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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (March 31, 1952)
MPi? I jA I ,JVK2 GRABBING OAR AND JABBING killer whale In eye. H. W. Van Buren, 50, of Petaluma. Cal., saves self and fellow fisherman when whale clamped Its jaws on craft's rail and keel, ripping two holes In boat while pair were fishing 30 miles north of San Francisco. Pillow stuffed in hole, fishermen rowed to Island. (International) A Nichols? Worth of Comment On This and That IY HARMAN W. NICHOLS United PttM total-Writar Harmon Nichote Washington (U.R) You pen write a letter to mom and post it and what is the cost? Paper, practically nothing, ink the same, and stamp three cents. But say you are a wheel in business or the gover nmen t, and brother, the cost runs up to about a dollar a letter. I got my in formation from John M. Breen, educational director for the cor respondence improvement divi sion of the Kemper Insurance Group. "In 1950," Breen said, the cost per letter was about 85 cents. Last October, the price went up to 96 cents. As of this writing, it is 100.3 cents. The figures, according to Breen, were gathered in a sur vey and are based on "efficient letter operations." Machines Involved These involve the use of dic tating machines in typical big business offices, that send out a combined total of 70,000 letters a month. Gf course, if you are a small firm, the cost would be consider ably less. But for the big operator, the cost breaks down like this: Salary of the person dictating, 25.3 cents. Cost of the paper, envelopes, and printing, 6.3 cents. Machines use repairs, replace ment, new machines, 4.2 cents. Rent and overhead, which takes in a lot of territory, 4.1 cents. Employee benefits like group accident, health, and life pro grams, including girdles ripped on wooden chairs, 1.5 cents. Typist Gets More Salary of typist for transcrib ing, 40.5 cents. And I wish you would note that she gets more than the dictator, or perhaps it takes her longer to transcribe it than it does the man to dictate, , Stamps and cost of mailing, 6 cents. Miscellaneous, including about 20 different items, 12.4 cents. The folks who made the sur vey had so many files on the miscellaneous they could not break it down by the item. . But anyhow, it ali' adds up to 100.3 cents. Eight Minutes Common How long does it take a ttg shot to dictate a letter? "Sometimes a couple of min utes, sometimes a lot more, Breen said. "But commonly you could say about eight minutes." The average time of transcrib ing the typing from the dictating machine disc is about 13 min utes." A lot of that depends on the hemming and hawing of the per son who is dictating and the speed of the secretary as she takes it off the record player. Record Cheaper The record playing-back deal is cheaper, of course. If a secre tary has to use shorthand, you have to consider something else. It is going to duplicate her effort to have to transcribe the letter onto paper, and maybe have to do it over if she misspells a word. The people who made the sur vey have a few little tips on writing letters. If the man you want to write to is in the same town pick up the phone. Or hand-write him. And if you must write, don't "goozle." A "goozler" is a person who turns fires into "conflagrations" and makes "soon" read "at an early date." . s 3y sTsn Gfekens Back Yonder The axmen of the old days in the Lake States went up the tote roads in the autumn. In virgin woods the boss picked a site for a camp, the ground was cleared, and log bunk and cook shanties, a stable and a feed shed were thrown up. While the camp was in the making the boss blazed the skid trails. A main road for the sleigh-haul was marked first, usually , along a creek which would provide the water for an ice bottom in winter. It ran from the projected loading skidway in the woods to the banking ground on the river. From the skidway, trails led to all corners of the woods. The camp up, the roads and trails were cleared, and the crew began to get out the logs. In the early days felling was done by the axe alone. Brawny choppers faced off in pairs, with a kingly pine between. Rivalry ruled. The first to cut into heartwood was the king-jack of a chopping team. Along the trails the pines fell with a crashing thunder. Bull whackers with oxen or teamsters with horses snaked the logs to the skidways, or hauled . them on travois. sleds. Sleigh Logging ... At the skidway another team ster, his horses hitched to block and chain, and cant-nook men piled the logs. There the pine logs waited for the snows. With the first heavy storm and freeze ef winter, the main road was iced, and the sleigh haul was on. The sleighs were ponderous bobs, with bunks nine feet wide. ' The first log loaded