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HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Brussels Post, 1962-06-28, Page 4• . ;41)". • ' per cent in the last ,decade, to 131,000 in 1001, Last week, Los Angeles bankruptcy referee ..itay ,Kinnison reported • 111.41 at' en- gineer making .$10,000 filed bankruptcy papers for ouiI $1,- 090 in debts. But according to William .c.lhey- ney of the National Consumer Credit Foundation, Professional debt counseling could save halt the prospective NOcTirfac1s4network of free counseling bureaus to. tackle the problem, based on similar services already set up by„u pmbiivoaiatoeillioor ilcdo mpp:onieoeisx: n o4riz: Yet most Americans, while feeling a twinge of sympathy for the bankrupt Browns across the, railroad tracks, are far more con- cerned • with the Joneses next door, Their status drives, their wealth, and their borrowing are virtually certain to increase, Credit man Cheyney thinks the pace may slow down a bit as in Come rises; • 'while "conveniences, chargecredit” (La., accioien x n:s) will continue to burgeon, , peat& a tapering off in the "nee,. essity credit" people use only be- cause they lack eavings, Even this trend, however, may be offs set by a flood of new borrowers about to pour into the market, "People bbrrow most after the age of 25, when they build homes. and start families," says Federal Reserve vice chairman C. Canby Balderston, "The Wartime babies. hl 975e. ,”n t reached that stage yet, but they will, beginning about How Can I? Q. now can 1 recondition some of my furs? A, Try this: Wet the fur with a hair brush, then brush against the nap, Hang in the air until dry, then beat lightly on the right side with a rattan, Finally, comb the hair out carefully into place, TRAGEDY — Melina Mercouri and Anthony Perkins, costars of "Phaedra," .filmed version of a modernized Greek trag- edy, danced in a night club specially built for the film in Hydra, Greece, PACJFIC tiCEA14 JAPA14 Tito 'TT •InoN RED ROCKET'S GLARE Recently released Soviet photograph shows a Russian mili- tary unit during tactical exercises. Rocket in the foreground Is an unguided missile with 35-mile range, shown in firing position on its armored carrier. It carries a conventional warhead, Background to right of the rocket near the tree has been heavily retouched. caxpec=pp=cograumprowmpi Caohles Like The Old-Country Kind • "Just listen to thisi" Manuna looking up from ,.. letter she was reading "tints says. be and, Annie and the 1)05'4 could: come up for e few days' visit sIstring Christmas vacation, Preaching the sermon in their church on. Christmas 1,/ay, but they could come the next day, it that would Stilt us,"• • • ,. "It certainly would suit us just fine," said Papa heartily. Uncle William, Mamma's oldest brother, was the busy president of a little Methodist college near St. Paul, and his rare. visits Were much prized. As 'we had two • other :Ant each of whom, had her special designation, we distinguished this, one by calling her Auut Annie St. Paul Park. She lived too far away for us to feel really well acquainted with her. and had a certain dignity that put us on our best behavior and made us a little shy with her, But the three boy cousins were great favorites and would add dash and fun to Christmas.. vacs- "I just wish l'd known this a little earlier," said Mamma, look- ing a trifle worried, "Aunt An- nie's great one for German Christmas cookies, That's part of Christmas for them, .and. I really ought to have some," "Well, you can make them, can't you?" said, Papa, with com- plete confidence, "I should think I could, Pin used enough to baking, of course. But they've never been favorites yours, or mine either, and I just haven't done them, Mother was eery young when she and Father. married and came to this coun- try, and she hadn't done much. baking in Germany. And in those early „years he was so busy .help- trig Father get the. farm started, she didn't do much fancy baking, and we didn't have them," "Sometimes those young. Zims mers out south of town make me think of your folks as they must have been in those days," said Papa. The Zinuters,, a young couple recersly come from Germany,. were struggling to establish their farm and sometimes found the going difficult. They were so earnest and so industrious, Papa and others in the community had tried now and then to give them a helping hand. "Be easier to do 'f they weren't so independent," Papa sometimes said. "But that's. one of the likable things about • thers, of course." I remembered when they had first come, and Mrs. Zimmer, with one hen at her disposal, had brought in one fresh egg at a • time to build up a credit so that ,the -could get a white shirt for her husband. Only the other day I had seen her looking, wistfully at the display of Christmas goods„ "Aren't they pretty? I love those angels for the tree," J. said. 