The Philadelphia Inquirer from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 127

I 111 Sfc- zirr akkil jikl; i 3 r-r- aux jets i yy i Ci (Left) This marquise-cut gem is for the dainty hand. (Top) The traditional solitaire. (Centre) A streamlined emerald-cut slenderizes the hand. (Right) Individual design for ultra-modern young woman. By Geraldine Smith is --larrying year I 1 I yr Wviwjr as trriervice men show.

I I ,1 rf? rrbrides out of five lj v--- y' wear diamond rings. fcw WAR Is stepping up production of brides; and the war boom Is putting diamonds on their fingers. This year will mark an all-time high in American weddings, also in Jewelry sales. April alone will send 125,000 young women up the middle aisle; four out of every five left hands will flash with betrothal diamonds. Last year when 1,547.500 weddings raised our marriage rate by 14.8 over 1940, only three bridegrooms out of five gave their brides diamond engagement rings.

(Even so, they spent for those sparklers.) But that, of course, was before high voltage activity in defense centres sent up diamond buying far above sales in the luxury I a stone twice its- size if flawed or sallow. Nearly all diamonds have minute cracks or specks under the microscope. Jewelers Judge diamonds by the rule of the Four C's Carat for weight. Color for whiteness. Cut for clean facets and good proportion.

Clarity for freedom from flaws. The typical solitaire has fifty eight facets. Booms in marriage are inevitable during years of flocking to the colors: Just as Inevitably the booms burst during succeeding years of actual war. But they burgeon again when uniforms are laid aside. Now despite the fact that engagement rings account for seventy-five h' s.

5 ploy comparatively smaller proportions of jT 1 "JZZV: ft VJ the working population. Pittsburgh dur- ln I I (-i .1 fW '5') tag the first half of January had nearly "Jl (f I ZSy ifS 50 per cent more marriages than a year 1 I comparatively smaller proportions of the working population. Pittsburgh during the first half of January had nearly 50 per cent more marriages than a year I marts. Among the April brides the greatest number fully 50.000 in fact will be happy with modest little stones priced at about 159.75. From that point the size and value will go on up to whatever the bridegroom's bankroll can achieve.

Approximately 25.000 brides will have $100 rings. Probably 15.000 will have rings that cost $200; for 6000 they will cost $400; for 2500. $750. Three figure prices will be scaled down to $1000 rings for about 1000 girls: only 500 or so will be able to say truthfully that their young men went overboard to the extent of $3500. A FTER that third finger decorations ham.

Oxlahoma City, San Diego. Richmond. Indianapolis. Louisville. Denver.

Seattle. Jacksonville. Smaller cities showed an increase In weddings far beyond the rate" in our six largest cities where defense industries employ ago with about one-third of the bridegrooms in uniform. A PRIL. by the way.

is an average month for marriages, accounting for 7.9 per cent of the year's unions. June continues to be the favorite with 11.5 per cent. December runs second with 10.3, August third with 10.1. January is the least popular month among American brides; the rate for the four weeks after the holidays is a mere 5.6 per cent. February, too, sees a letdown in romance with a rate of 5.7 percent.

March picks up at 6 percent; September 8.5. October 8.6; November 7.8. CASHIONS fluctuate in nuptial Jewelry Just as they do In wedding gowns. This year the trend Is toward diamonds set In gold. There also Is interest In sterling sliver settings even though a new formula for making platinum assures a supply of that metal.

Still a number of the fashionables, including Barbara Hutton. are having their diamonds removed from white metal mountings and modernized in yellow gold. Another trend of the year is purchase of both betrothal and wedding rings at the same time. Jewelers declare hits is due partly to engagements shortened by the war. partly because it facilitates matching.

Still another current mode is the wedding ring for the bridegroom, resurrected from a Victorian tradition. A direct result of men going away to war. this fash-Ion dictates rings in matched sets of three. Although larger and heavier, the man's ring is co-ordinated with his bride's solitaire and wedding band. Even when decorated by carving, the male ring is smooth, sleek and stream- will become spectacular.

Averaging once every six weeks an engagement will be sealed by a diamond priced at Six times annually some wealthy man will slip a $65,000 bauble on the left hand of his fiancee. Then a real event In Jewelry turnover occurs once every I JL Deanna Durbin and her husband. Vaughn Paul, clicked on her old-fashioned diamond solitaire. percent of all retail diamond sales, no girl need fear that there won't be a diamond for her. Jewelers declare their supply sufficient for all solitaires and for decoration of the matching band, as well.

Wedding-ring gold Is defense-free; there are no priorities on gold or silver. fllRLS now celebrating their engage- menu but who unhappily fail to become brides may find consolation in the decree handed down by a woman Judge only the other day. Even though it was testified that the engagement in the case was broken without good and sufficient cause, the Judge ruled that the girl was entitled to keep the ring. Such a ruling, however, would not be valid in every State. In Louisiana all gifts must be returned regardless of blame for a broken engagement.

In Kentucky gifts are returnable only after marriage and divorce. In most States the law requires the girl to return the ring if she breaks her engagement without good reason: but she may keep it if the man is at fault. He is held to be at fault if he postpones marriage unduly long; if his mother breaks up the match; if he pretends interest in another girl to incite Jealousy; if he promises to reform but never gets around to turning a new leaf. lined. For men.

as for women, the familiar orange blossom is the favorite pattern and gold the popular metal. Frequently the bridegroom's ring, like the bride's, glitters with diamonds especially if the set is custom made. As a rule champagne-colored stones are used to match the gold; they are Bet flush with the metal in order not to be too obtrusive. Two rings naturally constitute an added headache for the best man at the wedding. Usually he has been Jittery enough over producing a single ring at the right moment in the ceremony; now he must dig for two and be certain which is which.

As a rule he first brings up the bride's ring, hands it to the clergyman who passes it to the bridegroom. The bridegroom places.the ring on the bride's ringer as he repeats 'With this ring I thee wed." The process then is repeated excepting that the pass goes from the best man to the clergyman to the bride to the bridegroom. A NOTHER pronouncement of Jewelers is that no bride need feel disappointed if her diamond is small since the symbol is authentic no matter what the size. They point out that a small diamond which is clear, well-cut and reasonably free of imperfections is worth more than five years when the bridegroom comes through with a ring costing $100,000. But at least half the year's brides, like those of April, will take the Initial step toward wedlock with a little $59 number, according to Jewelers.

Estimates are based on sales in and around defense centres where the marriage rate is going up like the mercury in a' heat wave. A fifty per cent increase over normal Jewelry sales is reported in the Philadelphia-Camden area. In Hartford, Connecticut, sales have Increased 54 per cent; In Detroit. 51 per cent; in Los Angeles. 49 per cent.

Twenty-five per cent of the Jeweler's trade comes directly from engagements and weddings. Last year's turnover which included engagement and wedding rings as well as wedding gifts approximated $549,000,000. This tops by an impressive margin the same expenditures during the multi-millionaire's millenium of 1929. Even such an enormous sum might have been more enormous but for the Pearl Harbor disaster which canceled many furloughs and. as a corollary, many weddings.

Nevertheless December saw more weddings than last June in New York. Baltimore, St. Louis. Washington. Dallas, Fort Worth.

Houston. Birming By Hugh Scott MYSTERY VEILS VIOLENT END OF DEATH RAY I PEN UK fantastic," she said. "Our bell rang and when I opened the door, there was Dr. Foster. He held up his watch and said.

'I'm late. It's quarter past The hands of his watch did point to a quarter past twelve, but it was only a quarter past five by actual time. Then. too. we remembered no appointment with Dr.

Foster. He, seemed out of his' head. He had no hat or coat on and he stared at us wildly. Then he left as suddenly as he came." Fifteen minutes later Patrolman He pulled his daughter's sled after him. then suddenly crashed it through the University Club window.

THREE things stand out in the recent mysterious death of Dr. Allyn King Foster. The first is that on Monday morning he talked quietly to his wife, gave her money from his wallet, then left his Manhattan apartment for a luncheon engagement with another scientist. The second is that some six hours later a policeman found him without his hat or coat, babbling of disguises and death rays on 55th street near 6th avenue. And the third is that five days later he died in the "violent ward" of Bellevue Hospital.

But sandwiched among these three things, as If to make a triple-decker mystery for the police and F.B.I. agents, were many other strange factors. There was the death ray on which Dr. Foster was said to be working for the Government. There was the sled of his three-year-old daughter, which he crashed through a window of the University Club at Fifth avenue and 54th street, and the address book which apparently was taken from his pocket or lost, and, most important, the autopsy which showed that his larynx had been fractured although neither his voice nor appearance had indicated any sign of this injury twenty minutes before ALL these things would have made the case of Dr.

