Perth Amboy evening news., 1923-02-07
Digest OF News
At Washington
Gambling

Nah Jongg, the Chinese game of
chance played with domino-shaped
pieces of ivory and bamboo-is
threatening to take the place of the
card game, bridge.
One reason for Nah Jongg's pop
ularity is it's cost. A standard set
sells from $1S.74 up into the hun
dreds. Americans usually buy things
because they are extremely cheap or
very expensive. Any business man
who has been through several panics
and booms knows this. We are a
nation of extremists.
Someone must be making q big
cleanup, selling Nah Jongg sets.
Yet the game is thousands of years
old. 1t finally occurred to
resourceful brain to market it.
World is full of opportunities, wait
ing to be discovered.
Debt
Great Britain's debt, mostly in
CURED during the war, totals nearly
S7,3C7 million dollars.
Our interest bearing national debt
is only 22.564 million dollars, and
we have over two and a half times
as many population as Britain, for
shouldering the debt.
If every American Clipped in
5000, our whole national debt could
be wiped out overnight. That will
not be done, but it'd be the quickest
and cheapest way to get rid of the
burden. For one thing, it'd save in
terest payments and the huge cost
of the army of tax officials.
For nation, as for an individual,
the most important economic prob
lem is to get out of debt-and stay
out.
Hiding
Money, to dodge taxation, hides in
tax-exempt bonds. About 1926 mill
lion dollars worth of tax-exempt
bonds have been issued in the last
12 years by cities, counties, states,
etc. A constitutional amendment,
now being considered by Congress,
would stop the tax-exempt attrac-
tion.
Can you explain why the average
individual or business would rather
save a dollar on taxes than anything
else? At the bottom of our hearts,
do we believe in government as
much as we claim? Most Of us are
philosophical anarchists when the
tax man shows up.
Sports
The winged collar is coming back
for wear with mems evening clothes.
Rodger Dolan, who turns to psy-
chology for the explanation of every
thing, recalls Herr Enthusiastically s
observation that, the lower the wo-
mems skirts. the higher the mems
collars The neck cannot be craned
as much in a choker. Then, too,
when women dress formally, men
fall into line.
More probable explanation is that
co1larmakers want to increase their
sales, by changing styles. Most men
always have drawerful Of out-of-
date collars.
Wages
Propaganda has confused most of
us into uncertainty whether rail-
readers work for nothing of get S100
an hour.
This will help straighten the mat
ter out in your mind:
The railroads report, through In
terstate Commerce Commission. that
the average wage of railroad en-
ployes last November Clatest report
ed) was SIS cents an hour on regular
time and 70 cents an hour for over
time. Executives, officials and staff
assistants averaged 1854 a day.
Booze
The number of Americans driven
crazy by liquor is less than fourth
as many as in 1910. So reports DR..
Horatio M. Pollack, medical statis-
tician, writing in Mental Hygiene
magazine. Out Of each million
Americans, 67 year used to drink
themselves crazy. Now the figure is
only 10.
The real reason probably Is that
the reckless drinker now usually gets
a through ticket to the morgue in
stead of a stop-over at the insane
asylum.