The Akron Beacon Journal from Akron, Ohio • Page 23

NOT EVEN MURDER IS ALWAYS WHAT IT SEEMS TO RE tfrange Ways if Crime Shovmi iy Scotland Yard's Museum LONDON (UP)-Th dead mM lay h.i side with a hoi. neatly drilled in his temple. "Shot with a small caliber pistol, said Hm "bobby" the best. Detectives from Scotland Yard soon established that the wound was made by a weapon other than a bullet. But it wasn't until four years later that they learned exactly the kind of weapon used to murder Ernest Smith that murky midnight in October, 1908.

It was an umbrella. TODAY THE UMBRELLA and other curios of crime are being shown to new recruits for the metropolitan police force as proof that murder and violence can follow many strange paths. "Don't neglect the unorthodox," says the instructor. And he tells about the tortuous inquiry that established finally that Smith had been jabbed in the temple by a man he upbraided for Insulting a woman. And the long chase that trapped the slayer in Australia and eventually sent him to prison for manslaughter.

THE ROOKIE POLICE, gathered in Scotland Yard's greatest enrollment campaign, are also shown that murder can announce itself. Like it did to Harriet Buswell, who was found in her London house in 1878 clutching a blood-stained Christmas card. On it was scrawled: "Beware! This is the last Christmas you will spend alive." Miss Buswell showed the card to friends, but in spite of all precautions, she was killed and the slayer never was caught. There are other lessons the rookies learn. For example, that even an important due may lead nowhere.

As a ease in point, there is a human finger preserved in alcohol. Forty-eight years ago there was a brawl in a Roho den nnd when the police arrived they found a young woman strangled. In her mouth was the finger, bitten from her assailant. Soho is a fairly compact area and in those days almost all its lawbreakers were well known. Yet the Man With the Missing Finger eluded police despite the mark he carried for life.

ELSEWHERE IN THIS "Black Museum" there are the two halves of a small, black, rubber ball which signaled death for 17 people and injury for 115 more. This happened in 1868 when members of the Fenian society, in an effort to free two of their members from the Clerkenweil house of detention, threw the ball over the wall as a warning to stand clear. The two Fenians understood the significance of the ball, but other inmates didn't and when a cask of gunpowder was detonated, frightful scenes -took place. Oddly enough, neither of the two men was able to eoepa through the hole blown in the prison wall. ALSO ON EXHIBITION is a bathtub in which "Drawn" Smith used to submerge his hapless brides "The Bridea is th Bath" case it was called at the time.

The pistol fired st Queen Victoria is among the exhibits, along with spurious "gold" bricks used by swindlers, a huge barometer the size of a grandfather clock which stood ia gambling house until a customer guessed rightly that It was big enough to hide a spy for the proprietors, who could that tip his confederates to the hands held by suckers. And there is one of the strangest forgeries on record. The miscreant must have spent days painstakingly raising every sheet of a multiformed postal money order from three shilling sixpence (75 cents) to eight shillings, sixpence netting him on dollar for a veritable masterpiece of forgery. Ideal Education Brines A Better Town The Luckiest Girl In Hollywood She's Joan Caulfield, Co-Star With Bing And Bob ON BROADWAY No Beer-Home Brew Returns Kentucky County's Program Goes Beyond ClassroomTo Aid Community I imiiiinmnmniiiiiiinm.imiia r-rirmicy v. -v.

1 By EARL WILSON NEW YORK A brewery survey showed home-brewing in the U. 8. has increased 30 per cent since the beer curtailment. That, 2 to AM I I I I li i i i I LhiliiiSMfTTiii EXTERIOR AND INTERIOR VIEWS OF ONE OF CRACKEN COUNTY'S SCHOOL CANNERIES. like several other items here, is not funny.

"Transmike," a miniature pocket microphone without wires, which can be concealed In a man's tie or a woman's corsage, may revolution ise night club entertainment. The stars will no longer need be hampered by a visible mike. Minerva headed by Herman H. Weissberger, will bring it out shortly. ACTOR Rags Ragland, who came to N.

