The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-03-14
In New York

New York.-Nobody paid any attention this year to the birthday of the worlds most famous chick en, or rather part of a chicken which is still growing in Jar a, the Rockefeller Institute.
 On previous anniversaries there has been an informal little cere- mony in the laboratory. sometimes attended by Dr Alexis Carrel, the chicks scientific godfather who be- gan its life 22 years ago when he took a silver of tissue from the heart of an embryonic fowl and put it into special saline solu- tion. The tissue lived and grew and 1t was quite an important dis covery in the medical world Strictly among themselves the at. tendants around the laboratory got to calling the chicken Alexis 2 Have you fed Alexis today?" they would ask. Or, Have you given Alexis his bath?"
 On birthdays, "Alexis" would be given an extra drop of glucose, and some of the mathematically. minded attaches of the institute would try to calculate how large the chicken would have grown fl 1t had not been trimmed down regularly. It always was an inn i, pressive figure, because the heart
 tissue doubles in size every AS
 hours. Thus, if 1t could have been
 nourished and allowed to grow un- checked, 1t now would be several times larger than the earth. Which
 would be a lot of giblets.
 The inanimate little lump of
 flesh is washed in salt water every day, and cut in half every other.
 Dr Carrel has performed hundreds
 of experiments with it. As long
 as anybody wants to take care of
 it, it will go on living-longer than Dr Carrel himself, and perhaps even the Rockefeller Institute.
 Plays That Pay
 One of the pleasant things about
 the play-writing business is that
 an author often can make quite a
 bit of money from play without
 its ever being produced. The req.
 son for this is that when a pro.
 ducer likes a play he pays the owner $500 for six-months' op.
 ton on it. If the option expires
 without anything being done, the
 playwright then can sell an option
 to somebody else.
 There are dozens of strugglinp | authors along Broadway who ek(
 out a lvinig from advances on un.
 born brainchildren. Irving Kaye
 Davis is not quite in that class
 but one of his plays, "Life Wants Padding" is an example. As far as Davis is concerned the play al-
 ready Is a hit, for 1t has made him $5,OO0 and is still unstaged. Mor- ris Green took 1t first five years ago, then A. H. Woods bought two tQptions, then Crosby Gaige, Arch Selwyn, Wood and Brady, Lee Ephriam of London, next Ephriam again in association with Sir AL
 fred Butt and Harry Fisher. The syndicate took two options, which expired. and now another Broad
 wayman has the play.
 Tiilniam Brciscth, a young playwright frcm Minnea polls who has collected three times on one of his manuscripts, "As We Forgive Our Debt
 ors." recall. the funniest op! ton story Of fife decade. An author collected $5,5OO from {,
 a play, until somebody finally got around to producing it. The show was closed after just two disastrous perform
 aDces. Tho name of 1t was "Thc Pearl of Great Price"
 Crab Gambling
 Mentioning novelty gambling
 games the other day--snail and
 beetle racing, and mouse roulette
 this column neglected Fortuna
 which is played with live hermit
 crabs and is a favorite at charity fairs given by society. Each crab about as big as a nickel, is put into
 a cylindrical contraption some thing like a revolving squirrel
 cage. There's hole at the top, though, and in an effort to escape the crab revo1ves the cage. Peo- pie get hysterical watching them.
 The first crab to get out is the winner ... The game's actually
 for sale hereabouts, the crabs com
 ing packed in individual silk bags and with their shells painted in
 bright colors so they can be iden.
 tified. Each bag has a name on il too-Pedro, Juan, Dolores and the
 like.