Americana

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

¶ In San Diego, Calif., Attorney Alfred Wesley Ingalls and his wife were charged with having kept a Negro maid named Dora L. Jones in payless slavery for 30 years by threatening to expose her for a misdemeanor in her youth. Californians were particularly horrified to learn that Dora had never seen a talking picture.

¶ In Washington, at a V.F.W. meeting, U.S. Attorney General Tom Clark tried paraphrasing the old Army rule: "If it moves--salute it; if it doesn't move--pick it up; if you can't pick it up--paint it." His new version for the returned veteran: "If it cries--change it; if it's on wheels--buy it; if it is hollow--rent it."

¶ Boston reacted with cod-like calm when the Duotone Sound Laboratories decided it was the quietest city in the U.S. But citizens of Los Angeles, which was second, and New York, which was third, could hardly believe their ears.

¶ In Newark, N.J., 15-year-old Bill Mc-Henry went to school with a .32 caliber revolver and a handful of shells, in due time opened fire on his shop instructor in manual training class. His three shots went wild.

¶ The Tennessee legislature decided that freedom of worship had its limits, passed a law prohibiting handling dangerous reptiles "in such a manner as to endanger the life or health of any person." Reason: in the past two years, two ministers of Tennessee's fanatical snake-handling religious cults have died of snakebite.

¶ Postmasters from coast to coast got a Washington directive which was apparently to be interpreted according to each official's measure of glandular energy: nude calendar cuties were henceforth to be barred from the mails if they "aroused the base emotions."

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