'Stich, jai" she answered, "Some the evening the company arrived, For right in the center of the table was a large plate 'of beau- tiful German cookies, The pfef- fernusse were perfect little round balls, coated with sugar, and on the springerle, every design stood out, clear and charming, Aunt Annie looked at them 'with housewifely approval. I remembered Mamma's warn- ing not to speak of them, but I was very curious, and when she went`down into the store on some errand after supper, I ran after her, "You did learn to make springerle just right, didn't you Mamma?" I said, Mamma laughed, "Well, if I didn't, Mrs. Zimmer did, And we just did a little trading. It was when you mentioned how good her springerie was that 1 got the idea. She needed Christmas things in the store, and when took her rolling pin back, I brought honse some of • her cookies. "So that's why you told me she had seine extra Christmas credit coming. I knew you'd been up to something I'd probably find out about after Christmas," chuckled Papa, "So she got her angels and the necktie for Herman," "She, got her angels all right," said Mamma. "And I got some- thing I needed more than that— my jar of German Christmas cookies," 0 i n etTthi neg U.S.A. ,lnt Debt The hardest blows of all tell on the debtors who need credit for Just the bare necessities of li fe 4cost---ndpelple:coafu : ulDeaskstitildformdatrir- tmil Jobs ,And people on relief. It is in the poorer sections of the cities that debt merchandis- ing occasionally reaches vicious propertions, with merchants using blatant advertising to push shoddy, over-priced merchandise and usurious credit terms, "We don't expect to collect more than three payments before we start having trouble," says the man- ager of a big furniture store on Chicago's South Side, "But by that time we've already got our money (ire„ the wholesale cost) out," In some states, the debtor 'in trouble laces the added burden of having the bulk of his wages garnisheed (up to 60 per cent of a single man's wages and 40 per cent of a married man's pay can be attached in Michigan), which may make it impossible for him to settle with other creditors and can often cost him his job. In other states (notably Texas), he faces the greater menace of the loan shark, who thrives wherever legal interest- rate ceilings are so low that olepgeirtainteite loan companies can't Many debtors, of course, give as good as they get, They try to bamboozle creditors with every- thing from the old chestnut of deliberately mailing checks to the wrong stores (to sow confu- sion and thus gain time) to the out-and-out "skip," or disappear- ance. One Los Angeles woman whose phone service was cut off for nonpayment of bills informed the phone company that she would begin chopping down the telephone pole in her backyard if service wasn't restored. The company decided it could wait a little longer, and restored ser- vice after she had taken half a dozen chops in six days. To collect from a deadbeat, col- lection men often play on the status drives that put him in debt in the first place, calling up ..his neighbors and asking "if John Jones still lives in the neighbor... hood — he hasn't paid his milk Many a skip has been strapped by collection men nos- ' lin as, lawyers bearing legacies. s To find hidden bank accounts and 'attach them, the collection firm may telephone a man, pre- tend to be the such-and-such bank, and chide him for being overdrawn; when the man pro- tests that he has never banked there, the caller asks him where he does bank. One ploy creditors can't cope with: The personal bankruptcy, in which the debtor declares him- self unable to pay his debts and has the court distribute his as- sets. While the, penalties may in- volve loss of all real property, many debtors' are happy to trade their possessions for a fresh start. They walk out of court and promptly begin borrowing anew. The number of personal bank- ruptcies filed under the Federal Bankruptcy Act has jumped 370 A10 Plain Nuts —Fancy Ones Too popular. eorge There are over fifty kinds of nuts which form the staple body- building food for millions of people in the tropics, And even in other parts of the world the consumption of nuts has been rising rapidly since the end of the wan The Brazil, for example, which was first exported into Europe in 1633, has been suddenly "dist- covered"- by the Americans who now buy more than half the to- tal production. The peanut or monkey nut has also become enormously Washington