the duties of citizens. But what Mr. Head thinks of business conditions he apparently locks in his bosom.

Some Bananas

The famed Banana Song, however justifiable in 1923, is completely out of place this year. This is not so much due, however, to crop conditions as to the late Spring in the U. S. Ordinarily demand at the fruit stores begins in April, and exceeds the supply until about July 4. But consumers do not eat bananas in sleet storms and cold weather. This year the banana dealers' yellow bunches dangled under their canvas awnings in vain. Importation into New York by one large company is only about half of normal, while prices on a bunch are down from an average of $4.50 to $3.00.

The perplexities of the banana dealers have recently attracted the attention of high finance through the decline of Cuyamel Fruit Co. stock on the ticker tape, amounting to almost 20 points. In addition to the weather, this and other fruit companies have a neverceasing problem with Central American revolutions. Cuyamel owns over 53,000 acres in Honduras, of which 12,000 are under cultivation for bananas. These properties are the chief sources of revenue for the Government and employment for the inhabitants, so in the recent Honduras revolution both parties avoided injuries to Cuyamel's banana groves.

Mr. Hertz's Deal

Mr. John Hertz of Chicago (TIME, May 5) is not easily discouraged. Beginning as a copy boy at eleven in a Chicago newspaper office, he emerged a few years ago as the genius of the Yellow Taxicab and other kindred companies, whose tremendous rise was the sensation of the Chicago Stock Exchange in recent years. Then he brought his stocks east and listed them on the New York Stock Exchange, where they underwent a disconcerting deflation. As if to repay New York's lack of hospitality, Hertz has now completed a new $25,000,000 coach merger, whereby the Fifth Ave. Coach Co. of New York is to be merged with the Chicago Motor Coach Co., along with the New York Transportation Co., under the title of the Omnibus Co. of America. The Interborough Rapid Transit Co., which formerly owned 51% of Fifth Ave. Coach, sold out to the new combine.

Mr. Hertz, now a national figure, got his start in the motor business as an automobile salesman, and his start as a motor operator by buying three taxicabs and borrowing seven more. From this start the Yellow Taxicab Co. of Chicago sprang. Hertz succeeded in injecting responsibility and economy into a chaotic industry.

Meeting

High over the Bay of Bengal sped a lone seaplane, bound for the coast of Burma. Looking down on the watery waste, the pilot beheld three other seaplanes, west-bound. The man above was Major A. Stuart MacLaren, British Air Force; the planes below bore Lieutenants Smith, Wade and Nelson, of the U. S. A. It was the meeting of history's first roundthe-globe air-racers, but the participants did not stop to exchange greetings.

The American contingent led by some 6,000 miles, having completed more than half of their 23,000-mile circuit when they alighted that evening at Calcutta, India; whereas the Briton had about 17,000 miles be tween him and England when he reached Rangoon, Burma.

Three divisions of the Americans' flight remained: Calcutta to Constantinople, Constantinople to Hull, Hull to Mitchel Field, L. I. (via Iceland, Greenland, Canada). They were expected to be back in their hangars by Aug. 8.

Night Mail

Far less dramatic than the world flight-but infinitely more important —is the inauguration of the 36-hour night air mail across the Continent. New red, white and blue mail boxes will be placed at many important points in New York City and at various stopping places along the route. Mailable matter will be carried provided parcels do not exceed 50 pounds in weight and 48 inches in girth. Rates are: eight cents an ounce for any one zone (the three zones being between New York and Chicago, Chicago and Cheyenne, Cheyenne and San Francisco) and 24 cents an ounce for the entire trip. It will be a deep source of chagrin to stamp collectors that no special stamps will be issued.

The westward voyage will require 34 hours and 45 minutes, the eastward trip 32 hours and 5 minutes. The discrepancy is due partly to helpful winds on the return trip, partly to the fact that westward the pilot is beating the sun, eastward he is travelling in a direction opposite to that of the sun, and therefore (see Einstein's relativity) flies faster over Mother Earth.

