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Balked by Ice

AERONAUTICS

When Lieut. Leigh Wade and Sgt. H. H. Ogden greeted their commander, Lieut. Smith, at Reykjavik, quaint Iceland town, Smith murmured a few words of sympathy to the men whom he had last seen drifting helplessly at sea (TIME, Aug. 11). Wade, still grieving at the loss of his ship and at being out of the glorious adventure so near the goal, burst into uncontrollable tears. With difficulty his comrades quieted him, cheered him further with the news that by express command of the Chief of Air Service himself, a new Douglas World Cruiser was on its way to Pictou, Nova Scotia. Here Wade will rejoin the flight and sail triumphantly home with his comrades.

But, perhaps, none of them will sail triumphantly home.

Greenland is in some respects one of the most mysterious regions of the world. Vast in size, having a territory perhaps one third as great as that of the U. S., it is inhabited. by only about 14,000 Esquimaux. The Danes, who rule the Island, forbid the entry of all other men, knowing the deadly influence of whites upon these savages. Besides, it is doubtful if anyone would journey to Greenland with a view to settling there, even if the Danes would permit it. Greenland is 4,000 to 5,000 feet high throughout, rocky, craggy, eternally covered with several hundred feet of snow. A few tiny ports and harbors on the lower coast levels are open part of the year, a couple of months at most. This year the weather has been most unfavorable; a frozen and drifting sea, for a width of 30 miles, now guards the entrance to the eastern and southern shores.

The fliers were in a painful position. From Reykjavik in Iceland they were to fly to the Eastern shore of Greenland at Angmagsalik. Even this point was 750 miles from the Icelandic harbor. From here they were to fly to Ivigtut on the western shore of the huge continent of Greenland, sheltered from easterly currents and therefore open later in the seaBut with Angmagsalik closed,

son.

it was possible that they would be forced to the truly terrible non-stop flight of 1,000 miles from Reykjavik direct to Ivigtut right across Greenland's icy mountains. In the cruiser Raleigh, however, Rear-Adm. T. P. Magruder

searched the southern shores of Greenland for an open space; it was also possible that Sir Ernest Shackleton's ship the Quest might be used as an ice-breaker. There still remained the alternative of breaking the flight from Reykjavik by refueling in the open seanone too pleasant to contemplate in these rough waters.

Worn, Broke

The world-fliers are not the cheery men who landed gaily in Croydon, London's airport and adjourned merrily for refreshments of pre-prohibition character. They are tired-out and nervous. The last few flights seemed to have worn them down more than the previous 18,000 miles.

Certain differences of temperament and opinion have brought sharp criticism and retort from formerly friendly lips. And the uncertainty as to further advance is harrowing. Also they are broke. The Government allowed them $8-a-day expenses on the world flight and they will have to account for every dollar to recover. Yet in London alone they spent $300 apiece for their Arctic equipment; they are $1,000 out of pocket. "Will we really fly home and will we ever get our money back?" are not worries that these brave men deserve.

Successful Failure

According to Postmaster General New, the first month's operation of the New York-San Francisco night mail has involved heavy losses; not in ships or mail but in expense as balanced by special revenue-this, in spite of an intensive and nation-wide campaign to secure patronage on an adequate scale. The Postmaster General hopes for improvement. If six months' trial shows none, business men may lose the service.

On the physical side of operations, success is remarkable. In the first 31 days of the service 173,910 miles were flown. In spite of cloudbursts, tornados and severe electric storms, average westbound time of 39 hrs. 49 min. and eastbound time of 36 hrs. 21 min. were maintained. The poorest air mail schedule was 30 hours faster than that of the best rail schedule.

BUSINESS

Current Situation

Industry and trade are in the doldrums, which is partly due to seasonal causes, and partly to more serious factors. Steel and iron, motors and textiles seem distinctly stale. The oil industry seems unable to halt overproduction Landlords are beginning to wonder whether enough tenants are going to "come back from the shore" this Fall to occupy all the available shops, houses and apartments. Merchants are keeping their stocks down and their hopes up. Enthusiasm, curiously enough. confined to agriculture and finance. For once, the wheat farmers and Wall Street are on the same sidr of the fence.

seems

Money continues easy, and, judging from the last cut in the Reserve rate may be expected to continue so for some time. Foreign political outlook is visibly brighter, also foreign bonds and exchange in consequence. Domestic finance is absorbed by railway mergers on a large scale. International finance is even more alert over coming foreign loan flotations.

The coming barrage of political bombast and fustian may chill the somewhat delicate bloom of trade and industrial sentiment. Indeed the stock market seems to reflect such an occurrence. Yet the country has survived many major political campaigns, and probably will manage to this year, too. Meanwhile prospects for better business are extraordinarily bright and pronounced. while current business for the most part is extraordinarily dull and unsatisfactory.

