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You also assert that the city is selling these houses "for $1 apiece to anyone of limited income." The city charter states that city-owned properties are to be sold by bid. The bill complies with the rules of the charter; the bidding price for the houses and properties begins at $1. Thanks to the sincere efforts of Coleman, a hard-working freshman councilman, the concept of urban homesteading may revolutionize the entire process of urban renewal throughout the nation.
KAREN E. RILE
Philadelphia
Emergency Care
Sir / The improvement of in-hospital medical care is most encouraging [Aug. 13]. However, you should also point out that before the patient arrives at the hospital, emergency medical services are usually abysmal. The ability of most communities to get to a patient quickly, to stabilize and properly treat him on the scene and to deliver him to the appropriate facility is, with a few exceptions, grossly inadequate.
In addition, the President's recent veto of the $ 185 million emergency-medical-services bill is a direct failure to meet previous statements and commitments to provide high-quality emergency services to all who need them.
MELVYN P. GALIN
Lexington, Mass.
Minor Writer?
Sir / Willa Gather a "minor writer" [Aug. 13]? Unequivocally this places the reviewer, Martha Duffy, in the category of "lost lady": she has befuddled her thinking with today's hollow tomes. Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop has been one of America's most enduring classics..
PAUL WILHELM
Thousand Palms, Calif.
Sir / Your review of the Knopf reissue of Miss Cather's A Lost Lady was fine, and I thought a shrewd appraisal of her, except that you took no note of the book's price, $7.95. It bears on a point of some interest to writers now, for the oblivion that swallowed her until now was of her own creation, due to the agreement she made with Alfred Knopf that she was never to be published in cheap editions. Tempus of course fugitted; my The Postman Always Rings Twice appeared in paperback for 250, and the floodgates were opened. But she was left high and dry: unwittingly, by her somewhat smug stipulation, she had committed literary suicide. Very soon, of course, she'll go into the domain, and then we'll see what we see. Personally, I would think your tag "minor" will preclude much of a revival, but it could happen.
JAMES M. CAIN
Hyattsville, Md.
Occupational Hazard
Sir / "Tennis toes" [Aug. 13] are in actuality nothing more than an extremely mild form of what those of us who are mountain hikers know as "downhill toe jam." It is a simple result of the laws of physics. Increasing your body weight by a heavy pack, then compounding the effect of your toes hammering into the front of the shoe by walking downhill, brings on a far more serious malady than mere tennis toes.
Basically, tennis-toe sufferers have little to be concerned about compared with the far more painful effect of the mountain hiker's occupational hazard.
ROLAND GIDUZ
Chapel Hill, N.C.