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Show Newspaperman Stuff Charles Chapin, who was city editor edi-tor of the New York Evening World , at the beginning of the century, never drank, and was intolerant of others who imbibed . . . Johnny Quinn, a young reporter who worked under Chapin, indulged in an occasional occa-sional glass of beer, and Chapin sternly lectured him about it . . . Juinn became ill one day and died shortly afterward, leaving a wife and children. The boys on the World, knowing the family wasn't loo well otT, started a collection, with each man giving what he could atlord. When they came to Chapin lor a contribution, he brusquely dismissed dis-missed them . . . "Don't expect anything from me," he growled. "I won't encourage young reporters who drink beer to figure they can j depend on the staff to help their families after they're dead" . . . When all the contributions were in, a group of the boys took the money to Quinn's widow. She was touched by their generosity, and tears trickled trick-led down her cheeks . . . "The World has the finest men on earth," she exclaimed. "Do you know, boys we couldn't have buried Johnny if it hadn't been for Mr. Chapin's check." A new assistant editor at the Keuter's News agency, in London, was once handed a brief cable from New York. After a perfunctory glance at it, the lad filed it with a lot of other material that wasn't of urgent importance. "Those Yanks!" he muttered. "They seem to think we're interested in their President's hunting expeditions!" . . . "What do j you mean?" his superior asked . . . The new assistant picked up the cable and waved it in front of him, explaining, "New York seems to think it's worth five cents a word to tell us that McKinley's shot a buffalo!" buf-falo!" . . . The. editor did a double-take double-take and, with a bellow, snatched the cable from his assistant's hand. It read: "McKinley shot Buffalo" . . . The first news of the President's Presi-dent's assassination. Several years ago Alexander Woollcott checked into a New York hospital for observation, and one of the newspapers received an erroneous errone-ous tip that he was dying. A reporter re-porter phoned the hospital and checked the report with Woollcott's nurse, who denied it . . . Woollcott, hearing the conversation, insisted on talking to the reporter and, grabbing grab-bing the phone, introduced himself. The reporter repeated the rumor . . . "Tut-tut," tut-tutted Woollcott, "I'm just here for observation" .... "Then you're not dying?" asked the lad . . . "Of course not!" said Woollcott . . . "Well," queried the reporter, "what ARE your plans?" New York Heartbeat The Big Parade: Hoot Gibson, the gweat big cowboy, dodging taxis and looking scared stiff, at 46th and Madison Mad-ison . . . Hatless Hope Hampton holding hands with hubby, hurrying home . . . Tommy Corcoran, all work and no play-boy . . . Guy Lombardo and Ben Bernie melody-land's melody-land's Sweet & Low . . . Karen Van Eyn, the gorjiss Dutch ballerina glammer competition for Vera Zori-naahhhh Zori-naahhhh . . . Afternoon stroller on E. 56th Street Peggy Fears in silver sil-ver fox coat, red boodwah slippers and blue slacks . . . George Raft, the Merchant of Menace, watching the floor show at Leon and Eddie's, while the Leon and Eddie's floor show watches him. Sallies in Our Alley: Dorothy Parker Park-er was being bothered no end by mag editor Harold Ross, the town bore. He kept interrupting her party par-ty of friends in an East Side joynt with: "The revolution is coming! The revolution is coming!" When he said it for the steenth time, Parker Park-er popped him with: "And when it does it'll be EVERYBODY against Harold Ross!" . . . Dorothy Thompson Thomp-son has denied the rumors that Sinclair Sin-clair Lewis was in Reno for a divorce di-vorce . . . "It's not true!" she ejaculated to a columnist, "un-divorce "un-divorce me!" ... "I will -not," he told her, "everybody in town knows that you switched your affections to a fellow named Roosevelt!" Manhattan Murals: Sign in a 3rd Avenue beanery: "This is Noise Abatement Week Don't Gargle Your Soup!" . . . The Pullman porter por-ter on the Merchants Limited (very fast train from Boston to N. Y.), who announces the arrival like this: "Hunnered Twenney Fitt Street Station Sta-tion of the World's Greatest City Noo Yawk! " . . . Those new dice that light up when you throw a 7 . . . The drunk downstairs in the 50th Street subway waiting for a bus! Memos of a Midnighter: How truzit that Charley Gehringer, the Detroiter, will wed into the Dodge millions via a widder? . . . Tom Harmon. Michigan's sensational Ail-American Ail-American (most publicized athlete of the year) will be engaged December Decem-ber 1 to Margaret Thorn, daughter of a naval officer and the prettiest co-ed at Ann Arbor . . . Dick Robertson, Rob-ertson, the co-writer of "We Three," is now walking with his shadow and talking with his echo since the divorce di-vorce . . . Herbert Bayard Swope fays he merely twis'.ed his knee. |