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In Mexico City, human bones in a crystal casket (inside three other containers), discovered sealed in the wall of an abandoned church, were certified by antiquarians to be those of Conqueror Hernando Cortes. Promptly a squabble arose. Should they be given a Catholic burial? Did they belong to the nation? Outgoing President Manuel Avila Camacho settled it. The bones would be returned to the abandoned church and the church made a national monument. In Buenos Aires another squabble arose over another late Spaniard: famed Composer Manuel de Falla (The Three-Cornered Hat), dead only a fortnight (TIME, Nov.25). The Spanish Embassy announced that the body would be repatriated to Spain. But De Falla, protested Spanish exiles, had fled his country because he could not stomach Franco. While the point was argued, three cops were posted at the composer's tomb to guard against a body snatch.
Just Folks
Errol Flynn was sued for $35,000 by a young seaman who said he had been accidentally harpooned by someone on Flynn's yacht and then not properly cared for. The Duchess of Leinster, onetime Gaiety Girl Denise Orme* and now sixtyish, was fined with daughter Llydia in London for having 30 counterfeit clothing coupons. And Heiress Barbara Hutton, back from her villa in Tangier, had scarcely checked into the Paris Ritz before a handsome blond count had to tramp on a rumor. There was "no question of any marriage" with her, declared Count Alain d'Etudeville, head of Moët et Chandon (champagne). Said he with more precision than gallantry: "I've known Barbara for nearly 20 years. . ."
Hon.'s Here & there, a statesman preferred not to make an issue of it: Trygve Lie had his chauffeur plead guilty of speeding (and pay a $15 fine) in New Rochelle, N. Y., let it be known that he had finally decided not to "press the principle of immunity [for U.N. personnel] in the instant case. . . ."
To Sir Stafford Crlpps, who tries to make Britons happy about rationing, came a letter from a woman who professed to have been touched by the difficulties he was having. Cripps had remarked that he was always tangling his toes in the holes in his old bed sheets. The woman offered a helping hand: she actually knew a place, said she, where a fine pair of sheets could be bought, for $25.20. "My sheets," replied Cripps, gently reversing his field, "though mended and turned, are quite adequate to my needs, and I would not dream of having a new pair yet."
General Douglas MacArthur, looking uncommonly trim and young for his age (66), squared his shoulders and joined Red Army Major General Kislenko at the Russian Embassy in Tokyo. There he lent his five-star person to an important celebration. Occasion: the 29th anniversary of the Russian Revolution.