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Show Customs Court Endless Quiz Sums Involved Greater Than Radio Give-Aways NEW YORK.-On the 11th floor of an office building in downtown New York, Uncle Sam sponsors an endless quiz program involving sums greater than even radio's open handed quizmasters give out. There you will find judicial answers an-swers to such brainbusters as: Is rhubarb a vegetable or a fruit? When does an infant become a child? Is whale meat fish, or is it meat? Is a slide fastener a machine? ma-chine? What is a doll? When is a rug not a rug? These questions are not trivial. They and other similar ones actually ac-tually have been presented to the nine judges of the United States customs court. This unique court handles cases dealing with commercial imports from all countries in the world. In some instances the questions have involved millions of dollars in tariff tar-iff duties and have set important precedents on how the twisting, confused United States tariff laws should be applied. When it was decided that an infant in-fant becomes a child at 2 years, the entire clothing industry was affected, affect-ed, as well as the price parents pay for their offspring's clothing. Congress had provided for one rate of duty on children's clothing and a different rate on infant's wear. The court is called up on to decide de-cide what was in the minds of the congressmen who write the nation's tariff laws. Often its tasks are routine rou-tine and technical. But just as often it runs across a real skull-cracker. skull-cracker. "Almost every case is a challenge" says the court's chief judge, Webster J. Oliver. Take the case of the slide fasteners, fasten-ers, decided early last year. The importer called them machines. Government agents called them articles ar-ticles made of metal. The importer put a college professor of mechanical mechan-ical engineering on the stand to testify that the slides were like children's tricycles |