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Cameron, Wis.
Best authorities agree that Max Baer or any other hard-hitter might knock out a cow or bull by punching it between the eyes, but it would certainly not kill the beast, certainly would break the puncher's hand. There is no record of a prizefighter's trying it. However Max Baer, while helping his father in the butchering business in California, sometimes slugged cattle unconscious by punching them in the short ribs. Jack Dempsey, the late James J. Corbett and other pugilists have tried their hand at steer-knocking in the Chicago stockyards. The knocker wields a 3-lb. hammer, swings it down on the steer's skull, just above and between the eyes. The object is not to kill but to stun the animal to facilitate shackling for slaughter. It is a feat of skill rather than of strength. Neither Dempsey nor Corbett could match the practiced steer-knocker's formula of one knock per steer.—ED.
BCG in Louisville
Sirs:
I noticed in your issue of TIME, June 25, on p. 53, an article stating that 7,000 children had been vaccinated against tuberculosis with BCG in Louisville, Ky.
To my knowledge not a dose of BCG has been given to any child in Louisville, and I wish you would correct this statement.
OSCAR O. MILLER, M.D.
Medical Director
Waverley Hills Tuberculosis Dispensary Louisville, Ky.
For a tongue-slip on the part of a high authority on tuberculosis control, who said "Louisville" when he meant "Nashville," TIME'S apologies.—ED.
Equitable's Coal
Sirs:
I was interested in your item on the Equitable Bldg. changing from oil to coal (TIME, July 2, p. 49). . . .
Further details: This building generates all its own electricity for lighting, elevator power, ventilating power, and makes all its own ice as well as steam for heating purposes. The Combustion Engineering Co. are now installing the latest model Coxe Traveling Grate Stoker and the Jeffrey Mfg. Co. are installing special ash-handling equipment. The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Coal Co. ("blue coal"), tenants of the building, were a factor in bringing about this change, and their engineers assisted in planning this coal-burning installation.
Other "dangerous precedents": The Lamp, organ of the Standard Oil Co. of New Jersey, urged in a recent number that "fuel oil should not displace coal for ordinary purposes." A serious shortage of fuel oil, they indicate, is in prospect.
Standard Oil's Bayway (N. J.) refinery is equipped to use either oil or coal for power. In June the company contracted for 100,000 tons of coal. . . .
Coal production, not only because of cold weather, but because of the prices of competing fuels, has run 60% ahead of last year during the first five months of 1934. . . .
Real significance: Especially in the domestic field, the gains made by oil have been due to its convenience—no shoveling, no ashes, automatically regulated temperatures. Fully perfected equipment for burning coal with similar convenience, greater comfort and less expense is now on the market. . . .
HAROLD A. HOLBROOK
The Coal Herald
Boston, Mass.
Speculator Relief
Sirs:
I am a speculator. My account is under-margined.