was an chored in the middle to balance the . bunks. Then a log was chained to each side and others packed in by the loading team and cant-hook men. Binding chains secured the load. On the peak log the teamster halooed. The huge 'horses bellied down, their calks gouging the ice. The iron runners screeched. The logs shook and settled. Over a glassy track the great load slid to the banking grounds. Hay was used on the hills to hold the runners off the horses. . A hard and primitive life in the deep, dark woods. Heavy and dangerous labor from dawn to dusk. Sourdough- bread, baked beans, salt pork and boiled tea on hewn-log tables. Hard double decked bunks for sleep. The fire a blazing pyramid of logs on the open "camboose" in the center of the bunk shanty, the smoke escaping through a hole in the roof. Nine and ten months of such a life in the primeval forest before, the drives were down. . Such was the life of men in pipneer Michigan lumbering. They were mainly Irish, Canadian-French and Scotch, the "shan ty boys." In camp they made a tribal life, the boss their chief, with their own lore and tradi tions. From their isolation and the entertainment of camp nights the mighty- myth of Paul Bun yan was born, to follow lumber ing to the Pacific, and eventu ally to astound the professors and the literati of New York. Later . the logging railroad penetrated the woods, to rival Screwball Escapades at Oregon State Penitentiary Revieved By WILLIAM WARREN United Piatt Correspondent Salem, Ore. (U.PJ Screwball comings and goings at the State Penitentiary. A woman prisoner calls a cab and escapes. Dimes are counterfeited at the hog slaughter house at the Pris on Farm annex, smuggled out and passed-r-all for a total pos sible sum of five dollars. A guard smuggles in a gun, ammunition and dynamite so three men in the bull pen can break out on their promise to stage a benefit holdup for him. A couple of convicts hide in a laundry truck hamper destined for Portland. Taxicab Caper Relished Those who collect queer hap penings the way some connois seurs collect old wine and young women relish particularly the taxicab caper. A woman, prisoner working as a practical nurse in the dep uty warden's home outside the walls but within the spacious grounds, called a cab one night, strolled nonchalantly down through the gate, caug'nt the cab at a street corner near the pris on and had the driver take her to Portland. She paid for the trip with money she had stolen from the purse of the deputy warden's wife. In Portland, state police believe, she met a chap who had been paroled from the prison only two days before and last rumored of, they were bound out of Seattle apparently for Canada. State police picked up the common law wife of a convict and found half a Bull Durham sack full of counterfeit dimes. They said she admitted passing some of them in Salem stores. State police said her convict companion admitted smuggling the tobacco sack full of phonies to her. He had found them on Hog- Hill. State police theorized with the aid of some witnesses that an old timer who had served before - for counterfeit ing but who was doing a stretch in Oregon for another crime, had made the phony dimes out of babbitt in the slaughter house boiler room. He denied the charge, and the federal grand jury in Portland did not return a true bill against any of the three. But state police do know that some of the phony dimes were passed around inside the prison walls, where they were used for gambling purposes and for buying an occasional pack of contraband cigarettes. All money is contraband within the walls, so the boys were just play ing with a reasonable facsimile of the real stuff. It is believed that whoever made the phonies did so with that sole purpose in mind of using them instead of real dimes or poker chips just intramural, you might say; with in the walls. Apparently the WWTiA Ik - L M Z2T) c VH;H rA CUTTING COSTS-Secy. of the Army Frank Pace Jr. fleft) is escorted through mock battle area at Fort Hood, Tex , by Maj. Gen. R. B. Woodruff. The maneuvers are the largest in history. The cost has been trimmed from original estimate of $9 000 000 to $5,300,000. Another million is hoped to be cut from the cost before the operation it concluded April 1L the river drives. The "big wheel" succeeded the travois sled and rivaled the sleigh, mak ing summer logging, and civil ization entered the camps. But the sleigh haul and the river drive remained the romance of the woods. sack full of phonies was forgot ten by the maker and were later found by another trusty who passed them on to his unlicensed spouse. Hid in Hamper A couple of convicts hid them selves in a hamper aboard a truck load of prison-laundered linen bound for the state tuber culosis