Summer in Wall Street

While general business is dull this Summer, the same cannot be said of finance. In the matter of vacations as in many other things, Wall Street is opportunistic. During dull Summers, attendance in the Stock Exchange and in investment and commercial banking circles during July and August is notoriously slim. This Summer, however, the usual vacations are not being taken. Millionshare days on the Exchange have reappeared. Railroad mergers are not merely being discussed but be ing effected. Utility propositions are to the fore. The long-suffering bond salesman is coming back into his own again. Despite the sweltering heat, executives and traders arrive early and leave late. Not since the Summer of 1920 has there been the activity in the financial centre that has been witnessed during the past month.

Frequently in the past, activity in

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¿Cuántas letras tiene el alfabeto? El alfabeto tiene 28 letras.

Cuántas manos tiene Pablo? Pablo tiene 2 manos.

¿Cuántos brazos tiene Nicolás? El tiene 2 brazos.

Cuántos dedos tiene Luisa? Ella tiene 10 dedos.

Cuántos libros tienen Pablo 7 Nicolás? Ellos tienen 2 libros.

Cuántos libros tienen Luiss 7 Elena? Ellas tienen 2 libros. Yo tengo 1 libro y usted tiene 1 libro; nosotros (usted y yo) tenemos 2 libros

Tiene Pablo 2 manos? SL ¿Tiene Nicolás 3 manos? No. ¿Tiene Pablo 2 brazos. St. él tiene 2 brazos.

¿Tiene Nicolás 3 brazos? No, él no tiene 3 brazos.

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Wall Street would presage general business activity to come from three to nine months afterwards. While this is by no means an invariable rule, still merchants in New York who are somewhat disgustedly conducting very languid "Summer clearance sales," are wondering if they, too, may not look for livelier trade this Fall and Winter.

Steel

One of the favorite barometers by which to judge business conditions is the iron and steel industry. Just now, however, while such factors favorable to recovery as easy money and liquidated stocks are present, the slump in iron and steel gives little sign of pronounced improvement. It is perhaps the uncertainty in Pittsburgh more than anything else which makes business forecasters hesitate to predict marked prosperity in industry and trade just ahead.

Reserve Rate Cut

Apparently one of the chief ambitions of the New York Reserve Bank is to surprise Wall Street. The character of its actions is usually forecasted in the financial centre correctly enough, but no one can ever tell ahead of time when they will occur. Usually changes in the rediscount rate are made Wednesday, yet Aug. 6 came and went without developments. Then the next day the Bank quite unexpectedly cut its rediscount rate from 32% to 3%.

The new rate is more in line with the open market rate on acceptances of 2 to 1%, and call money at 2. It has also been surmised that the new rate indicated that the Bank sought to expend its loans to earn more money, and that it indicated that the Reserve authorities did not expect higher money rates this Fall to any considerable extent. This latter conjective is important if true; a sudden rise in money rates would not only prove a real shock to security traders, but interrupt much foreign and domestic financing, including perhaps several railroad mergers now under discussion.

At present New York's rediscount rate at 3%, is the lowest in any of the world's money markets. This will serve, in the long run, not only to repel foreign capital from this country, but to send our own capital to the more profitable foreign money markets. America's career as a genuine international centre of finance has begun.

Nickel Plate System

All last week the indefatigable Van Sweringen brothers (of Cleveland) labored, and not in vain. In their bulging bag of railroads reposed the Nickel Plate, Erie, C. & O. and Hocking Valley, but they continued to gun for the Pere Marquette. Chairman E. N.

Brown of that road tactfully refused to sacrifice pleasure for business and remained absent on vacation. In his stead the Seligmans, bankers for the Pere Marquette, have expertly held our for the most favorable terms obtainable There have been conferences, rumors. more conferences and more rumors. Stockbrokers have been no losers through the continued uncertainty.

Finally a "semi-official statement" of the consolidation plan was given to an anxious world by parties unnamed. provided for the creation of a bran new company (the New York, Chicag & St. Louis Railway Co.) to acquir and hold the stocks of the old "Nicke Plate" (the New York, Chicago & St Louis Railroad Co.), the Erie, the C & O., the Hocking Valley, and the Per. Marquette. The new company will have two classes of stock, common and 6. preferred, which will be exchanged ir varying ratios for the stocks of the several roads going into the merger, of terms apparently favorable to all concerned. On the basis of 1923 earnings of the several roads involved, the new Nickel Plate would earn its fixe charges nearly twice, its preferred divi dends almost four times, and its comm dividends

at 6% over twice. The Nickel Plate Railway system will have total assets of about $1,500,000,000, total trackage of 14,357 miles, and be the fourth largest trunk line railroad system between the Atlantic and the Mis sissippi, ranking after its chief competi tors-the New York Central, the Pearsylvania and the B. & O.

