Evening Star Newspaper, May 18, 1930, Page 94

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, MAY 18, 1930. W ashed Ubyu. C.O.D. ,Holmbrook. It came out of a clear sky in a bundle of bed linen. HEY say that a fortune awaits the person who can invent an effective method of laundry-marking socks without the use of metal clips.” Prob- ably another fortune awaits the per- son who can invent an effective method of about clowns reveal so much of tragedy. After presenting his inimitable one-man base ball game for several successful seasons, Slivers Oakley left the world—a suicide—because the public had tired of his specialty. After many years as the children’s favorite at the New York Hippodrome, Marceline tried his skill with cir- cus audiences and, defeated, follo Sliv- ers Oakley route. Y‘l’r-levotthedueendanuolthmevho kidded kings continue to kid both com- mercial potentates and villages. Not long ago I joined a few hundred other ruralites on the hard blue seats of a little show which played the villages in Connecticut. Right after the trapeze artist had made his final bow a fellow in white face and one-piece suit bounded into the magic ring and declaimed as he had declaimed for half a century: Weather it's cold Or weather its hot We shall have weather Weather or not. He got a laugh with that old quatrain just as he got it 50 years ago. After the performance I joined old John Lancaster in Clown Alley. I shouldn’t call him “old,” T suppose. At 72 he is a boy at heart. While* wiping the clown white from his round face he recalled some of his jesting experiences. “One morning, many seasons back,” he said, “I was playing bass drum in the clown band on the grand, free, glorious street parade, when our band wagon, as part of the parade, stopped in front of the Newport, R. I., office of E. H. Harriman & Co. ‘Hello, Eddie,’ I yelled at a dapper little mustached gentleman standing on the curb just below my high, hot seat. “The little gentleman looked up and blushed. The men around him let out a laugh. As it'is a clewn’s privilege to yell at any one, I forgot the incident as soon as the parade got under way again. “I was doing & clown cop bit that tenting sea- son, and while clowning the come-in -for the matinee I spied an elderly lady leading a small girl by the hand. ‘Hello, grandma,’ I hailed her genially. She flushed, but smiled gamely as I conducted her to the reserved section of the k4 longing for self-expression by decorating the shirts and collars. Every once in a while you read about some poor unfortunate, weary of breath, who is picked up in pieces and identified by the laundry marks on his collar. The laundry mark would come to the conclusion that he was not an individual, but a corporation. At the present moment the shirt I am wear- ing bears the following etryptic legend: H-37- PKT-19-X-15-4P149-A-660-34. As for my col- The inscriptions are tantalising help feeling that they have a hidden Aces of Clowinf'Alley. exclaimed. He once more smiled. “q did,” I admitted rather lamely, “but I apologize for that familiarity.” “‘Oh, that's all right,’ the empire builder told me, looking pleased. ‘Here’s my card, with my New York address. Any time you are in the city send in your name and you'll get an au- dience. I won’t keep you waiting, either.’ liked my funny stories. His private secretary, from my own Southern town, told me his chief was going to do something handsome for me. But the great man died before he got around to it. & “] didn't expect anything from him, anyway. I never heard of a wealthy clown. I just keep on trouping, quite satisfied to make old and young folks laugh at my ‘Joey’ business. But I hope, when my life’s season’s closed and I re- port to St. Peter at his gate and ask, kind of timidly, ‘Is it time to make up? Is the front door open?’ he’ll say, ‘Come right in, John. You'll ind your wardrobe trunk in our Clown Alley. “So I'm not worrying about my future.” Like most clowns, John is a philosopher as well as a comedian. Names for Classes of Flour. TH.E question of what to call flour is more complicated than a first thought might indicate. In fact, it is so complicated that the food standards committee has been unable to make a complete clean-up of the nomenclature.’ Whole wheat flour, entire wheat fiour, un- bolted graham flour and graham flour are one and the same, while flour, wheat flour and white flour are identical and at the other extreme of the flour scale. Just what to call the flour which lies between is the puszie. Bolted graham flour has been suggested for the graham flour from which part of the bran has been removed, but this first serious suggestion toward a name has not been adopted as official, a vague sense of uneasiness; for all he knows, they may be unflatiering com- ments upon his personal appearance, his taste or his morals. The laundrymen may have with indelible ink. And the very next time we sent it out with the rest of our laundry it dis- ; 'we haven't seen it since. Y The old-fashioned laundry that buttons and put deckled edges on Thappily, a thing of the past. Modern . i 3 as;giigig ‘This was followed by Hdkfs, Bdspds, Bthmts,. Tbinkns and other cryptic phrases ‘which ine dicated a sudden shortage of vowels, and the piece ended with a sort of coda or envele: Total Weight - Flat Work Ezxcess Family “Thinkns.” “I don’t know,” I confessed. I thinkn’ and see what happens.” She did. Nothing happened. When our The neckband would bafle any archeologist. Drawn for The Star’s Sunday Magasine by Stuart Hay. specialize in “service” and their atiitude toward their customers is really quite material. They darn your socks and sew on buttons and make general repairs, without being asked. True, they use a - sailmaker’s stick in their darning and seldom erect a new button on site formerly occupied by the old button, their intentions are' certainly good. patronized the Rainbow Steam Laundry and heels of my socks were not they were embroidered; I used were walking on a guest towel. always & buttan for every underwear. They were distributed intervals, like stars in the sky. buttons were there, in the name of The only drawback to the Rainbow Laundry was the firemen shirts. We ing out.plain white -shirts gaudy flannel affairs with big: size of after-dinner mints. use to us. We didn't even to slide down. (e} that we were starving A send her modest bundles of shirts, socks and laundry came back the following Friday, there was nothing remotely resembling a thinkn, Neither were there any shris, scks or hdkfs. “We didn't put our figure high enough,™ said Phoebe. “Probably . they we weren't in earnest.”. The next time we itemized six of everything, including counterpanes light and counterpanes heavy.” We also inclosed with our list three of my shirts as evidence of good faith. But all that came back was a handsome bedspread embroidered with the coat of arms of a hotel in Brooklyn. e So we switched to the “Silver Spray Wet Wash, and then to the Aunt Emaline Rough Dry. At present we sre patronizing' the Littlé Hercules. It it fails us, we shall try: the Ching Ho Hum PFrench Hand Laundry, or the Old Irresponsible Steam Laundry. There are plenty Though Phoebe and I have changed dries on an ‘average of every three. weeks the last two years, this doés -not mean - we are discontented or hard to please. from 1it. But hope springs eternal in hu man breast. If Little Her¢ doesn’t your shirts back, there is always a possibility that Ching Ho Hum will.. ' After all, those shirts must be somewhere—and possession s nine points of the laundry. g ;