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I have heard this story five times in different parts of New England. Yesterday I read in the latest copy of The New Yorker—from the letter from Paris—the following: ". . . A gipsy woman got into an autobus and sat down next to a Parisienne who moved her handbag out of the gipsy's reach. The gipsy said, 'Why do you do that when you have only 18 francs in your bag?' The woman had exactly that sum. Then the gipsy told each of the other passengers how much he or she had, down to the last sou. 'Since you know so much,' one passenger asked, 'tell us when Hitler will die.' 'On December second,' the gipsy said, and got out at the next stop."
This must be the French cousin of our story. Or is ours the American version of the French story? Is there an English cousin? Will this story pop up wherever Hitler's mere existence is a blight or a threat? It is almost a folk tale already. I should like to hear further news of it.
D. W. FLINT
Concord, N. H.
> Stop right there!—ED.
Major Bob's Boys
Sirs:
Hearty congratulations to TIME for recalling its Sports Editor from the Antarctic coverage of ice hockey among the penguins, or wherever he has been during Major Bob Neyland's twelve years as Head Football Coach at the University of Tennessee!
He should, however, brush up on what has been happening throughout the long years of his absence before bursting forth with any such smug, sectionalistic, and effete example of ignorance as his "minor league," "hillbilly," and "subsidized players" effort in TIME, Oct. 30. True, circumstances have forced him to dig up a few bouquets to toss at this year's team and "the Major," but his apparent reluctance to do so and his "scoop" discovery of Tennessee as a major league team have forced this constant reader of TIME to take up his pen and write his first letter to an editor.
To begin with, Tennessee has had winning football teams, studded with All-America and All-Southern players, bedecked with the scalps of the best teams in the country, so long under Neyland that it is rumored that the football extras of the Knoxville newspapers are made up before the games—leaving only the space for the score to be filled in when the results of the slaughter come over the wire. (Egad! And slight pause to cool.)
. . . If Tennessee has just attained to the major league of college football this year, then the Yankees were unheard of before their invasion of Cincinnati and Joe Louis was just another Detroit boy with a bad temper before he pommelled Lou Nova. . . .
DONALD McSwEEN
Tenn. '37
Lebanon, Tenn.
> For Tennessee's major league team, three old-fashioned cheers! —ED.