hospital in Portland and got outside the walls into the prison garage. There the truck was to be driven to Portland at midnight. But guards missed the two, made a check and found them. But it was an intriguing try attempting to make a wean getaway in a load of laundry. A guard got behind in his fis cal affairs and made a long chance attempt to some quick cash by smuggling a gun, a few rounds of ammunition and some dynamite inside the prison. The explosive contraband .was hid den in a cell. Prison authorities discovered it before it could be smuggled to the three men in the bull pen who were going to make the escape try" It is sur mised they planned to use the dynamite to blast the rail gate through which freight cars pass in and out of the prison. The gun was to stage that benefit holdup. The guard is still working with in the walls but without pay and in prison garb for his part in the escape plot. These are all recent screwball business. But the Rube Goldberg of them all occured during war years when one convict master winded a plot to burn down the prison flax plant in the hope of more paroles. There was a manpower shortage then, re member? And the convict reas oned like this: Made Fire Bomb The parole board wasn't granting paroles because the prison needed men to man the flax plant. Ergo, burn down the plant and the state wouldn't need the men and so would parole them. He made a fire bomb by wrap ping string he got in the laundry where he worked, into ball with a few matches at the score. He persuaded one of the men work ing in the flax plant to drop this fire bomb in a pile of tow in the flax plant just before quitting time. The con did so without de tection. The string burned slow ly round and round like a fuse. When the smoulder reached the matches voom! Fire in the flax plant! Two hours or so after all the men were locked within their cells. Sure looked like an accident. But the state police arson squad went out, anyhow, to make a routine check, and it took them all of five minutes to uncork the plot. And what do you know? No paroles! Monday. March 31. 1SS2 MEDFORD (OREGON) MAIL TRIBUNE THREE Iroquois Still Practice Sacrifice Washington (U.R) Sacri-arie in the last half of the seven- fices to ghosts still survive in the Iroquois nation despite the inroads of the white man's so ciety. ' The principal act of faith still practiced by the Iroquois is the feast of the dead. The ritual is based on the belief that members of the tribe have two souls one that enters the spirit land, leav ing behind all concern with af fairs of the world, and the other that remains earthbound, circu lating among the living. It is to this second soul or "ghost" that sacrifices of burned offerings, food, music and dances are made, says the Smithsonian Institution. Any illness, real or imaginary, called "ghost disease" is attributed to some dissatisfied ghost and good cause for the various "feasts. The general features of the ritual for any cause are essentially the same. This great and elaborate cere monial was witnessed chiefly by French explorers and mission- teenth century. Since that time, however, few outsiders have seen the "feast" ritual because con temporary Indian generations have tended to modify and re strict the occasion to single tribes, communities, or families. GOT MORE THAN COFFEE Syracuse, N. Y. (U.R) He was only "in search of a cuppa cof fee," pleaded Frank S. Ilacqua, 41, when police nabbed him in a diner after closing hours. Skepti cal detectives charged Ilacqua with burglary when they found on him: Two wrenches, two screwdrivers, one hammer, $1.08 from the cash register and 18 nickels from a pin ball machine. NOT FOR GARDEN USE Corinth, Miss. (U.R) One mistake cost Mrs. G. B. Voyles' children their vegetable garden. fertilizer. J Lamps Proposed To Dry Playing Fields ' Cleveland, O. (U.R) Heat lamps, long a standby In sports dressing rooms for lame athletes, are moving out into Vie playing field. At least Robert T. Dorsey, sports lighting expert far West inghouse, believes it is possible. Dorsey contends that if infra red lamps are used to dry off wet playing fields, a great many games would not have to be post poned. " The technique of drying play ing fields by infra-red lamps has been used at least once and Dor sey considers it a success. That was last November before the game between the University of California and Stanford. In addition to drying off soggy gridirons and baseball diamonds and helping ' heal aches and sprains, Dorsey suggests that infra-red lamps also be used to keep players warm on the bench. 1 MMfBte Saxt UaiqL ftmtScreral fkm W 1. Bay 1 Gat Super Kem-Tont 4?? 2. Git a $1.39 Super-Cushion on RoBtr-Koattr for only 39 3. 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