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Being a student of heraldry, I found the cover [Laurence Olivier, TIME, April 8] most interesting. In heraldic terms the blazoning (or description) of the shield would be:
Parted per pale; the first argent, a cross gules; second, azure, a swan proper, ducally gorged and chained or.
The pennon carried at the end of the lance would be blazoned:
Quartered per cross; the first azure, three fleurs de lys or, two over one; second gules, three lions passant, couped at the neck, one, one, one of the second; third of the second and fourth of the first.
These insignia . . . were the only possible way of knowing with whom one Was fighting; the duties of the herald required him to know by memory all of the outstanding coats of arms of the day.
Persons who design their own arms . . . seem most often to violate the basic rule of heraldry—namely, that a field of one color can be charged only with gold or silver, not with another color; while a field of gold or silver must have charges thereon in color. No metal can be placed on metal; no color on color.
JOHN GOLDSTON
University City, Mo.
¶ To Reader Goldston TIME'S thanks, couchant; TIME'S warning, passant' that not all experts will accept his blazoning.—ED.
Hangman Pierrepoint
Sirs:
I find it a bit difficult to understand how the passage of so short a time could have mellowed Captain L. E. Davidson's recollection of Pierrepoint, the British hangman [TIME, April 8].
I too was attached to the 6833rd Guardhouse Overhead Detachment, the Army's execution plant at Shepton Mallet, England, and as I remember Mr. Pierrepoint, he fell far short of Captain Davidson's picture of "a farmer who had come to the village to sell his produce." As far as I'm concerned, he was straight out of The Hound of the Baskervilles, and would have been right at home with Inner Sanctum.
C. J. ANZULEWICZ
Shamokin, Pa.
Dollarettes
Sirs:
I propose the name "Dollarette" for the new unit of money which we are adopting by upping wages and consequent prices. There is no need of kidding ourselves that a dollar is still a dollar.
L. F. HASZA
Chicago
Absolute Zero
Sirs:
Re TIME, March 25:
". . . cooled by liquid hydrogen to minus 432°F. At this temperature—close to absolute zero—columbium nitride becomes. . . ."
Did you suffer a "lapsus typographicus," or has absolute zero retreated over 159° since I went to school ?
A. R. L.
Mexico City
¶ Neither. Reader L. was thinking in Centigrade (absolute zero: —273.18°), TIME in Fahrenheit (absolute zero: —459.72°).—ED.
Darker Night?
Sirs:
. . . Your remark about "night falling over Russia 29 years ago" [TIME, March 25], small though it may seem, has quite an effect on a reader's mind.