Author: Charlie

LIVE DRAMA is all you’ll see on this big screen. This is a new plastic house being built in Leningrad. Hot air fans heat it.

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TRICKS of the Filling Station Gyp Exposed

by MANLY S. MUMFORD WHEN a motorist asks for five gallons of gasoline at an oil station, he may get it. And he may not. He may get four and a half gallons of gasoline and a half gallon of kerosene, furnace oil or some other adulterated form of gasoline. There are many ways in which oil stations can, if they are so minded, bilk the public, and many of them do it. Generally speaking, the big oil companies operating thousands of stations are more careful in this respect, and have official orders to their employees commanding them to give the public a square deal. But there are thou- Station Gyp Exposed sands of wildcat stations run by individuals who are not so scrupulous.

There are two general methods of cheating the public at oil stations. One is to give the buyer inferior or adulterated goods and the other is to give him only a part of what he pays for.

First of all is the adulteration of gasoline.

There are many grades of gasoline, some better than others, but the reputable o!l stations sell only three or four grades, each of which is almost pure gasoline, the grades varying only in their volatility or ability to turn into inflammable vapor. The lower grades will choke up the carburetor on an automobile, causing the motor to spit and choke, and frequently in cold weather, die.

Many of the cheating oil stations handle low grade gasoline, letting the public think it is high grade gas.

Some of them handle the high grade fuels, nationally advertised brands, but mix them with other petroleum products which are cheaper and cannot be detected.

Kerosene in the Gas For instance if the station owner has to pay fifteen cents a gallon for gas and only 12 for kerosene, he may slip fifteen gallons of kerosene in a hundred gallon tank of gasoline.

Another favorite bet of the bilker is to use furnace oil. This costs him perhaps only 7 or 8 cents a gallon and he may be able to slip into your tank four-fifths gasoline and one-fifth furnace oil. The buyer cannot tell this either by taste or smell.

On lubricating oil the passing motorist may be cheated. It is a simple thing to have an oil tank with a label pasted on it. The label will probably indicate that the oil within is a high grade oil, bearing a trade mark or nationally known insignia.

The filling station owner pays perhaps 50 cents a gallon for a high grade oil. He sells it for a dollar a gallon, which is a fair profit. But low grade oil can be had for as low as 20 cents a gallon, leaving a much larger profit. Here again there is not much chance of detection by the buyer. He may find that his oil does not “wear” as well as he thinks it ought, but he won’t find it out until too late.

The most favored method of cheating an automobile owner on buying gasoline, is known in the trade as “shorting the hose.” Normally the attendant pumps the gas directly from a tank in the ground into the gas tank in the automobile. He uses a hose perhaps five feet in length. When five gallons have been delivered from the pump into the hose, five gallons have not yet entered the tank. A quart, normally, remains in the hose, and unless the attendant drains the hose into the auto tank, the motorist is short a quart of gasoline, getting four gallons and three quarts, instead of five gallons.

Another method of cheating which is more costly is the method of cheating the buyer of a whole gallon on his purchase. Most pumps are equipped with a bell which rings or an arrow which points to the number of gallons run through the pump. It is easy for a mechanic to fix the bell so that it will ring when three quarts have passed instead of a gallon or to manipulate the arrow so that it will point to five when as a matter of fact only four gallons have been delivered.

Then there is the method known as “going easy on the handle.” If the attendant turns the crank at a certain speed the gas flows into the hose at a certain rate. If the handle is turned fast at first and extremely easy at the end the full amount of gas will not enter the hose. Sometimes the attendant will turn the handle slowly at the end of the stroke and will draw almost no gas at all, though the crank turns and the indicator or arrow with it.

Even draining the hose is not an absolute protection against cheating, because some lengths of hose have a little valve at the end which goes into the tank. The attendant can shut this valve and drain the hose to his heart’s content, but no more gas will flow into the motorist’s tank.

Spirals on Revolving Bike Wheel Exercise Weak Eyes

DR. OTTO THOMPSON, an optometrist of Waukegan, “Illinois, in exercising and strengthening weakened eyes of patients, makes use of an old bicycle wheel covered with a dark cloth and marked with a spiral yellow line that ends at a colored “flasher.” The patient is instructed to look at the yellow line and, as the wheel turns clockwise, his gaze eventually reaches the flasher, whereupon the eye movements start all over again.

The treatment is based on the principle that eye muscles need exercise just like any other muscles of the body if they are to remain strong and one’s eyesight is to be at its best.

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Defying Death in a Parachute

Credited with 275 official parachute jumps, W. F. Scott, familiarly known as “Scotty,” holder of the Navy record jump of 15,200 feet, tells here of some particularly close calls in which he brushed elbows with the Grim Reaper. Scotty is jumping again now after a two months’ enforced vacation caused by an automobile accident, after which his life was despaired of — ironic testimony to the relative safety of air and land travel!

by W. F. SCOTT
Champion Parachute Jumper of the Navy

FOR sheer thrills none of my experiences during ten years of parachute jumping can compare with those of the summer and fall of 1928. On July Fourth I made a successful jump on Lake Keuka, near Hammondsport, N. Y., but the wind caught my ‘chute and entangled the harness so that I was dragged through the water with my head partially submerged, for two miles. On August 15 I dropped on a Washington apartment house in the heart of the city after encountering six different cross winds, was barely able to catch the ledge of the building top, couldn’t quite reach the fire escape just below, and had to hang suspended for several minutes before three policemen came to the rescue. Only five days later I landed full tilt on a group of high tension wires of 35,000 voltage, on the edge of Boiling Field, Washington.

That July Fourth experience was a terrific battle with death. Never will I forget it, for only by a miracle am I now alive to describe it. My purpose in going to Hammondsport was not only to make an exhibition jump but to make an official test of a new type of rubber suit designed to save the lives of aviators who are forced to resort to their ‘chute over a body of water.

Now, I’m barely five feet tall, yet this suit was made for a man who measures five feet eight. However, I was sealed in the contraption, which was all in one piece, including the stockings. Sealed in is right. The front of the suit was laced up with heavy thumbscrews against rubber gaskets. Rubber bands were placed around my wrists and adhesive tape bound around my neck mighty tight. So tight, in fact, that when I jumped I thought I was going to choke when the wind struck me full force.

The plane was an O-L-8, a new amphibian. With Lieut. Harvey Bowes at the controls we sailed out, 9 miles from Ithaca, into the center of beautiful Lake Keuka, which is 5 miles wide, 22 miles long and at least a couple of miles at its deepest point. The jump from 4,000 feet was satisfactory enough, but when the ‘chute snapped open, about 1200 feet below my leap, an enormous hole ripped open along the back of the rubber suit, due, no doubt, to the shock of the wind against the heavy harness around my body.

However, everything else seemed to be all right until I hit the water. Always, of course, a jumper aims to disengage the parachute from his body as soon as he lands. This I attempted to do, but I was so badly entangled that I failed. Meanwhile the wind and water were waging a fierce struggle for supremacy over what was to be my fate, the water pouring into the gaping hole in the rubber suit, thereby tending to pull me beneath the surface, and the wind spasmodically catching hold of the ‘chute and forcing it along the water at a fast rate of speed.

Bear in mind also that the rubber suit itself weighed about 20 pounds dry, with five additional pounds of lead in the sole of each shoe, presumably for the purpose of maintaining my body in an upright position at all times while in the water.

Pretty soon the suit acted just like a giant bucket of water attached to my person, dragging my head beneath the surface every now and again. And now a sudden gust of wind caught the ‘chute, just as Captain H. C. Richardson, in charge of the test, noticed my plight and headed for me in his speed boat from a point perhaps 200 yards away. Whereupon for over two miles I was in a helpless, and apparently hopeless, situation. Inextricably entangled in the harness, which was still strapped to my body, I was hurtled, at dizzy speed, through the water, occasionally rolling over the surface, but more often with my nose exposed to a six-inch covering of water.

For perhaps half of that terrible ride I was fully conscious, able to observe almost everything that was going on, but utterly unable to help myself. Then all went blank. However, Captain Richardson told me afterwards that my face had been completely submerged for six minutes before he and his assistants were able to drag me out. Even then my face had turned blue in color. But quickly they took me to the nearest dock, offered first aid for almost an hour, shot a stomach pump into me and let me lie down for a spell. Only Captain Richardson’s rare presence of mind and speed of action saved my life, combined with the fact that the rescue party was able to locate me, thanks to the fact that the parachute and harness were able to float on the surface, thereby rendering them visible to the rescue party for hundreds of yards.

My experience of August 20, 1928, was easily the second most thrilling of a lifetime. A big movie company that makes news reels wanted to take some pictures of myself and three other Navy men jumping simultaneously from a plane over Boiling Field, Washington. The film was to be called the “race to earth,” but it might well have been termed “the race with death.” I won the pictorial race handily enough, but almost lost my life during the venture.

From a 1500 foot elevation we all jumped from a Navy Ford transport. Once my ‘chute was open and I was speeding towards the earth, 1 took careful note of a. spot on the field where I wanted to land, but a strong wind blew up suddenly and upset my plans. Imagine my horror to realize, when only a couple hundred feet from the ground, that I was likely to drop full tilt on a group of high tension wires of 35,000 voltage, near the roof of a hangar!

Unfortunately, however, it was too late for me to accomplish much towards guiding the ‘chute, so within a few seconds I found myself suspended on one of those dangerous wires like a canary on a perch. True enough, the wires were barely six feet from the ground, but since I measure only five feet from head to toe, I wasn’t any too near the ground at that particular moment. By some miracle, however, none of my body actually was touching the wires, though my ‘chute was wrapped around them, and at any moment I might make a contact that would mean my death.

Nevertheless, I somehow contrived to undo my breast strap and both leg straps, but while so doing, my right toe barely touched a section of the wire, with the result that a great wall of flame shot out, badly scorching several shroud lines on the ‘chute. But I scrambled quickly to the ground and asked an attendant at the field to have the power shut off. This he did immediately, so that I was able to recover my ‘chute without further damage to it.

Talk about a strong wind blowing you all over the heavens! I’ll wager I’ll always remember the events of August 15, 1928, when I was fortunate enough to set a new Navy altitude record of 15,200 feet.

My pilot, Lieut. Ernest W. Litch of the Naval Air Station near Washington, took me up in a Vought Corsair biplane for what I hoped would be a record jump for all Navy parachute men. When we reached 15,200 feet I signalled Litch that I was ready and then, when he had slowed down to the customary jumping speed of 80 miles an hour, I poised for a brief moment to visualize the scene below. The capital city looked like a tiny park from the great height of 3 miles.

For this particular jump I took the precaution of wearing two parachutes, one of the regulation seat type and the other of the back type for emergency use. However, the first one opened up satisfactorily enough. \et I soon found myself well nigh helpless before a strong north wind which carried me well over the city. I was like a cork bobbing about in a strong sea, for no sooner did I find myself down to an elevation of 5,000 feet, than a south wind caught me and started swinging the ‘chute back towards the Potomac River from whence I had come.

Now, the average parachute jump takes only from 30 seconds to one minute, so one can well imagine how I felt when, after being aloft 15 minutes, I began to realize that I would be lucky to even make a safe landing, let alone a good one. All the while, of course, as I neared the earth I kept looking about for a possible landing place. Two hundred yards or so from the ground, in one of the most crowded sections of the city, I was forced to conclude that my best bet was to try to land on a nearby apartment house. I was unable to make the roof, however, but skimmed over it, my feet catching in a radio aerial.

Fortunately for me, the ‘chute caught on the ledge at the top. But I couldn’t quite reach down far enough to catch the fire escape six feet below, so I just hung there. Meanwhile hundreds of people were watching me from the ground, and to add a bit of humor to my hazardous situation, an excited woman threw open a window in an apartment nearby, and while I swung like a pendulum with each new movement of the wind, she entreated me if I wanted a glass of water.

I assured the good lady that I did not, and while so doing three policemen came to my rescue, raised a ladder to the roof, and I managed to clamber down the fire-escape to safety.

How does it feel to make a jump? Well, there’s a new kind of thrill most every time, depending largely on how the winds and currents are behaving. But generally the first sensation is of a rushing wind and a terrific descent. Then, after you pull the rip-cord you get something of a jolt as the ‘chute opens. After that it’s all pretty much plain sailing until you hit the ground, granted that you know how to guide your giant parasol.

This is entirely a matter of proper manipulation of the shroud lines, whereby you are able to pull the side of the ‘chute in the direction you want to slip, assuming that the wind is not blowing particularly hard. In thus maneuvering your shroud lines you also are able to increase your rate of descent since a parachute works on the principle of a column of air massed directly underneath the lifeboat of the air.

Different jumpers have their own individual methods of leaping from a plane, but I believe that it is possible to make this generalization: if you are in an open cockpit plane, then stand where the trailing edge of the lower wing fastens on to the fuselage, forming a V,’ and dive towards the tail, fall as far as you desire, and then release the ‘chute. On the other hand, if you are in a cabin type of closed plane, you simply dive straight forward out the door.

Big Fish Caught By Electrocution

A CLEVER California fisherman, Capt. Guy Silva, has perfected a novel and efficient method of landing 200 and 300 pound fish with the minimum amount of labor.

He electrocutes them!

Although the method devised by Captain Silva took him several years to perfect, the device is comparatively simple and can easily be made by anyone.

The accompanying sketch shows the construction of the device and illustrates how the big fish are electrocuted. Voltage needed is 120 volts DC, taken off either a generator or a battery. The generator must be 3 K.W. capacity, as it takes at least 30 amperes 50 seconds to kill a big tuna, though ordinarily they are only stunned when brought to gaff.

The 14 foot pole is of ordinary bamboo about two inches through at the butt end, with a metal contactor on the tip end connected by cable to the positive side of the 120 volt system. This cable should be insulated, as shown in the accompanying drawing.

The negative side of the system is grounded in the water through a copper plate susspended by a wire from the boat.

When a fish takes the bait on the hook, he pulls the copper block into the copper contactor, thus making the contact and closing the circuit completely. This administers 120 volts to the tuna or other big game fish and kills or stuns it instantly. Thus the fish actually kills himself by closing the switch on the tip of the pole when it gobbles the hook. The largest fish which Capt. Silva has hooked, electrocuted and landed by this method is a 500 lb. shark, which gave up without a struggle.

There’s nothing like a Vespa

For the happiest time of your life. The fun way to go places… and save money too.

See your local Vespa Dealer. He’ll be happy to take the entire family out for a thrilling test ride. For an illustrated brochure showing all three Vespa models send ten cents in coin to cover handling and mailing to:

Vespa Distributing Corporation
3 East 54th Street, New York 22, New York

The original OCR output for this was much cooler before I fixed it. Who doesn’t want a Bacon Beam?

Beacon Beam Tells Hours of Night

A GIGANTIC nocturnal sun-dial, using light instead of shadow to tell the time, is to be installed by the municipality of Guayaquil, Republic of Ecuador. The light source will be an electric searchlight which, revolving once every 12 hours, will indicate the time by illuminating surrounding landmarks at the same time each night.

Guayaquil is at present constructing beautiful gardens along the waterfront of the port. In the center of these gardens, a Moorish tower is being erected to hold an old historic clock dating back to 1841. A large airport beacon will be mounted on top of this tower and will make one complete revolution every twelve hours.

The beacon, a 24-inch unit with a 1,000-watt lamp, will be operated by impulses from a telecron electric clock, the current being transmitted to a solenoid-operated turning mechanism every five seconds through the medium of a standard traffic timer. Thus the beacon, as it turns, will indicate the time by illuminating various landmarks at the same time each night.

The powerful light directing the beams toward the landmarks will be automatically^ thrown into operation at sunset and turned off at sunrise, being out of service during daylight hours.

Are you one of the VERTICAL DEAD

This man stands . . . he walks . . . he talks … he goes to work … he supports a wife and children . . . BUT HE IS DEAD!

