The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-08-14
The Firing Line By D. N. T.
LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Dear Sir:

Dear Sir:
 I have been a faithful reader of the letters to the editor for the last twenty-seyen years, but this is the first time that I ever have taken my pen in hand to address a communication to you. So please do not think that am nut" And do not think that I am after the "casR," since you are free to publish this as you may see fit. AL so please do not use my name. For obvious reasons I do not want 1t to appear. One of them is that you do not know what it is, as the name subscribed is not my own, but one which found in a novel by William Dean Howell. Or is it Howells?
 am being persecuted. How many times have you seen that sentence in letters to the editor? Innumer- able times, I suppose, though we might counting them. 1,2,3y4,5,6,7, 8,S10,1L,12 IA, 15.16 F IS. .1S-20s21, g, 23,24,25,26,27,28 but why go on? That is, why should go on?' You may continue counting if you see fit, though I must say that, for paper of your standing and repu- tation, to maintain an editor who wastes his time counting the in- numerable is sign of weakness somewhere near the top, and prob ably unconstitutional into the bar gain.
 But I digress. I am being perse- cuted, and that underlies the in- spiration for this epistle. I am be- ing persecuted by coat hangers Not the wooden kind; not the kind upholstered in stuff fo lowered design SO dear to the hearts of all women except those who get them as shower presents. The wire kind The kind on which they hand you back your suits three days after they said they'd be ready. The kind that gives up when over-burdened by such light extra weight as for gotten fountain pen or the car keys and assumes the general outline of croquet wicket or a beer barrel hoop in eIpsis. --
 It is not the functional made quacy of wide coat hangers that disturbs me, however. After all, I always take out my fountain pen before I garage my jacket and I never forget the car keys. My pockets, may I say with modest pride, always are empty before hang up a coat. Or even a pair of trousers, for that matter.
 The omnipresence of wire coat hangers is the genesis of my com lplaint That, and their multitude I must yield to the theory of Sena- tor AnbergriS J. Footstool Con- gressional Record, Jan. IA, 1904, P 42) thtt wire coat hangers are capable of reproducing themselves since I can find no other theory to fit their extensive multiplication in dark closets.
 Do I grope, even carefully, for a sweater, always hanging on its own hook In the closet of the living room, to fend off the miasmic fogs of early morn? Then I knock down one, two, three, and, in rare in stances, four wire coat hangers
 hangers, be it said, that were moi there the night before when reached for the sweater to fend ol
 the clear chill of eventide. I car swear to that, for the one, two
 three, and, in rare instances, foul that I knocked into the pit ant bedlam of the closet floor at even
 tide, took care of, personally anG with my own hands and in my owr trash barrel.
 living room, goes for the closets of
 all the halls and all the bedrooms
 including the spare bedroom, tt which I occasionally repair for saft hangings of my coats in theoreti cally empty space The evil pervade
 the closet off the spare bedroom
 too. Coat hangers fall to the sligh
 wind off the back of my hand.
 I have reached the point where
 no longed bend over to pick then up. This has led my wife to threat en me with proceedings, as she gav' up retrieving for me when she go : the new girdle. Hence, my distrac ton, my sense of persecution, a
 long last freed from my bitter hear
 and given to the public prints. Cal any of your readers help me in m. , hour of need? What do other hus , bands do, or if they are in thu same boat. what are the visiting hours during which I may see them : AnvInaxSlv vOurS