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Saturday was a busy day for the Times-Picayune's Photographer Hardy S. Williams. In the morning a Honduran rumrunner broke away from a deputy marshal, tried to smash Photographer Wil-liams's camera with his manacled hands. The alert cameraman sidestepped, snapped. In the evening Williams showed up at the Louisville & Nashville Railway Station with a flock of newshawks who had detected Huey Long in the act of trying to slip quietly off to Washington. (Supposed reason: to try to get revoked the appointment of Lawyer Paul B. Habans, whom he dislikes, as Louisiana manager of Federal Home Owners Loan Corp.) With the Senator was his personal bodyguard, swart Joe Messina.
While Messina waved a revolver. Senator Long charged Photographer Williams, managed to break the flashlight bulb on his camera. Fists doubled, he turned on the Times-Picayune's Reporter Samuel Lang. Quick-witted, the reporter called out: "Get a picture of Messina with his gun out!" Hastily the bodyguard pocketed his gun, fled from sight. Then Reporter Lang challenged : "Come on and hit me if you want to, Senator, your gunman's gone now." Senator Long stopped. looked around, dropped his hands. "I don't want to hit you," he snarled and ran aboard the Crescent Limited for Washington.
Next day the Times-Picayune published a four-column layout of New Orleans' charging wild life with the caption: "Rumrunner and Senator T
Barber's Bible
Year-and-a-half ago the famed old Police Gazette, pink-covered journal of sports news and chorus girls' pictures, fell victim to the Depression. In its 88 years it had passed through a variety of incarnations, beginning as "a most interesting record of horrid murders, outrageous robberies, bold forgeries, astounding burglaries, hideous rapes, vulgar seductions. . . ." It "crusaded against vice" with marvelous and explicit gusto. Under the administration of the late Richard Kyle Fox, who bought the Gazette in 1876, it gained fame as an arbiter and promoter of sporting events, and was such a fixture in barber shops that it was called "The Barber's Bible." It continued to make a feature of pictures of big-bosomed, broad-hipped females, but such fare lacked spice for post-Var readers. A year ago the defunct Gazette was auctioned for $545 to a lawyer who refused to reveal his client.
Last week the new owner and the future of the Police Gazette were revealed. The owner is Merwil Publishing Co. consisting of Irving & Harry Donenfeld and Mrs. Merle Williams Hersey. Merwil Publishing Co. issues five of the smuttiest magazines on the newsstands—Snappy, Spicy, Gay Parisienne, La Paree, Pep. They consist of sleazy stories, drawings and "art study" photographs of undressed females. Mrs. Hersey edits them.