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Re your March 31 story on the London motorbuses visiting the U.S. with their "cockney" drivers: I see that you have fallen for the pernicious idea that all London workingmen drop their aitches . . . Unfortunately you are not alone in this habit. Our own BBC always finds it necessary ... to put "local" and plebeian language in the mouths of policemen, bus and taxi drivers, artisans and the "working class" in general. If TIME was a genuine student of the London scene, it would be aware that "cockney" idiom is almost extinct. This stigma of an elementary education has been eradicated to a great extent by a progressive educational system and improved social conditions . . .
F. B. DAVIS
Streatham, London, England
Marriage (Ugh!) for (Gulp) All?
Sir:
I wonder if Al Capp realizes that his recent action [in marrying Li'l Abner to Daisy Mae] may force millions of red-blooded American boys to get married ? For years, Li'l Abner has been the bachelor's ideal. Now that he is married, only one course of action is open to us. Get hitched. Couldn't there be just one more miracle?
BILL ANDERSON
Louisville, Ky.
Sir:
I would like to take this opportunity to express my sympathy at the passing of a great American satirist As the last bastion in defense of the vanishing American man, he, almost alone, valiantly bore the struggle on his capable shoulders. With little help but a great deal of sympathy from his own species he struck terrible blows at the gods of matrimony, offering a smile of hope to the beleaguered American male. But, as is the inevitable lot of those who would scoff at the goddess Venus, he fell victim to the very thing he fought . . . This great satirist now gambols about his new-found Elysian fields along with the movie moguls and advertisers, caught up in the perfumed product of their own imagination and in the daily propitiating of the Great American Female . . . Those of us left behind can only mourn his memory and look for a new champion to replace the great Al Capp.
JOHN BODNAR
Binghamton, N.Y.
Hell & Hamfat
Sir:
Having been one of those half a million Americans who had the pleasure of viewing Don Juan in Hell, I was pleased to read your excellent March 31 article on Charles Laughton and associates . . .
H. H. COBB JR. Evanston, Ill.
Sir:
Please correct the error made in your Laughton article where you state: ". . . Chautauqua in 1925 quickly and quietly faded away." In my opinion, this worthwhile institution is very much alive today at Chautauqua. Its religious and cultural programs are without parallel. During the season the Chautauqua Symphony programs are broadcast to a nationwide audience. The summer opera maintains highest musical standards. New York University offers extension work there to a host of educators from all parts of the country . . .
NORMAN P. HEWITT
Philadelphia
¶TIME referred to the fade-out of Chautauqua as a nationwide institution, should have made it clear that the original Chautauqua still flourishes.—ED.
Sir: