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Your Aug. 3 article on Acting Secretary of Commerce Frederick H. Mueller was a very interesting introduction. However, he did not pull out from the National Association of Manufacturers in disagreement over labor policies. He did resign from another organization [the National Association of Furniture Manufacturers] as he was not in accord with certain of its new policies.
ALBERT N. LEMAN Director of Information U.S. Department of Commerce Washington, D.C.
Up, Not Down
Sir:
Turn backward, backward, O TIME, in your Aug. 3 reporting on Phillips Petroleum Co. Their first-half per share earnings were up, not down, from $1.06 in 1958 to $1.55 for 1959.
JIM FITCHETTE Bartlesville, Okla.
Lord Jagannath
Sir:
Re your July 20 item on Lord Jagannath's annual festival in Puri: your readers might like a look at a copy of Jagannath.
Actually, the Nabakalebara Yatra (ancient ritual of changing the bodies of the god) can be performed every 20 years. But the interesting thing about it is that no one is allowed to see the sacred thing which forms the "soul," and surely anyone who touches it must die. The priest whose task it is to switch the soul from the old to the new body is chosen for his outstanding sanctity, but he never survives the ordeal. It is a fact that the Bhitarachha Mahapatra died immediately after this duty was last performed in 1950.
MARGUERITE RANDHAWA San Angelo, Texas
The Sleepy People
Sir:
After reading your fascinating Aug. 3 account of the sleepy people, we are frankly puzzled. You report concerning a 20-year-old young man who had "the not surprising habit of falling asleep in church . . ." Indeed, we are surprised. Even our babies don't fall asleep in church. They just cry.
(THE REV.) T. R. BAUDLER Secretary
Eureka Ministerial Association Eureka, S. Dak.
Sir:
Reading the article on the sleepy people, I remembered Joe, the fat boy,* in The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club by Charles Dickens. I always thought it a poor invention by the writer, but now I see that it is a classic description of narcolepsy.
ROBERT LENNEBERG, M.D. Rio de Janeiro
* Joe ("Damn that boy, he's asleep again") went on errands fast asleep, and snored as he waited at table.