Y. from Hollywood chalk-whit with anemia, is complaining now about the untlmell-ness of his recovery. When he came East he didn't, have to buy white shirts. All he had to do was put on a necktie. FRED ALLEN and Henry Youngman were gabbing shout the difficulties of being comedians.

"I want you to know I don't have to he a comedian for a living," said Youngman. "I hsve the ice cream concession at the Tinman's." BUDD Wn.SON gchulberg, author of the great novel, "What Makes Sammy Run," is living on a 50-aers farm in Bucks county, writing another This one's about a fighter and is titled "The Manly Art." In Toots Shor's he was boasting about his farm, and his knowledge of farming. "Why," he proudly announced, "we have a whole herd of chlck- By HORACE B. WARD PA DUC AH, Ky. () When schoolboys become so eager to take baths that they break into schoolhouses in the summer to use the showers, it's time to do something about it.

Miles Meredith, superintendent of schools of MeCracken county, Kentucky, did something about It. This year the county's three rural high schools will he open all summer long, and the boys will be able to walk Into the buildings by the front door. FOR MEREDITH and the McCracken county school board don't let any grass grow under their feet when a community demand becomes apparent. Sometimes they anticipate community needs. "Heretofore," Meredith says, "we school people have thought of education in terms of classes.

We must go beyond the schoolhouse walls and take in the whole community." The year-around bath service he is starting In his rural districts this year is but one small part of his program by which his school system is adapting itself to community conditions. As he expressed it: "We were teaching students in our physiology and hygiene classes the importance of taking baths, when not a half down families in the community had bathrooms." SIMILARLY, SUPERINTENDENT Meredith sees educational links in the three community canneries the school system operates and his farm repair shops. THE FARM SHOPS were the first of Meredith's progressive projects in community service. A small shop was built in 1BIT at Heath, one of the three consolidated high schools, ss a WPA project. The shops at the Lone Oak and Reldland schools came shortly afterward.

Word of these free workshops spread rapidly among the farmers. Now, nine years later, McCracken county menfolk say they couldn't get along without the school shops. Each contsins acetylene and electric welders to repair broken farm implements. There are emery wheels, grindstones and buffers to sharpen the alcklebara of mowing machines, scour disc harrows or put new edges on scythes and axes. THE CANNERIES are newer projects.

Those at Heath and Lone Oak were established in 1943 snd the one at Reldland in 1944. They start operations sround Aug. 1 and are busiest during August and September, Last year the canneries processed 2,500 quarts a day at the peak of the season; in all, 100,000 cans of food were put up. The canneries were set up under the government's wartime train Ing program the county board of education constructing the buildings, the federal government furnishing instructors snd all equipment except the boilers. MATERIALS FOR THE first school slaughterhouse already are on the ground at Heath, Schoolboys and farmers have volunteered to erect the buildings.

Meredith hopes to complete two of these community abattoirs this year, the third next year. The first of the deep-freeze locker plants which will be Installed ss a part of each slaughterhouse will contain 100 lockers to start. A farmers' cooperative will manage the locker plants. Next on McCracken county's educational agenda Is a community slaughterhouse at earn of the three county high schools. Each slaugh terhouse will have a community deep-freeze locker plant to store meat, vegetables and fruit.

CNN ALLY JOHNSON thinks Hollywood goes too far with Its gags. Mogul Bill Goetz of International Picture wu negotiating with Danny Ksye's representatives for a picture. Plight Of Hungry Haunts The Farm "We want a wonderful comedy story, said Kaye's spokesman, JOAN CAULFIELD success doesn't allow much time for relaxing "we want some wonderful comedy writers, we want "Wait a minute," objected Joan take this rapid rise a a matter of course. She is unmistakably delighted. But one gets the impression that this cool young miss of 25 is more concerned with learning the lines of her script than swooning before a Crosby tuns.

She isn't the excitable type, JOAN STANDS a little over 5 feet, 4 on a pair of shapely and sturdy legs. She weighs "113 and up." She wouldn't say how high was up, but admitted she's a good eater. Her complexion is perfect and her eyes are ice blue, but the coldness is nicely relieved by laugh wrinkles at the corners. Joan attended public and private schools in Orange, X. and mixed two years at Columbia with modeling in New York before bracing the Broadway producer, George Abbott, for stage work.

She wangled a small part in the short-lived "Beat The Band," and then scored marked success in the Corliss Archer role in the hit, "Kiss and Tell." She played it a year and that was the springboard to a Hollywood contract. Bv ROBERT H. MYERS HOLLYWOOD To a crisp young blonds in New Jersey a few years ago, Bing Crosby was just another crooner. Bob Hope was "amusing," but that wan all. She never had heard of Sonny Tufts, but st that time neither had the movies.

Caulfteld, the blonde, wasn't particularly concerned with Hollywood, Hope or Crosby, sod certainly the thought never entered her head that the three would figure Importantly in her life. But they did, as time and Miss C. rolled on, and that's why today she is one of the luckiest girls in Hollywood. In the last two years, Joan, previously unknown to pictures, has appeared in four major pictures and co-starred in the last three. SHE DREW Sonny Tufts in the first, "Miss Susie Crosby in her second "Blue Hope in her third, "Monsieur Beaucaire" and now she is working with Crosby and Barry Fitzgerald In the fourth, "Welcome Stranger." It wouldn't he fair or exactly true to say that long time before I eould manage it.

FROM THEN ON it seemed like there were some of them around everywhere I went. One day I was talking to a neighbor about my east field and the whole crowd of them were standing oa the other side of the fence listening and talking among themselves. One of the bigger boys leaned down and scratched at the ground. "That's a bigger field and richer soil than I've ever seen before. Just think of all the grain the man will raise this year." But Elsa said, "Sh-h, you're not listening.

Didn't you bear him say to the other man that it would have to He Idle this year. He hasn't enough time to get It ready for planting and he Isn't sure that the price will be good." Several of the others all repeated together, "Oh, what a pity. He hasn't time to plant and ha isn't sure if the price will be good." THAT AFTERNOON, when I changed my mind and started late ploughing of the east field, I saw the whole crowd of them walking off along the road towards town. They were pretty far away but I thought I heard them laughing, which was the first time. And that's quite a while ago hut I haven't seen them sinoe.

Only The Brave Drove Cars In 1899 Goetz. "If we had all that, we wouldn't want Danny." THEY CREDIT James Thurber with this one, but it's probably older than he is. Thurber was bragging of the glories of his home state, Ohio, home of such geniuses as William McKinley, Milton Caniff, John McNulty and William Howard Taft. "You say Ohio is such a wonderful state," said a bystander, "but if it's so wonderful, why did you leave it and come to a big city like N. "The competition," said Thurber, "was too tough." Cary Grant and Alfred Hitchcock sat at Kl Morocco discussing the modernized "Hamlet" they Intend to film.

"When will you get at It?" I inquired. "Just as soon," growled Hitchcock good-naturedly, "as we get the ham nut of this Hamlet." HEADWAITER Fred Chauvi-enl at the Carnival hustled to Milton Berle and told him "Mr. Arcaro is at the ringside!" Berle, being a daffy horse-player, rushed out to talk to Eddie Arcaro, the great jockey, hoping to get a tip, but couldn't even see Arcaro. He went back to Fred and said he saw no Mr. Arcaro.

"Sure, right there he is," said the accented Fred snd pointed to Earl Carroll, pronounced "Arr Carro." DAVE APOLLON'S insurance broker is laughing at him, rudely, too. Three days before he was slugged and robbed of his jewelry in Chicago recently, Bandleader Dave cancelled his insurance-said nothing ever happened to his jewelry snd he didn't need AFTER THE children were asleep and we hsd gone to bed she woke me saying: "You forgot to latch the screen door on the back porch snd I hear that stray dog in the garbage pail again. Do I have to go down or will you?" I listened for a second. "Well, I'm not going down there, that's sure. And If you take my advice you won't either.