The new system, according to ex

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erts, will be sound from a traffic as ell as from a financial standpoint. 'ere Marquette will serve to collect cal traffic, and to distribute coal from e C. & O. The original Nickel Plate nd Erie systems between them provide n excellent fast freight line into New Tork from the West. The Hocking Valley serves to connect the mileage of he C. & O., Erie and Nickel Plate. The consolidated system will touch New York, Chicago, St. Louis, Cleveland, Peoria, Newport News, Toledo, Detroit, Buffalo. The old Erie gives it one seaboard outlet on the Atlantic at New York, the C. & O. another at Newport News.

One weakness much commented on in stock market circles lies in the fact that the new Nickel Plate system will not Couch Pittsburgh. This means a heavy loss of valuable freight, and for some times rumors have been afloat that the Van Sweringens would also acquire the Pittsburgh & West Virginia road to strengthen their system. Some Cleveland parties, unknown, have purchased 40,000 shares of this road from che Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., with an option on 34,000 shares more; his is about a quarter of the total 300,00 shares of the road. When the Van Sweringens are asked about this, they mile and change the subject. On the asis of this rumor, it is also rumored hat the Cleveland brothers will also cquire the Wheeling & Lake Erie, which has the most direct line between he Pittsburgh & West Virginia and he new Nickel Plate system. The abilEy of the Van Sweringens to acquire ailroads has been so extraordinary that ow they are thought quite equal to cquiring any local railroads they parcularly want.

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-emitted through the natural national mouth, Manhattan.

As the S. S. America steamed up from Quarantine, the heroes and heroines heard a sudden vast cacophony of factory whistles, ferry-boat hooters, tug sirens, automobile horns.

Docking at Hoboken, they were confronted by an attentive swarm of U. S. Customs men, who opened, rummaged, scrambled the baggage with all that suspicious efficiency which is ordinarily accorded to millionaires, screen queens or famed pugilists.

At the Battery, "cheering thousands" awaited. There were "salesladies," stenographers, clerks, bond-salesmen, commuters, street sheiks, idlers, "bummers." There were "representatives of 23 organizations"-chiefly athletic clubs and life insurance companies. The heroes and heroines sailed across from Hoboken. The Fire Department Band struck up the National Anthem. All sang, all cheered, all marched to the City Hall. Mayor Hylan's Reception Committee was there and Mayor Hylan himself, with a typewritten speech clutched firmly in his damp and clammy hand.

Mayor Hylan read his speech, placing tactless emphasis on minor unpleasantries the Americans had suffered in France. Colonel Robert M. Thompson, Chairman of the American Olympic Committee, corrected this bad impres

What
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Knows

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curately the credit of nations that would borrow. Such nations now seek loans on extraordinary terms. London knows their history, character and financial record -their necessities, possibilities and the value of their promise to pay.

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The National Financial Weekly

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1. The Faith of Kings and Peoples.

2. A Government that Pays its Debts. 3. British Grit Maintains British Credit. 4. The French Record and Today's Problems, 5. Will the Soviet Keep the Czar's Faith? 6. Europe United for Austrian Reconstruction. 7. Resources and Bonds in South America. 8. The Credit of China and Japan.

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BULLETIN

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of 12 Books and a year's subscription to Book Notes for $1.90. The parcel contains the following titles printed in good clear type and bound in colored paper wrappers, size 5 x 7.

THE DARK FLEECE by Joseph Hergesheimer

AN AMATEUR by W. B. Maxwell THE SPANISH JADE by Maurice Hewlett

THE DUEL by Joseph Conrad

THE TOUCHSTONE by Edith Wharton NORTH OF FIFTY-THREE by Rex Beach UNEDUCATING MARY by Kathleen Norris CAPTAIN WARDLAW'S KITBAGS by Harold McGrath

MA PETTINGILL TALKS by Harry Leon Wilson

THE BEAUTIFUL LADY by Booth Tarking

ton

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the arena, on a platform hedged with ropes, a creature with a "splendidly white skin and a figure that would suggest a Greek god to a woman novelist," lay flat upon the canvas and basked with them.

Had this creature's eyes been open he would have seen airplanes circling in the heavens, gay flags and bunting flying from the Stadium flagpoles. He would have heard a vast roar of many voices in the grandstands.

But his eyes were tight shut.