The actual night flying zone will extend only 1,460 miles between Cleveland and Rock Springs, Wyo., with 335 miles from Cleveland to Chicago, and 240 miles from Cheyenne to Rock Springs, illuminated only when the long days of Summer have disappeared. The illuminated airway, a marvel of engineering, has received the coöperation of the General Electric Co., the Sperry Gyroscope Co.

and the American Gas Accumulator Co. The combined candle power of all the lighthouses and beacons wil be 5,279,000,000. At the main lighting stations (Chicago, Iowa City, Omaha, North Platte, Cheyenne) the towers will carry electric light bea cons of 500,000,000 candle power vis ible for 150 miles, set slightly abov the horizon to meet the eye of the pilot in the sky, and flashing 'round in a circle three times a minute. In candescent acetylene lights of 5,000, 000 candle power will flash at intes mediate points, 22 miles apart and every field will also have all obsta cles illuminated, floodlights for the actual landing, and illuminated win. vanes. The planes themselves will be lit up at tip and head.

For the present, the service wi still use the remodelled DH plane of 90 miles an hour cruising speed and 500 pounds capacity.

Post-Postponed

Again Captain Roald Amundse Norse North Pole habitué, was give pause on his way to the Earth's uppe end. This time the impediment was 2 invoice from his Pisa (Italy) plane makers for £14,000. Until that wa paid, said they, he would have to con tinue waiting at Christiania for hu three Dormier planes.

Hearing of his embarrassment, the Italian Government gave Amundsen te days to find money before it reorgan ized the Polar flight under Lieut. Loa telli, the Norwegian's chief pila Amundsen was to be offered the post c sub-commander under Locatelli.

To that plan Amundsen said: "I re fuse. I hope to find the money. I w go next year."

Said U. S. Secretary of the Na Wilbur to Lieutenant Ralph Davis American pilot of Amundsen's No. plane: "Come home from Rome."

The first setback Amundsen's polt flight received was early last Wim (TIME, Jan. 28), when his plan financing himself through the sale motion pictures was scuttled by nouncement of the U. S. S. Shen doah's now-abandoned trip.

Another expedition is about to sta from London for the Arctic region Under the auspices of Oxford U versity, it will aim for North-E Land, an island 90 miles square, north, east of Spitsbergen. North-East La baffled Norwegian explorers in 187 Germans in 1912.

The Oxonians will use a specially de signed seaplane, having a closed cab and equipment for ice landings. It wi carry a collapsible boat, provisions fo five weeks. George Binney, leader last year's Oxford expedition, will c mand.

10 sald Edgar Saltus, the close friend and din

S ner companion of the most sensational literary

character in history, and he added, "If any mortal ever could talk as the high gods do, it was Oscar Wilde."

There is an eloquent story about Wilde: He never made a commonplace remark and yet he was proJected into a society that loathed the unusualand he was confronted by ice. A moment and the ice melted. A moment and those people were in turbulence.

While he was riding the crest of popularity, and everybody was saying that Oscar Wilde was the most brilliant wit and romancer of his day-suddenly, calamity!

"I became tired of dwelling on the heights and descended
by my own will into the depths..

That was written by Wilde himself in the most pathetic confession in literature, "De Profundis." The fingers that penned the light and carefree "Happy Prince" were tearing oakum in a prison. The Beau Brummel who was the Prince of Paradox was thrust into the most terrific paradox of all. And he had said:

E These bizarre events aroused a vicious public opinion. Овсаг Wilde was one day an idol of popularity and the next he was anathema in the public eye. To this day he is not understood, he is a sensational puzzle.

And so a group of fifteen leading men of arts and letters now step forward to introduce, as it were, Wilde to the American publie. Most of these men knew him intimately, and they reveal his personal character and his work with vivid illumination that makes intensely interesting reading.

The sponsors for this surprising set are:

RICHARD LE GALLIENNE
Editor in chief

SIR JOHNSTON FORBES-ROBERTSON

WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS

WALTER PATER

COULSON KERNAMAN

EDGAR SALTUS

RICHARD BUTLER GLAENZER

DR. CLIFFORD SMYTH
A. B. WALKLEY
JOHN DRINKWATER
ARTHUR SYMONS
JOHN COWPER POWYS
MICHAEL MONAHAN
W. F. MORSE
PADRAIC COLUM

What these men say is divided into twelve parts as introductions for the twelve volumes.

