Americana

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

P: At New York City's Bronx Zoo, 10,000 earthworms were dug from under the lion house, packed on ice and hustled to an airport. Their destination: the Panama Canal Zone, where three finicky duckbilled platypuses, en route from Australia to the Bronx Zoo. were fast running short of earthworms, a platypus staple.

P: In San Francisco, Stunt Diver Frank Gushing leaped 220 feet from the Golden Gate Bridge, was reported to be the second person to survive the jump. In the hospital with a sprained back, Gushing explained that he had been practicing for a jump he intended to make as a publicity stunt.

P: In Washington, workmen hauled away the last of a temporary wartime art work --a heroic statue of Thomas Jefferson that stood in the Jefferson Memorial. This week, & new Jefferson will be installed.

P: In New Orleans, the Rev. James W. Courtney of the Immaculate Conception church was stabbed and critically injured by a young ex-marine to whom he was administering Holy Communion.

P: In New York City, impulsive Bus Driver William Cimillo, who skipped to Florida with his employer's new $18,000 bus (TIME, April 14), was back at his old job (on probation). At every passenger stop, he received a hero's ovation.

P: In Brooklyn, rough-tough Johnny Torrio, ex-Chicago bootleg king and Al Capone's sometime mentor, who quit the rackets after he was shot up in 1925, heaved a big sigh of relief. At his solicitation, the FBI had finally rounded up two men accused of sending him a threatening letter last September.

P: Stranded in Manhattan after missing the last commuter train to suburban White Plains, one Elmer Patrick Gargan turned to relatives for help. To by-pass telephone-struck domestic exchanges, he called his aunt in Eire over the less-snarled overseas circuit, asked her to relay a message home. The call went through in jig time: Manhattan to Eire to White Plains. Cost: $12 for three minutes.

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