Most of us start out in life full of hopes and plans and ambitions. We are going to be a great success. But somewhere along the way we start settling into a rut… a low-paying rut. What’s the reason? Fate? Perhaps. More likely, though, the reason for our limited success is quite commonplace. We start out by taking a job that we really don’t want, we get married, buy a house perhaps, have children. And there are bills to be paid, emergencies to be met, and one year follows another pretty fast, and we’re still not on the road to any real goal. We know we have the ability to do better things. We just don’t know where to start, what to do. If that is true of you, and if you really want to do something about getting ahead, here is a book that will show you exactly what steps to take right now . . .

HOW TO TURN YOUR ABILITY INTO CASH by EARL PREVETTE

Here is a practical, tested formula for success that even now is bringing dollars-and-cents results for those who have used it to better their lot in life. It will help you turn dissatisfaction into triumph, enrich your life, and above all—put more cash into your pocket. Just look at the kind of down-to-earth, money-making techniques you get: HOW TO INCREASE YOUR OWN POWER TO THINK AND TO BUILD Even as you read this there is within you a hidden power that you must recognize and develop if you hope to increase your income.

YOU UNDERESTIMATE YOUR OWN ABILITY! WHY?

How to take stock of yourself and uncover the latent and unique abilities you possess.

HOW TO GET MONEY FOR YOUR IDEAS Once you get a good idea, there are 5 simple rules you must follow if you hope to turn it into money.

HOW TO DOUBLE YOUR ENERGY A basic 5-second “exercise” you can perform that will help you relax both your mind and your body, help you feel less tired.

HOW TO FIND YOUR PLACE IN LIFE How to find out what kind of job or business will bring you the greatest wealth and happiness.

HOW TO SET YOUR GOAL AND WORK YOUR PLAN How much money do you want? What would you consider “success?” This book gives you a workable, step-by-step Plan that will guarantee success.

HOW TO USE FAITH TO MAKE THINGS HAPPEN HOW YOUR FRIENDS AND YOUR ENEMIES CAN HELP YOU HOW TO SELL YOURSELF TO OTHERS THE KEY TO A FORTUNE

TESTIMONIALS

“This book is just loaded with ideas that I am using and turning into cash every day.”
—E. W. Wanner, Austin, Texas

“One chapter in this book is worth the price. It is a practical formula.”
—P. N. Selheimer, Philadelphia, Pa.

“The contents of this book will enrich your life and line your pockets with gold.”
—G. Rittenhouse, New York, N. Y.

EXAMINE FREE!

We will send you a FREE-TRIAL COPY of HOW TO TURN YOUR ABILITY INTO CASH. Read it … use it for 10 days. If you are not convinced that it can put more cash in your pocket . . . return it within 10 days and it costs you not a cent. If you keep it, send only $3.95, plus few cents postage in full payment.

PRENTICE-HALL, INC, Dept. M-MT-1153 70 Fifth Avenue, New York 11, N. Y.

Without obligation, send me a copy of “HOW TO TURN YOUR ABILITY INTO CASH,” by Earl Prevette, for 10 days’ FREE TRIAL. At the end of 10 days I will either send $3.95 (plus postage) in full payment—or return the book and owe nothing.

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It’s the Biggest… It’s the Newest… But Palomar Telescope Won’t See Far Enough!

BY LOGAN REAVIS

SOME time this year an astronomer will peer for the first time through the largest telescope the world has ever known—will penetrate space to a distance of two billion light years farther than the eye of man has ever explored.

But he won’t see far enough.

When the huge 200-inch monocle of science is finally completed after 18 years of work at a cost of $6,000,000, the astronomer will discover hundreds of millions of stars which man never knew existed. He will discover vast new secrets of the universe. He may find new planets — and perhaps learn whether there is life on those he already knows.

But he won’t discover enough and he won’t learn enough.

California’s “giant eye of Palomar” will be perceptibly dimmed by a no-man’s land of dust which hovers above the globe at an average height of seven and one-half miles. This is the layer known as the tropopause in which the temperature ceases to fall with increasing altitude. It lies between the troposphere, the atmospheric layer in which man lives and works, and the stratosphere, and is about five miles thick at the poles and ten miles at the equator.

The tropopause is the catchall basin for dust storms which swirl upward from the arid regions of the earth, for volcanic soot and for sand-storms, all carried upward by thermal currents and deposited there. And there they sit, dust in the giant’s eye, distorting celestial images and impeding significant lines of the spectrum.

