The Waterbury Democrat., 1935-12-30
In New York
0lm NEA
BY GEORGE ROSS

New York, Dec. 30-The ire de- partment is showing of on Sunday nights at Madison Square Garden with show the hook and ladder boys have named 'The Midnight Alarm" It's 8 great and thrilling spectacle and demonstrates how efi- ciently then fame-fighting brigade comes to the rescue.
 But one of the old-timers in the apartment was telling me the other night about a similar exhibition many years ago that made the fire extinguishers' faces almost as red as their Suspenders.
 Back in 1915, Fire Chief Kenlon decided to put on a department ex- hibition at Town Hall. In those days, ireboxes were under the supervision of telegraph company who rented them out to the city. The unlucky wretch detailed to connect the con- traption in the auditorium strayed out of the place for few minutes to gulp stein of beer. Meanwhile, the fire chief started with his spiel.
 At the high-spot of his discourse, Chief Kenlon yanked the switch and dramatically announced that he would time the arrival of the en- zines. When ten minutes passed in embarrassed silence, the chiefs col- lar had wilted. Someone suggested that traffic might have held up the engines, but this alibi was nullifled when somebody else reported that the block was clear. Finally, after twenty minutes of the most anguish ing wait any city official has had prior to the egime of James J. | Walker, a rebel rose and yelled: Hey, chief, why not send somebody to fetch the boys. The firehouse is just around the corner"
 Midnight Show
 Katharine Cornell continues to cover more mileage per season than any other trouper in America. Shes just returned from a junket of sev- eral thousand miles in towns, large and small. She takese her plays to big cities and hamlets, alike, and she has an equal regard for both.
 Once, she was snowbound west of the Rockies in stalled train and managed to arrive in the next town at A. M. for 8 performance of 'The Barretts of Wimpole Street" The natives hung around the station until that hour, helped her men to move the scenery to the local op'ry house, and the curtain went up on the play at 2 o'clock in the morning. The curtain descended at 5-first time that village had ever remained awake so late. But if it hadn't, Miss Cornell would have kept right on going. Because in Kit" Cornell's transforming jaunts around the country. the show must go on," every night it's booked, come sleet or storm.
 Page Gatti- -Casazza ! Mary Roland lives in the hotel suite once occupied by Signor Gatti- Casazza, the opera director. The Signor returned to Italy last year, nd the person who lived in the ad- joining suite checked out at the same time. To keep in training for her musical numbers in Jubilee" :" Miss Roland daily practices the tunes on the piano by the touch- finger system. She is the first to confess that her piano playing is terrible. While she was struggling at the keys the other afternoon, the guest in the adjoining suite who had just moved back, phoned to ask if Signor Casazza would not please play that selection from Carmen"
 Double Ones, Too?
 They tell me about the society party so snooty that all the guests danced chin to chin.
 Edward J. Reilly, deposed coun- sel for Bruno Richard Hauptmann, always dictates the recipe for the cocktail he orders at Q bar.
 My favorite names among nobility residing in New York: Sir Joseph Ginshurg, Princess Hohenlohe Schif- fiingsfurst, Duke de Verdura.
 This correspondents conscience has been sorely tried. Some time ago, I mentioned the fact that Lu- cius Beebe, the leading bon vivani of New York, would reappear al opening nights in fashionable opera pumps. Two evenings later, MT Beebe lifted a tuxedo leg and dem. onstrated to me how he was mol shod in even single opera pump And he has not sported them evei since. Could this be treachery