Car- ver, the American scientist, and his associates, haVe produced something like 3,000 by-products from peanuts. India devotes' more than 10,- 000,000 acres to their production, and America, 5,000,000. The cashew, another popular nut, derives its name from the Portuguese "cajut," a name .still used in, India. Before the war India was the biggest exporter, sending 7,000 tons a year. to America, and 1,000 tons to Britain. Housewives perhaps don't real- ize it, but everyone eats more nut-foods than before the war. For nuts are ground and pro- cessed and made into margarines" and cooking fats. They appear in- ice cream, chocolate, cocoa, cakei and con- fections; because they are cheap- er than animal fats. They can be mixed into cakes or into stuffing; and they make excellent butters. In the East a delicious, nutri- tious sweet called "hulwa" is made by mixing walnuts, pista- chios and almonds with semolina and sugar. RUGGED ART Staff mem- bei Helen Powers prepares red rug with huge black:and- white footprints for showing at g. F. Menninger Memorial Hospital, where various 'art works by patients were exhib- ited to the public, angels S much tike to tCot. Ai4. a present for my Melt. gaYbe I next year can do it, but net WM Christmas cookies I make already yet," she added with satisfaction. "And e tree ye hat. Herman and Mamma nodded absently, She wasn't thinking elsont the Zbn mars now, "I can get the reeipes all right," she said, "The trouble is, the springerie should be Made six weeks before Christmas and left to ripen •or something, ,And you have to have a special rolls ing pin, with pictures cut in, And the pfeffernusse anti lehkushen must ripen for four weeks, And Christmas is only three weeks away. Well, just have to de the best I can. First thing is Mir find a rolling pin," "I bet Mrs, Zimmer has ow of those springerle rolling pins from Germany, because she told me she had her cookies all made. So she's through with it," I said, "That's an idea," said Mamma. "I'll go out and see her," She came back with the rolling pin and went right at making cookies, But they didn't suit her at all. "Just look at those!" she said in despair. "The pictures are all runny and blurred." "They taste good," we assured her, all of us busy sampling them. "Well, but they're supposed to be 'ripened,' and how these will ripen in three weeks is a big question;" She sighed. "Well, pfeffernusse next," When I came in from school the next noon, Mamma, her cheeks flushed and an anxious line between her eyes, was tak- ing a pan of pfeffernusse out of the oven, She set them down on the table and just stood looking at them. "They're supposed to be little round balls," she said. "These are more like little flat pancakes," Cousin. Anna nibbled o n e, "They're good though. Why don't 'we just eat these up and try again this afternoon for some to ripen and put away?" Mamma and Anna were sur- veying a new batch of pfeffer- nusse when I came in that after- noon, and they looked anything but satisfied, There was a good deal of laughter that evening when the choir came to practice Christmas music, and Mamma brought out some of her German cookies, writes Alta. Halverson Seymour in the Christian Science Monitor. "They may not look the way you want them, but they're cer- tainly good," said one. "Why do you keep them for six weeks before you eat them?" someone else asked, "I've often wondered," Mam- ma said. "I think they're a lot better right now." Even so, I was a little disturb- ed the rate at which she was us- ing them up. After all, hadn't she baked them for our Christmas visitors? She always seemed 'to take special pleasure in her Christ- mas baking, but it seemed to me she plunged into it now with even more than her usual zest, Mincemeat came next, then sour cream cookies and ginger cookies which we all helped decorate. "These are better anyway than the springerle-and things," I said, and Mamma agreed heartily. "Did you take. Mrs. Zimmer's rolling pin back or are•you going to try some more?" I asked. "I took it back," said Mamma firmly. "I've made enough springerle." There were plenty of other things she did make, however— spice cakes and hickory-nut cakes, mince pies and cranberry pies and holiday breads of all kinds, and even Papa's favorite buttermilk doughnuts, , "With all these things, do you even have to use the German cookies?" I asked. "Oh, we'll have German cookies all right," said Mamma,, her eyes twinkling, "And when you see them on the table, Alta, I don't want you to say.a word," This seemed puzzling; and I was even, more surprised when we sat down at the festive table e• ► b• r AN ATLANTIC AIRLIFT OVER THE ARCTIC Sandpaper And Whiskers Don't