The Washington times., 1936-06-04

you must take my word for it
The thing to do then is also
to ban all publicity on the
movie houses, theaters, reStaur.
ants, hotel lobbies, private par
ties, musicales and literary teas.
Once at an affair in a penthouse,
where two Operatic stars were
-" guests of honor, among those
present was a notorious local
bandit now in the hOOSegOw.
His reason for being there was
that he was invited because he
was particularly partial to the
soprano warbling Of one of the
Operatic stars and never missed
a night at the Metropolitan
when she sang. might add
that the hoOdlum-king behaved
very decently, threw no plate
ware, drank lemonade, made no
passes at the women, made no
threats and none of the silver
ware was missing after he left.
It Is not my belief that the
abolition of night clubs or the ces-
Sation of publicity, column men
tionS, dramatic page blurbs about
night clubs or night clubs enter
tainers will ameliorate the evil
which we know "jewel thieves, con
men, blackmailers, ETC." indubi-
table are. AS a matter of fact, if
these gentlemen of the underworld
used the night spots as their ex-
elusive huddling places I should
think it would be a good thing all
around for it would save the gend-
armes considerable trouble. 1t
would be so simple, then, it appears
to me, to round them up quickly
merely a matter of invading the
night clubs and arresting the male
factors.
My objections to eliminating
night clubs or the publicity
about them is that the next step
would be the closing of theaters,
restaurants and all public-meet-
ing places, including the
churches. If for no other rea-
son, I cannot lend myself to the
suppression of night clubs and
night club publicity because that
is also part of the crusade
which the gentle Black Legion
has as one of its objectives-
along with the abolition of Cath
OlicS, Jews and Negroes.
There is a sequel to the story
we printed here the other day
concerning the mysterious Mon
sieur Robert, who breaks glasses in
night clubs after finishing his
drinks. Jim Moriarty, of the Bali,
asked him, after he had paid a bill
of about $40 for broken glassware,
what he did when he was at home.
Did he break his champagne
glasses there, too, after drinking.
"Sir," replied Monsieur Robert,
"My drinking equipment at home
is all in solid gold!"
There is another eccentric
or perhaps very Shrewd gentle
man in tOwn-reputed to be a
retired millionaire, who each
morning promptly at 8 o'clock.
approaches the cigar stand of
snOOty Fifth Avenue hotel where
he resides and goes through a
daily ritual. This consists of
buying a single stick of gum for
which he hands the cigar clerk a
crisp $5 bill. In return he re-
ceives $4.99 change. Always in
three One-dOllar bills which he
folds neatly and places into one
Of those gold clips, three quar-
ters, five nickels, nine dimes and
nine pennies. Invariably he
throws the gum into the waste
receptacle before leaving the
counter. Once, when the curl
Gus cigar clerk asked him, why
he wanted his change just that
way, he explained. The nine
pennies are for the three papers
he buys daily. The nine dimes
are for his shine and his minor
tipping around the hotel. The
three quarters are used for his
tips to the walters at his three
daily meals. The nickeIs are
for the subway-he rarely used
cabs. The So remaining is his
limit for all other minor expen-
ditures Of the day, excluding his
meals, drinks, etc.
Sylvia Sidney" writes Herb
Cruikshank, will be among the
missing at the premiere of her
starring picture, Fury" because,
as you said, she Scrammed for
London and the Gaumont-British
studios. Will you tell me why
star like Sylvia wants to go over
seas to work? Look: Suppose she
gets 100 gees (and we hear it's
q little more, but round numbers
make arithmetic easier). Ten per
cent comes off the top for the
agent, which leaves 80. Look up
the income tax rigmarole and
you'll discover that Whiskers
takes about SO per cent in these
brackets. That leaves Sylvia $45,.
900 so far. But Johnny isn't as
dumb as he looks in the political
cartoons. He'll take about half
the gross, too-which leaves the
Sidney gal owing herself money
without mentioning ferry fares,