Foster a national sensation had it not been for the war. As it was the New York police and the TBI. have worked day and night to solve the mystery without success. Their first investigations were easy. Many people knew 37-year-old Dr.

Foster as a brilliant and fashionable mid-town physician. Over six feet tall, he had seemed to be in the best of health. His wife said he was perfectly normal Just before he left their apartment at 70 East 96th street. She was the former Elsa Marguerite Nllsson. a socialite.

Foster left home shortly before noon that Monday, telling his wife he had an engagement for lunch at Pierre's on Park Avenue, with Lucian Humphrey, a psychologist. Later investigation showed that he had kept this engagement, and that he had left his coat and hat In Pierre's checkroom. Mr. Humphrey, who said he knew Foster only slightly, thought he seemed disturbed during the luncheon. But police were more disturbed at the discovery that Foster had pulled his daughter's sled after him, when he left home to keep the luncheon date.

This was the sled he crashed through the club window, nobody knows why. What Foster did immediately after have visitors. One of these, a close friend, talked with him until a few minutes before he was found dead at 3:30 on the afternoon of his fifth day in the hospital. At the time. Mrs.

Foster Was arranging for his transfer to a private hospital. She immediately asked for an autopsy, which revealed that her husband had died as the result of a fractured larynx, that there was foreign matter in his windpipe and that there were signs of asphyxiation. Dr. Philip Goldstein, who performed the au-tdpsy. said definitely that external pressure had caused the three fractures in Foster's larynx.

CURTHER investigation showed that Foster had been a violent patient and that he had to be forcibly fed during his hospital stay. Shortly before his death he had been given the usual tub treatment. At 3 o'clock he was removed from the tub to his bed. which had been rolled into the tub room, and a few minutes later his wife visited him in the tub room and talked to him without noticing any signs of Injury. It was Just after this that she went down to arrange a transfer, arrangements which she still was making when she was told of her husband's death at 3.30.

kiRS. FOSTER could only think that his I breakdown was caused by overwork. "He worked too hard." she said, "and I think it affected his brain, for among the things he worked on was a death ray." She also was puzzled by the disappearance of Dr. Foster's address book, which he always carried. "It contained all the addresses of his friends of which he had hundreds." she explained.

"It is the only possession I've been unable to locate and I believe it might contain some clue to his death." The wallet which Dr. Foster always carried was with him when he was found. There was no money in it. but there was a silver dollar in his pocket along with his automobile license and his cards of medical associations and clubs. These are the things that have made the death of Dr.

Foster a mystery. Was he injured by a robber, by an enemy alien, by his own death ray, by an accident in the hospital or by someone who got into Lawrence Walsh noticed Foster's odd appearance and spoke to him. Although Foster's speech rambled, the policeman learned that he was a physician. He saw no sign of Injury on the doctor's body. but.

since he obviously was In no condition to take care of himself. Patrolman Walsh called an ambulance and had him taken to the Roosevelt Hospital. After an examination, he was transferred from this hospital to the psychopathic section of Bellevue Hospital. At Bellevue Foster immediately was put under observation, but was permitted to lunch, and how he happened to leave the restaurant without his hat and coat remains a -mystery. His next verified appearance was at the apartment of Professor Georges Lakhovsky, a Russian scientist, at the Dorset on West 54th street.

Professor Lakhovsky is the inventor of an electric short-wave machine, used in the treatment of disease, and it was through an interest in this machine that Foster had come to know him. Mrs. Lakhovsky later described Foster's brief visit to the apartment. "It was 1 cm r. Putting the Hostess in Her Place Dr.

Allyn K. Foster was brilliant, successful NNE of th favorite pict of gouip back stag th Metropolitan Opara Houia Is tha story of tha Naw York social laadar who approached a famous prima donna and askad what har faa would bo for singing at musicalo in tha dowagar's Fifth Avenue homo. "My fee is two thousand dollars." tha singer replied. The hostess seemed surprised, but said haughtily: "Of course, you will not be expected to mingle with my guests." The prima donna, with her most charming smile, answered: "Well, in that case, madame, my faa will bo only one thousand dollars." IVimODY'l WIIRir, (fcAHCM COPVIIOHT TMI HIIADII'H. the hospital? The police and the O-Men don't know.

But because of Dr. Foster's prominence and his important work, they are determined to find out. PAGE THREE INOUIMt TT.