Then in Wilde's work you will have a scope of reading that includes the wonderful "Ballad of Reading Gaol" and that weird story

"Salome" and the daring novel of Lon

don high life and low life, "The Picture of Dorian Grey" and the play called "Vera, or the Nihilists," where human love and passion is in conflict with the cool calculalations of anarchism. Such versatility is part of the sensation surrounding this conspicuous

publishing en

enterprise.

There is something irresistible about Oscar Wilde. Was it because he is the author of so many witty and penetrating epigrams? Не would say:

"A cynic is a man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing."

"A saint has a past, a sinner has a future."

"The happiness of a married man depends on the woman he has not married."

"Wickedness is invented by good people to account for the curious attractiveness of others."

Or was it because he wrote the greatest ballad in English literature. No-these are true-but Oscar Wilde's greatest attraction lies in his sparkling style that plays with the great truths of lifehumorous and tragic-in such a compelling way that he fairly rivets your attention. That makes people want his books.

Now the works of Wilde, scattered to the four winds at his downfall, finally are recovered-from overseas publishers, from friends, from papers. The twelve covers of this unusual edition will encompass all this storehouse of enchanted literature.

Olympians

Natives of Cherbourg, France, are accustomed to seeing a towering ocean liner anchor off their low-lying shore. Familiar to them are the fussy tenders that cuddle under the great ship's flanks to receive issuing streams of scurrying men.

But unfamiliar are the Gauls, seeing the much-laden tenders labor shoreward, with hearing a mighty shout go up to Heaven, with hearing an answering roar from the U. S. S. Pittsburgh, with seeing some 300 picked American athletes spring ashore to the blaring strains of Hail, Hail, the Gang's All Here and The Stars and Stripes Forever.

America's 1924 Olympic team, safely landed, entrained for their chateaux at Rocquencourt and Colombes; pulled out of the Cherbourg station, flinging pennies, nickels, dimes to a curiosity-loud populace. Set down at their chateaux, they unpacked their luggage, recovered their land-legs, settled down to a fortnight of final conditioning. The swimmers went off to swim, gently at first. The runners loped, tentatively. The muscular mastodons perspired. Meanwhile another ocean liner moved out of New York harbor to plow her long furrow eastward over the Atlantic. Appropriately named the Homeric, this ship bore more of America's cohorts to Olympian conflict in the distant land. On her decks lounged the famed Yale crew who, with their slender octoreme, had been rushed aboard still panting from victorious exertions against Harvard on the Thames (TIME, June 30).

Other passengers on the Homeric focused much of their attention upon the chieftain of those eight bluebroidered heroes. Ed Leader, crafty coach, did not pass unobserved. "Al" Lindley, brainy, bespectacled strokesetter, moved tall and silent down the decks. But the cynosure was James S. ("Jass") Rockefeller, Yale and Olympic crew captain.

Great-nephew of the wizard-of-oil, son of William G. Rockefeller, grandson of James Stillman, this stalwart scion of honorable American lines, gazed, brooding, on the horizon. Bending among his men on a mid-thwart, he had swept with them to shouting triumphs on home waters. Now he led them forth-the bronze-skinned ones-to conquer the oarsmen of the world, as warlike Menelaus led the bronze-greaved Argives against Troy of old. Would his heart and theirs be stout enough? Could he counsel and exhort them to his Nation's glory?

Arthur Brisbane, famed editorialwriter, pictured Rockefeller haranguing his men on The Psychology of Attempting the Impossible, a favorite and perfected theme of his astonish

ing great-uncle; pictured him stirring them with winged words, plucked bright and burning from the original Greek of the first Olympic leaders.

"Remit naught of your fierce ardor!" he may cry in mid-Seine. Or, in the lockers ere the race begins:

"Subjects for disgrace, are ye not ashamed? Why stand ye here astounded, like fauns. . . ?"

Play was led at 147 the first day by E. R. Whitcombe, popularly ranked as Britain's second best (after exchampion A. G. Havers). Play was still led, at 302, for 72 holes, by Whitcombe, until sleek "Walto" added up his 301 and shook hands with everybody. It was a brilliant "victoree," it re-convinced golfdom that beneath "Walto's" glossy and bond-salesman manner there lie rock-ribbed nerves and a truly sporting temperament. Scores: (Par is 76, record 70). *Hagen .77 73 74 77-301 E. R. Whitcombe......77 70 77 78-302 *Macdonald Smith ..76 74 77 77-304 Frank Ball J. H. Taylor Geo. Duncan *Jim Barnes

.........