Go on to sleep," She did, hut it was quite a By FRED SAILOR HARVEY It's quite common to hear of a haunted house and there's nothing unusual about ghosts strolling down the road by the cemetery, but did you ever hear of a whole farm being haunted? Both day and night too? Right out in the bright sunshine as well as in the dark of the moon? Well that's the way it is. And they're roaming not only over my place but across the whole countryside. Even covering most of the houses in town, too, judging by the bits of conversation I've picked up. They could easily do It, there's so many of them. But these haunts aren't the dsngerous kind that you read about.

Most of them are so young, and not very strong. They certainly do get on your nerves after a while, though. THE FIRST time I saw them was early this spring up in bare field of corn stubble, of all places. A few old piles of corn stalks had been left up there because I hadn't had time to haul them away before disking the ground for oats. So st the last minute I set fire to the piles snd then went in the house for supper.

It was quite a while before I came back because there was fried chicken that night and mashed potatoes and hot biscuits snd gravy, with peach cobbler for dessert. I was so full it was a real effort to walk back up in the field. Half way across the field, I saw them gathering around one of the smouldering piles of corn stalks, with flames still shooting nut here and there. You could tell they were haunts because the fire shone right through them, but they looked more like a crowd of old dried up children. Ten or twelve of them there were, both boys and girls, and the only thing that looked slive was their eyes which were tremendous.

THEY WERE reaching In the smoking pile snd snatching out half-burned nubbins of corn that hadn't seemed worth while husking out, and crunching the kernels between their teeth with little squeals of pleasure. I shouted at them to be care-( fill, they would certainly burn their hands in the fire. Rut they went right on grabbing and I remembered they were only haunts and couldn't hear me. Later on I found out they could hear everything I said to other people hut there was no use trying to talk straight to them. Their clothing, if you could call them that, were quite extraordinary.

Odd bits of this and that, tied together with strings. Some of the girls wore black shawls over their heads and one boy was clopplng around In a pair of wooden shoes. But most of them were barefoot and the night air was cold. THERE WAS something repulsive about the whole thing and I didn't like to stand there watch Graduate's. Job Cbance Depends On Character (Continued From Page 1-B) new automobiles at fabulous values.

Even saddles and harnesses were accepted. Automobiles were priced high enough to permit heavy One dealer claimed he could "allow couple of thousand dnl-lsrs on a secondhand wheelbarrow snd still mske money." SPEEDING, which rarely draws mention In the local newspapers nowadays, was an International news Item in 1901 when Alden S. McMurtry was arrested at Warren, on a charge of driving his automobile 40 miles an hour in the city streets. Horses, buggies and carriages were token as pert payment, on ing them chewing on half burnt corn particularly the biggest girl who had a bahy slung on her hip with a ragged shawl wrapped around. The baby was too young to eat the hard kernels, so the girl kept chewing up mouthful and then feeding it to the bahy.

I didn't like to watch it. so I turned back towards the house. It wss hard to walk natural with all their eyes following me, THE CHILDREN were still at supper, so I sat down at the table with them. The Little Girl was pouting and making a tuns shout eating her cereal. Very carefully and cleverly she bumped it with her arm so the bowl overturned snd the milk ran across the table and down on the floor.

A loud, sighing "Oh-h" came from behind me and uncounsclous-ly turned around. They were all outside, pressing against the long glass doors that led to the yard. Their palms were flat on the panes and their faces were pressed close. But their noses didn't flatten out into fat buttons like most children's do, because there was so little there to flatten. Their eyes were wide, and fixed on the trickle of milk that ran down on the floor.

IT WAS BEDTIME for the children so I went upstairs to help; there were too many windows downstairs. But they must have climbed up on the garage roof somehow. I could see shadows moving outside and one window was open a crack so their whispering came into the children's room. A thin voice said, "Rlsa, who are those big people In there pulling covers over the children?" And an older boy's voice laughed harsh and scornfully. "Your brother's a dummy, Elsa, he doesn't know a Mama and a Papa when he sees them." It must have been Elsa who answered with defensive fire.