His ears heard nothing. He was not conscious. The basking man was Jack Bloomfield, onetime light heavyweight boxing champion of Europe, knocked horizontal by the hammering face, rib and head blows of Tom Gibbons, of St. Paul, Minn., in the third round of what had been scheduled as a 20-round fight. The winner surveyed his handiwork, returned to his dressing room, ate ice-cream.

Gibbons, the "phantom" who lasted 15 rounds against Dempsey last summer at Shelby, Mont., received £10,000 for seven minutes' work. Basking Boxer Bloomfield was given £6,000.

201 vs. 183

Jack Renault, Canadian heavyweight boxer, stepped on the scales in Brooklyn, registered 201 pounds. Bartley Madden, 183-pound Manhattanite, watched aghast. The two proceeded to the ring of Queensboro Stdaium, where Renault battered Madden about with both his great hands and won the judges' decision.

Renault will now be touted vigorously as a target for Champion Dempsey, second in line only to the winner of the Firpo-Wills lambasting match in Newark on Sept. 11.

Book of golf Gay Bachelors

sion before the Mayor distributed his City's largesse among the athletes in the shape of gold medals for one and all. That gesture completed the welcome, save for a beefsteak dinner uptown, to which all rushed hungrily.

One "color" account in the newspapers described lower Broadway at this moment: "The terra cotta canyon was visited by a blinding, whirling mass of paper, stock tickertape, torn newspapers and shredded telephone books which were hurled from the thousands of windows that overlooked the street."

Basking

Wembley Stadium and some 60,000 Britons basked beneath a cloudless August sky. Out in the centre of

amateur

At Springfield, Mass., oarsmen stripped off their clothes, put their shells in the Connecticut River, stepped their sweeps, held the 52nd national amateur rowing regatta.

When they unstepped their sweeps, lifted out their shells, put on their clothes, the Bachelors' Barge Club of Philadelphia had won the Barnes trophy for the club championship.

Of all the gay Bachelors, W. E. Garrett Gilmore was the gayest. Not only had he contributed heavily to his club's point total by winning the Association singles sculling event and finishing second in the senior quartermile clash. He had also become National single-scull champion, for there was none to meet him in the challenge event.* Last year, at Baltimore, a Buffalo policeman, Officer Edward McGuire, and a Lake Ontario fisherman, Hilton Belyea, were on hand to challenge Paul V. Costello, 1922 champion. The police

*Only former winners of the Association singles may challenge for the national championship.

man, a burly man, won. This year he stayed on his beat in Buffalo.

Algeron E. Fitzpatrick, of the Malta Boat Club of - Philadelphia, Gilmore's conqueror in the quartermile race, trailed three lengths behind over the mile-and-a-quarter stretch. Gilmore's time, a new As sociation record was 6 min., 46

sec.

Eight stalwarts from the New York A. C. kept the national eight title in this country by nosing past the Lachine Rowing Club crew, o Quebec.

In England

At Stamford Bridge, England, Brit ish women outleaped, outran, outthre their French, Belgian, Czecho-Slo vakian, Swiss and Italian sisters in international track meet. World's rec ords went splintering on every hand Mary Lines, "Paddock Feminine," who starred for England in the first Wo men's Olympiad at Monte Carlo 1922, won three events. Her countrywoman, Miss Trickey, won the 1,000 metre run. A French giantess won the discus throw and shot-put. Italy's alibi for finishing last was that four of her most active athletes were halted at the Italian border.

Tennis

Davis Cup. Not by Jiu-Jitsu but by Zenzo Shimizu, Japan shunted Canada out of the Davis Cup play, at Montreal. "Shimmie," Captain of the Nipponese, baffled both members of the Canadian team, Willard Crocker and Jack Wright, in singles matches. Okamoto did likewise, the Canadians' only win being the doubles, against Okamoto and Harada. Score-Japan 4, Canada 1.

At Baltimore, the Australian team -Gerald Patterson, Pat O'Hara Wood, Norman E. Brookes-brushed an ineffectual Mexican contingent aside.

Australia and Japan thus faced each other in the finals of the American Zone. The winner will play France, European Zone winner, and the winner of that match will gain the right to compete against the U. S. in Philadelphia, Sept. 11, 12, 13.

Satisfied that tennis officials now regard him as an amateur, William T. Tilden II, accepted the U. S. L. T. A.'s invitation to play No. 1 on the American Davis Cup team "Little Bill" Johnston said he would be second racket. The ban on "Big Bill" Tilden for writing about tennis as well as playing it, would not be come effective until Jan. 1, 1925 in any case, but his being invited and his ready acceptance indicate that the furor is over permanently.

Southampton, Society milled about the Meadow Club, at Southampton L. I., babbled on the verandah.

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