..76 77 74 77-304

.75 74 79 79-307

.74 79 74 81-308

78 77 79 75-309 Other Americans present but obscure: Gene Sarazen, Gil Nicholls, Johnny Farrell (disabled by boils).

Buffalo Invitation. At Buffalo, N. Y., Glenna Collett collected. Since that now-famed Buffalo women's invitation tournament was first held (1922), Glenna has twice collected at Buffalo. Prize packages for Glenna this year were the low medal (won in 80) and pretty Edith Cummings, Empress of the nation's links (done 6 and 5 in the final). Empress Edith shaved the women's course record to 78 in Round No. 1.

Trans-Mississippi. At St. Joseph, Mo., James Manion of St. Louis made himself Trans-Mississippi champion. by scotching Eddie Held, defender, on the 36th green of a sizzling semifinal; by smothering Lawson Watts, fellow townsman, 11 and 10 next day. Held left St. Joseph with the qualify

American.

ne of which sufficed him for the ntire 13th hole. Intercollegiate.

At Greenwich, Conn., the qualifying field of collegite golfers found itself seven strokes ehind six-foot Lauren Upson of Calfornia. His 145 strokes included nine oles in 3 and two in 2.

To Yale went the team match; Dartmouth second, Harvard third, Princeton fourth.

Match play suited Upson until the emi-final. There he became impaled in the putter of W. H. Taft of Dartnouth, who promptly sank back 6 and ; before the Nordic siege-gunner, Dexter Cummings, defending chamion. To the Intercollegiates a twowear victory was unique.

Milk Fund

"We want milk!" cried the poor children of Manhattan.

"We want blood!" cried the public. Ten strong men were found to acerate one another in the Yankee Stadium. The children were fed; the public gorged.

The chief lacerators were Harry Greb, untiring Pittsburgh dervish, and Ted Moore, British challenger for Greb's world's middleweight boxing title. Moore's "beak" and "button"t afforded the champion 15 rounds of target practice with few interruptions.

Staggering blindly, Ermino Spalla, Italian Colossus, sought refuge on the floor from the rude jars dealt him by Gene Tunney, American lightheavyweight champion; was declared technically unconscious in the seventh round.

- Old Black Joe Gans, his head bending low, heard no gentle voices calling as he parted painfully with his "colored middle-weight championship." What he heard, and felt, was the "sock, sock" of dusky Larry Est-ridge's hard-driven mittens.

Young Stribling, truant "Georgia schoolboy," flashed to a decision over Tommy Loughran, Philadelphia lightheavyweight. Two heavy nonentities padded out the program.

Figures: Attendance, 45,000; gate, $200,000; for the Milk Fund, $75,000.

College Tennis

At Haverford, Pa., furious lefthanded service, an upward-ripping backhand like Gerald Patterson's, crashing overhead blows stopped all the collegiate courtsmen who pitted themselves singly against much tanned Wallace Scott of the University of Washington. Arnold W. Jones of Yale, the other finalist, was dismayed by the ball's perpetual presence on his side of the net.

Lone Star Staters, Lewis White and Louis Thalheimer of Texas University, kept jealous guard of their doubles title.

*Nose. †Chin.

Low Taste

In Manhattan, it is to the New York American (Hearst) and the Daily News (Chicago Tribune Co.) that sensation-mongers, scandal-gluttons and other addicts of "the pandering press" turn to gratify their low tastes. Το The New York World and other papers, a higher class of reader turns for "legitimate" news, vigorous editorials, tasteful "quality" advertising.

Many were the readers of the World on June 29 who, beholding the following advertisement in its columns, turned startled eyes to their paper's title-line to discover if their newsdealer had not made some mistake:

Just Published!

"THE PRICE OF THINGS" by Elinor Glyn,

author of "Three Weeks"

Here is a novel that will open your eyes! Each succeeding chapter grows more daring. From the Magic Pen of Elinor Glyn flows a throbbing tale of audacious characters, startling incidents, sensational situations, daring scenes, thrill after thrill! So realistic is the charm, the fire, and the passion of this fiercely-sweet romance, that the hot breath of the hero seems to fan your face. Your blood races madly at the unconditional surrender of the delicious heroine. You kiss her madly and seem to draw her very soul through her lips!

