"Names make news." Last week these names made this news:

King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy was revealed to have undergone an operation for hernia Dec. 14.

In the Chicago Times Lawyer Clarence Darrow wrote: "I don't know what Christmas is all about anyhow. I think it is a humbug. ... As a holiday the Fourth of July had it beat a mile. On the Fourth I used to get up right after midnight to shoot off anvils. It made a loud sound. It was a lot of fun. Nobody knows why we celebrate Christmas--to keep up the old bunk I suppose. Some religious people think it is the day Christ was born. They don't know any more about it than a woodchuck." Mrs. Darrow admitted that her husband's opinions were familiar to the family, "but we have always seen to it that the youngsters enjoyed the holiday."

Accused of sympathizing with Leon Trotsky, now en route to Mexico in exile, Muralist Diego Rivera, a Trotskyite-Communist leader, was beaten up in a Mexico City restaurant, his wife punched in the stomach when she attempted to intervene.

In tartan kilts Elizabeth and Rosemary Luling, aged 6 and 7, skipped off the Aquitania to visit their mother, Novelist Sylvia Thompson (Mrs. Peter Luling), 34, treated Manhattan newshawks to a precocious discourse on their Teddy bears, "M" and "Teddy": "M is only six years old, but she's a gay lady who ignores little boys. Now Teddy, he's oldish and a sober sides. But he's a liberal and wears a top hat. M does not believe in Santa Claus, and there's logic in what she says always. M appreciates classical beauty, but she and Teddy were ever so distressed and annoyed when they were held one year by the Italian border customs officials. Those sillies thought M and Teddy were smugglers, and filled with jewels. M was positively haughty and finally got their release. . . . But now, this abdication busi ness. Teddy doesn't think much about that or anything, M, though, says, 'Kings do things.' "

In Hollywood, cross-eyed Comedian Ben Turpin, 62, bemoaned his idleness, exclaimed: "I'd be terrific as a studio gatekeeper. Imagine--the only guy in the business who could see 'em coming and going."

Arriving at Brooklyn's Public School No. 153, where playmates were bringing Christmas gifts to their teachers, 8-year-old Alonso Romero, son of Mexican Ambassador to Venezuela Dr. Miguel Alonso Romero, presented his teacher with a 2 1/2-carat diamond ring. The teacher had Alonso and the ring taken to the Sheepshead Bay police station where Alonso explained he had found it on the sidewalk outside his home. Worth $900, it was identified as one recently reported missing.

Told he might be offered a reward, well-trained little Diplomat Alonso exclaimed: "A reward for what--doing my duty? . . . Give it in food to needy families or in toys to poor children."

Motoring through Long Beach, Calif, to address a mass meeting of striking Pacific seamen, Strikeleader Harry Bridges ran down and killed 8-year-old Joe Miranda, was released on a writ of habeas corpus in time for another speaking engagement in Los Angeles.

Motoring to his Staten Island, N. Y., courtroom, 63-year-old Magistrate Henry W. Bridges, longtime advocate of safe driving, lost control of his car when "something beneath gave way," swerved onto the sidewalk, instantly killed one Russell Hawks and his fox terrier Prince.

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