"Hold your tongue Antnine. Whst do you know except what people have told you?" By GALLOWAY DETROIT UN'S) The current Automotive Golden Jubilee has eld-timers of the industry reminiscing over many automobile ailments most of us have forgotten end a few of us never experienced. One of the first horseless carriages, built in 18fi9, utilised a Shovel-handle tiller for steering. And the old-timers laugh when they recall how the front wheels would catch In the deep ruts and the unwary driver who held the tiller too tightly was tossed into the mud. JAMES W.

PACKARD received a letter from a prospective customer in 1901, it is recalled, wanting to know if Packard intended to make a multiple-cylinder machine. Packard thought his reply was conclusive when he replied: "Ask any user of a gasoline Motor vehicle If a single ryllnder does not give him trouble enough without adding another one." Packard was just as sh rp-pen-Ited on the subject when he printed in his first catalog in 1902: "We do not want you to think that our car contains everything that is possible in an automobile. There are a great many things which other vehicles will do which the Packard Motor car will not snd we sre thankful for that." EVERY DRIVER who started out In the old days felt that he was not sufficiently prepared, if he did not carry along a supply of little glass bulbs filled with ammonia to throw at dogs when they persisted In biting the tires, Gasoline used to he kept In HQ-gallon tank In a little house behind the barn In many Instances, and the only places selling gasoline were the groceries. These usually kept only a small supply of less than five gallons on hsnd. In 1901, a 10 or 1 mile trip In automobile was eonsidered a (rk Men Wearing Hals Again; Some Of 'Em Even Oivn Tivo! NEW YORK (JP Men of the nation are more hat-conscious today than in many years snd sre buying headwear as fast, as it.

can be nroduced. esled in his work, snd has shown no loyalty to his school, he will carry over the same attitudes into his work and thus will be a poor risk, Also, Miss Turner has found that an applicant who comes from a large family is a better risk than one who was an only child and perhaps has been "babied." SUCH CHARACTER TRAITS plus ability are more important in filling a job than is education, Page emphasized. He said that many applicants with high school diplomas but no college training consider themselves handicapped, but pointed out that in every company men without college training are in key positions. "When we analyze reasons for failure to get a job and for losing johs, we find that lack of education or specific skills represents a very small per cent, whereas character traits account for a large percentage," he said. "Carelessness, non-cooperation, laziness, absence for causes other than sickness, dishonesty, lack of concentration, lack of ambition, and tardiness predominate.

All could be corrected." PACK STRESSED the fact that at present jobs in Akron industry are not plentiful, due to postwar conditions which is hoped will be only temporary. However, he added that "regardless of existing conditions, there is one point that always remains true: "There is always a market for good men and women including promising young high school graduates," tees A lot of the lads who scorned headgear before the war became accustomed to wearing it as a part of their uniform in service. Now they list a hat among essentials in building their civilian wardrobes. But a slow-down of the hatlcss movement Is only one factor in boosting demand to such an extent that the hat industry sees little chance of replenishing Inventories this year. Increased fash-Ion consciousness among men generally alse Is labeled as Important.

"The one-hat wardrobe which distinguished the American man in the 1930's Is fast disappearing," said Warren S. Smith of the Hst Research Foundation. "A much greater percentage of men today own two felts, one straw snd one fabric hat." LIMITATIONS on production, however, are making it. difficult for the industry to cater to the fashion angle at present. Output is 16 per cent below 1940 because of materials and labor shortages.

"While men are more style conscious," said Ellas Lustig, president of a hat company, "production is more important to the hatmaker than style right now. We used to feature one hat each month on a style basis, but now we are Interested getting basic headwear Into the stores to meet the demand." "Why shouldn't we have honorary degrees Haven't we got thousands of constituents going to college under the GI Bill of Rights?" nnd day's work. AKRON BEACON JOURNAL Sunday, June 2, 1946 I.