Man of the Year?

Sir:

Five years ago I wrote to TIME recommending General Douglas MacArthur as Man of the Year; however, TIME named someone else. I hope you will agree with me this time:

MAN OF THE YEAR -- General Douglas MacArthur . . .

HUGH BEATON, M.D., F.I.C.S.

Fort Worth

Faulkner to Waugh to Hemingway

Sir:

Re Waugh on Hemingway [Waugh criticized the critics of Hemingway's new novel, Across the River and into the Trees) in TIME, Oct. 30;

Good for Mr. Waugh. I would like to have said this myself, not the Waugh of course but the equivalent Faulkner. One reason I did not is, the man who wrote some of the pieces in Men Without Women and The Sun Also Rises and some of the African stuff (and some--most--of all the rest of it too for that matter) does not need defending, because the ones who throw the spitballs didn't write the pieces in Men Without Women and The Sun Also Rises and the African pieces and the rest of it, and the ones who didn't write Men Without Women and The Sun Also Rises and the African pieces and the rest of it don't have anything to stand on while they throw the spitballs.

Neither does Mr. Waugh need this from me. But I hope he will accept me on his side.

WILLIAM FAULKNER Oxford, Miss.

Cain's Babe, Blake's Tyger

Sir:

By my best conjecture, it was not William Blake, as you say in your Oct. 30 issue, who suggested the title of Mr. Steinbeck's play, Burning Bright, about the child mothered by the wife but not fathered by the husband, with his lines:

Tyger! tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

Rather, I would suppose, it was Robert Southwell, with this:

As I in hoary winter's night stood

shivering in the snow, Surprised I was with sudden heat

which made my heart to glow; And lifting up a fearful eye to view

what fire was near, A pretty Babe all burning bright

did in the air appear . . .

Which has inspired me to these deathless lines, perhaps useful to you in the future:

A little Bartlett is a risky stab, Look under ballad as well as Bab.

JAMES M. CAIN Hyattsville, Md.

If Blake's in Bartlett, so is Southwell there;

They make in fact a prickly Bartlett pair.

Even so, Reader Cain should have taken a stab at the Burning Bright theater program, which gave the title's source as Blake.--ED.

Double Exposure

Sir:

As a TIME subscriber of ten years standing I know that TIME can do almost anything. Your Oct. 23 issue proves it once more: it manages to move a larger-than-life-size statue of Napoleon from Milan to London.

Napoleon-in-his-birthday-suit was sculptured by Antonio Canova in 1811; since 1859 he has greeted the startled visitors who enter the large courtyard of the Palazzo di Brera in Milan.

I don't know if a copy of the same statue is in Apsley House in London, as stated in your footnote . . . But I do know that your photographer must have been in [Milan] . . .

ALBERT F. SCHWARZ Holland, Mich.

P: There are two Canova statues of Napoleon as a Roman emperor: the marble version is in London; TIME'S picture showed the bronze casting of it which is in Milan. (It was Canova's idea to do Napoleon in the classical nude style of the Caesars, and Napoleon was so embarrassed by the finished product he hid it away in a dark corner of the Louvre, where it stayed until Wellington took it to London.)--ED.

Buttons & Blotters

Sir:

TIME'S Oct. 16 footnote to "Harper's Century" states that the slang expression "cops" resulted from the New York officers' copper buttons.

This explanation is most interesting to our editors and research librarians who have quite a different origin for the term. Their research indicates that the word "cop" comes from the early 1900s when the policemen were called constables. An entry on a police blotter which read "John Smith, C.O.P." merely meant that Smith was a "Constable on Patrol" . . .

JOHN W. DIENHART JR.

The World Book Encyclopedia Chicago

Sir:

... In George Stimpson's A Book About a Thousand Things appears the following . . .

" 'Cop' as applied to policemen is believed to be derived from the Old English verb 'to cop' meaning to catch, to get hold of, to nab ... In 1829, Sir Robert Peel, who established the Irish and English constabularies of police, organized the first modern police in London. Members of Peel's police force were dressed in blue uniforms with large copper buttons. These conspicuous copper buttons, it is said, gave the police the name 'copper' which has been shortened into 'cop' " . . .

KENNETH B. HAWKINS Chicago

P: TIME cops a plea, admits to having told only one version of the story.--ED.

Legend from Virginia

Sir:

Your Oct. 16 article on the lost Dauphin of France throws an illuminating light on a subject that I have often pondered.

Tradition in my home town, Fredericksburg, Va., has it that the house in which my mother lives . . . was built by a Mrs. Elizabeth Thornton Fitzgerald for her husband Charles Fitzgerald, supposed to be the lost Dauphin . . .

In 1793 young Louis became, for the Royalists, King of France . . . Your article mentions the fact that he went to England and was the father of a son. This son could have been the one who eventually came to Virginia. A lady now 96 years old vouches for the fact that he was a political refugee from France sent here with a "secretary" and paid a good income with the understanding he was never to go back to France . . .

As Mr. Fitzgerald grew older, his secretary died and he insisted on returning to France. After several months his wife was notified of his death, and the French government offered to ship his remains in alcohol back to Virginia, which was done . . . The remains are buried in Fredericksburg.

WILLIAM JEFFRIES CHEWNING JR. Captain, U.S.A.R. Hereditary Member Society of the Cincinnati Washington

"A Breath-Taking Sight"

Sir:

While your "Majestic Bird" does justice to the peregrine falcon's noble mien and wondrous flying speed [TIME, Oct. 23], it does not describe the sport of falconry . . .

The falcon . . . dashes away as quickly as its hood is removed and the hawker releases the bird from his wrist. It promptly mounts to a height of perhaps half a mile, and "waits on" in circling flight above its owner until prey is flushed, whereupon the falcon dives to the attack in its incredibly swift stoop. It is not unusual for a peregrine 2,000 feet in the sky to get down and kill its quarry pigeon before the prey has traveled 100 yards. A breath-taking sight to see.

The falcon does not return to its trainer's arm after making a kill, but squats on Its victim . . . until the hawker comes quietly up and lifts the falcon to his hand again. If the kill is made beyond the hawker's sight or quick reach, the hawk may gorge itself and fly off, never to be recaptured. Few falcons remain captives more than a few months . . .

GEORGE DOCK JR. New York City

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