And then comes the big scene! Midnight has struck-and the heroine, sleeping peacefully, dreams of her husband.

When Frank I. Cobb, Editor of The New York World, died last December, TIME printed excerpts from some of his most noteworthy editorials. His editorials were the kind that did not lose their flavor with their timeliness. Now they have been collected in a book, Cobb of the World.*

Laurence Stallings, his assistant, told apropos of the appearance of the vol

FRANK I. COBB "Republican leadership is bankrupt"

ume some of the facts of Cobb's last days:

"The last memory I shall have of Frank Cobb was on the day following Harding's death. He was propped up on his bed, for he was in steady, enduring pain. For a lifetime he had surveyed the forces at play about him with a vigor almost unprecedented in journalism, a profession wherein only the vigorous survive. I had gone to his house that he might dictate to me a few notes to his colleagues on the succession of Mr. Coolidge to the Presidency.

"Cobb of The World was dying, and he knew it. He sat there among his pillows, wracked, without a thought of himself. It was literally true, Cobb of The World was thinking of the world. He said to me: "Theodore Roosevelt, succeeding to William McKinley as President, fell heir to an almost perfect party machine, which never in his time failed to function. Today Republican leadership is bankrupt, rent by faction, oppressed by mutterings of revolt.'

Press Agentry

Press agents are the product of ethics in journalism, just as criminals are the product of law in govern

ment.

When newspapers were in infancy,

COBB OF THE WORLD-Edited by John L. Heaton (his colleague)-Dutton ($3.50); limited edition ($10.00).

in infancy which knows no morals, they made no distinction between advertising and news. For pay or for influence, they advertised in the form of news whatever they chose. Now the larger papers, having acquired a sense of responsibility to their readers, sedulously rule out of their news columns all advertisements. This led to the development of press agents, who manufactured news that would render incidental advertisement. With a detective eye the best newspapers watch and reject this stuff.

Last week, however, several leading editors were apparently outwitted by a press agent. A man, who signed himself "John Cromartie," wrote to the Director of the Bronx Zoo, New York City, and suggested that the Zoo was incomplete without a specimen of the human race, and offered himself for exhibit in the monkey house. The New York Times printed this information and reported what the Zoo-Director said he had replied to the offer:

"As an honest and upright citizen, with no police record and with no axe to grind at some other man's expense, you would be a perfectly legitimate exhibit here alongside our upright apes and bounding baboons from the African outdoors. But it will not do to install you here, as your presence would be denounced as a reproach to the majority of the proletariat and an insult to predatory man.

"The minority is too weak to defend you, even on the basis of a harmless, but necessary, educational exhibit. It can not now defend itself. The times, and possibly the world and sun also, are out of joint."

A similar offer was received by a Zoo-Director in Boston. Arthur Brisbane, Hearst editor and omnivorous reader, saw this and of course commented. It remained for Franklin P. Adams (F. P. A.), of The New York World, to remark:

'Here's one original thought,' writes Mr. Brisbane in The American. John Cromartie, citizen of New York, writes to the Franklin Park Zoo in Boston, saying he'd like to be exhibited in the monkey house with the other primates, to show how much man resembles the ape.' It is, as Mr. Brisbane so well puts it, an original thought. Original, it must be added, with Mr. David Garnett, author of the just-published A Man in the Zoo. By a strange coincidence Mr. Garnett hit upon the name John Cromartie also. And Mr. Cromartie had himself exhibited in a cage in the Royal Zoological Gardens, London, with this card on it: 'Homo Sapiens, MAN. This specimen, born in Scotland, was presented to the Society by John Cromartie, Esq. Visitors are requested not to irritate the man by personal remarks.' Oh, well, even Mr. Brisbane can't read everything.

The press agent, if such he was, had succeeded in outwitting the combined intelligences of two ZooDirectors, the City Editor of The New York Times, Arthur Brisbane, an editorial-writer on the New York Herald-Tribune, and doubtless several others.

A MAN IN THE Zoo-David GarnettKnopf ($1.75) was reviewed in TIME, June 30.