Mix For over a year, some of the most expensive legal talent in the U.S. has been trying, with vary- ing degrees of, solemnity„' to shave the sand from sandpaper. At stake were some well-known practicei of TV advertising,-Is it lawful to use seltzer tablets to pep up televised beer? To substitute soapsuds, which can stand the heat of klieg lights, for whipped cream, which can't? To lacquer perishable foods for long, hot shooting sessions? The latest answer came re- cently in a Federal Trade Com, mission ruling, and it appeared to be no. Overruling its own ex- aminer, the FTC condemned a Colgate - Palmolive Co. shaving cream commercial on the ground that what looked like sandpaper being shaved was a piece of Plexiglas, smeared with jelly and sprinkled with sand (it WRS barbered simultaneously with former. New York Giants foot- ball star Frank Gifford, "a man with a beard tough as sand- paper"), Colgate - Palmolive and Ted Bates & Co,, its ad agency, claim- ed that, sandpaper really could be shaved after soaking with Rapid Shave, The Plexiglas was used, they said, because sand- paper isn't photogenic, The ex- aminer concurred, calling the ad "harmless exaggeration." Not so, said the commission. Even if sandpaper could be shaved and even if that had any- thing to de with human whislc- ers, "the heart of these commer- cials was-(a test) that was, in reality, not taking place . . The (defendants') argument boils down to this: here truth and television Salesmanship the former must give Way to the latter. This is obviously an lade- feasible proposition."' The l'TC ordered Bates and Colgate to refrain train cleceps tion in future ads, but the ims portance of the rtiling lay in its, policy implieatiOns. One exartis pie given: "An antiOttneer may 'Wear a blue Shirt that Photo- graphs White; but he May het advertise a soap or detergeritle "Whitening" .4ittilitidJ 'by point4- 41g to. the "whiteness" 'Of hie blue shirt. Where The Postman Needs A Can-opener Tiny "Tin Can Island" in the South Pacific is the only place in the world where a can- opener is standard equipment at the post office, An unusual mail service — in which swimmers take the mail to and from the ship in sealed cans — was to be revived on Jan, 17 for the first time in more than 15 years during the Matson liner Monterey's cruise. "Tin Can Island," actually named Nivafo'ou, lies midway between Suva, Fiji and Pago Pago, Samoa, Nivafo'ott, only 31/2 miles wide and 3 miles long, is part of the Kingdom of Tonga. Tides and currents around the island prevent docking by deep- sea vessels. In 1920, the "tin can" mail service was devised. Sealed tins of mail were drop- ped over the side of vessels and picked up by native swimming "postmen." Outgoing mail was hauled aboard by means of long poles or lines. The island became a philate- Hst's delight, But the service was halted by the outbreak of World War II. It Was resumed after the war, but stopped again when a volcanic eruption forced the natives to evacuate the is- land. Several hundred of them have since moved back, thus making possible the Monterey's visit. SAFE FROM MOTORISTS -- Milestone near Rosemont, Pa., Is fenced in, perhaps against the chance that the number 13 might make it an attraction for highway accidents. si.,4•••=im,•••:•••-••• HAWAIIAN ISLANDS MMAIIS 4 .4, WAKE It 4 JOlitISON IS. ,r4.._ % et 6 i lelxitli it, CAGLItlE is. :NARSIIALL It, • • ,41 CHRISTMAS IS. Y. • CHRISTMAS OMIT A currently pending ..question in U S.-British relation's in Chrittnias Island in the Pacific, Both nations claim the 222-square' Mile atoll, The island *eta .the site of the first British hydrogen bomb expiation ih 1 .957 (photo, left). The United Brutish, wouldlike to use the' Wand for its own nuclear explosions should it reStrie'ohnOSPheriC testing. Christmas island is twice as far from Tokyo as Bikini, location Of preViouOISH-borrib which Japan protested os a fallout: danger hi fit;hertnen, NOILTIIEAST PASSAGE--In a first-Of-itslinct 'OPeration, ale* hundred American toldiert will be jetlifted to BittOPe. over Arctic in a ,101/2 ,1iont, nonetOpiliglita,,TheY ate, patt, • int* 6,000tinati contingent front the 4th Infatittjf'DIVISICiit at Ft; LeWia,•,WaSh,, being ficnitit - lailirest. Germany to take part, In "EZerclie. 'totigthrtiSt• II" maneuvers: The bulk of the . treMitil *III leavee McChord APB in jets end piston . planes;And-fit lierinie the U.S. to WieGuire APB, NJ., where they will refuel kee. NeWsztaa, .Theit one stction will take tini North. AthIntle route t rt Strittand, at the. Mid4tlatitid totite via the .Akoresi, tilde Velltt" Itost(s,;,aN5;ng,. :it 1,60 17,til'..4!• 261.4iVall jav6 Sbout GOO't411:6r4 DRIVE WITH CARE I