Americana

MANNERS & MORALS

Notes on U.S. customs, manners & morals as reported in the U.S. press:

P:New York's raucous Daily News found the answer to the question of the month. Richard, it explained, was just a Harvard man confronted with a Yale lock.

P:In Chicago, Barry Stephens, an artists' agent who has looked at legs long enough to tell one Radio City Rockette from another, called a turn: "The scrawny, thin leg is out. A fuller calf and a longer thigh is the trend, and we men see a return to the 'beef trusters.' " Notable among his fuller-calfed, longer-thighed legs: Alice Faye's, Ann Miller's, Betty Grable's. Marlene Dietrich's? "Too skinny."

P:Despite rising prices and chilly weather, New Orleans boasted of the largest, gayest Mardi Gras since its beginning in 1827. Forty-three balls were scheduled. Thirteen parades tootled through flag-festooned streets. As far away as Biloxi, Miss, hotels were chock full, and private rooms in town were bringing $25 a day.

P:In Tampa, for the first time in six years. Pirate King Gasparilla invaded the city in his three-masted ship Jose Caspar to set off a three-day festival. City officials happily estimated that 250,000 people had been attracted by the revival of the 43-year-old pageant.

P:Custodians of the Statue of Liberty were giving the inside of the old lady a coat of hard enamel and planned to enclose the stair in wire netting. Reason: visitors have had a habit of scrawling their names on the wall in kissproof, scrubproof lipstick.

P:A breakfast-food manufacturer advertised an atomic bomb ring: "Actual atoms, splitting like crazy inside this ring! Look into lens--and socko! You'll see brilliant stabs of flashing light caused by released energy of atoms split to smithereens inside atom chamber." Only 15-c- and one box top.

P:In Brownsville, Tex., a bus driver figured out a yardstick for determining a child's age no matter what his mother said. "I look at their teeth. If they have a full set, they pay."

P:New Yorkers got an unlikely bouquet from James H. Gipson, peripatetic Idaho publisher: "I cannot recall a single instance of rudeness or bad manners. This is true not only of those in high places . . . but of the policemen, the subway guards, the bus drivers, and the man in the street generally."

P:In Fairbanks, Alaska, where the temperature was 26DEG below zero, ladies of easy virtue ceased to advertise their charms by rapping on sporting house windows with a silver dollar. The more functional substitute: a safety razor blade. When scraped across a window pane it produced a sound approximating the love call of a snipe. More important, it scraped the ice off the glass, enabled passing gents to peer in.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.