR S. DRAPER

Chestertown, N. Y.

TIME wishes ex-Editor Draper of The Literary Digest "clear weather ahead" in writing his autobiographical Thirty Years in Journalism. Meanwhile Morton Savell of Snedens Landing, N. Y. acts as Digest editor.--ED.

Specialty Girls Sirs: In your issue of July 29, regarding an article you had entitled "Coolie Chorines," I would like to correct you to this extent. At the Dorchester House under the management of Clifford Whitley, I have a troupe of girls called the "LeRoy Prinz Hollywood Beauties." These girls were picked out of 600 of Hollywood's leading dancers, and are all what we call specialty girls --each one a soloist, and capable of doubling into a dancing line. The majority of these girls have also played good bits in various pictures.

I have only one idea in writing you this letter, and that is primarily because I want to be fair to these girls, and because Mr. Frank Gillmore of the Actors' Equity Association is apparently very misinformed.

These girls were given a contract, starting in Hollywood, for six months in London. They were given first class transportation from Hollywood to London. Each girl was in a lower and had two to a cabin, first class passage on the boat. Their return transportation was put up in the bank here, and the contracts agreed to, witnessed, etc. by the British Consul. These girls received a salary of $85 a week minimum, and several are getting $125 a week. As you know, there is a British taxation of 25% on American theatrical artists, and in addition to a salary of $85 to $125 per week these girls are having their British income tax paid. The Equity salary of American chorus girls is $35 a week, and until recently they were required to take four weeks of rehearsals gratis to the producer.

The LeRoy Prinz Hollywood girls were paid $25 a week during rehearsals, and are all very lovely, very intelligent and very refined American young ladies. I sincerely resent their being referred to as "Coolie Chorines" and would be glad to send you a copy of the contracts that these young ladies have, proving how far you have been misled by the statement of Mr. Frank Gillmore of the Actors' Equity Association. . .

LEROY PRINZ

Hollywood, Calif.

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