Scientists have come out with a daring answer. If a land-based telescope is hampered by a layer of dust in the sky, they ask, why not put a telescope above the layer so that crystal-clear vision may be obtained? Why not, in short, put an eye in the sky ?

This bold plan has come from the fertile brain of Dr. Lyman Spitzer Jr., associate professor of astrophysics at Yale University. He has taken the theories of several noted physicists and * engineers and woven them, with his own, into a specific design for an artificial satellite circling the earth. He plans an observatory spinning about in space more than 22,000 miles above the earth’s surface, on which astronomical instruments could unravel the mysteries of the skies far more effectively than any post on this planet.

But first would come the problem of transporting the materials into space to construct the platform. How can the scientists get them up there, in view of the fact that more than 600 tons of the types of fuel known today are needed to move just one ton of material into space?

The answer symbolizes the age in which this startling project may become a reality: atomic energy, the only energy source powerful enough for that job.

Atomic energy would be the gasoline and—another scientific miracle—rockets would be the moving vans! Rockets, carefully insulated from suspected high temperatures in the upper realm of the stratosphere, would tow the prefabricated parts upward for assembly “on the spot” in the stratosphere. Let’s have a closer scrutiny of the astral outpost, illustrated in detail on pages 104-105.

Completely assembled, it is 194 feet in diameter and consists of a circular platform upon which is mounted two huge telescopes, a motor and generator, camera, radio and television equipment, living quarters and a vast assortment of scientific instruments to observe and record astronomical phenomena.

The platform spins in an easterly direction at a speed approximating the rotation of the earth, 1,080 miles per minute. This speed must be maintained in order to create, through centrifugal force, the equivalent of earth’s gravity.

The motor which drives the satellite lies in the vertical axis and spins the entire structure through connecting spokes. Energy is obtained from steam which is created when the great circular mirror shown above the platform concentrates the sun’s rays upon water in the pipes in the lower part of the structure.

The main telescope for observation of the skies stands on a turntable atop the platform while a smaller one, whose chief purpose is examination of the earth’s surface, is attached to the lower platform. The 200-inch reflector of the larger “eye,” supported by a high carriage, is permitted an extraordinary fore and aft sweep of some 240 degrees, limited only by the periphery of the mirror. This action is facilitated by a gear train in the trunnion assembly and the depth of the front and rear yokes. The instrument can be swung completely around, forward and backward. The turntable permits circular movement, while a forward yoke and a rear worm gear acting on rollers permit back and forth action.

The tower in back of the main ’scope contains the coelostat and a coronograph used in solar observations. From the mirror, the sun’s image is reflected to the base and again reflected to the inconoscope of a television camera. The televised image is then carried directly to a projection room below, where it appears on a screen.

The smaller telescope would prove invaluable in relaying back to earth information observed on weather conditions of all sorts, and ship and plane movements. It is easy to see how important this would be in time of war. Location of enemy troops, planes and vessels could be spotted and speedily passed on to headquarters.

The instrument in the right central portion of the platform, resembling somewhat a military mortar, is a great camera inspired, in principle, by the present-day “super-Schmidt” camera designed by Harvard University’s Dr. James G. Baker. It is remotely controlled from inside the platform and will be used in record- ing rocket and meteor flights and other astral phenomena which flash by so speedily that the human eye cannot observe them.

Inside the platform, located on various levels along the rim, are the living and working quarters for members of the satellite’s crew. These quarters are compartmented so that a measure of safety can be provided if some part of the platform is sheared away by flying meteors.

They look like weird men from other planets, these crew members of the observatory in the sky. Encased in bulky, electrically heated “breathing suits,” they tread cautiously in their well-nigh weightless world. Security lines connect them at all times with the central airlock in the bowels of the satellite, which supplies life-giving oxygen to all on board. When they emerge from the interior and prowl atop the platform, they proceed by means of hooks.

This, then, is the answer of science to the limitations of the Palomar telescope. Weird, startling, unbelievable? No, answers science. Not half so unbelievable as the myriad or wonders which the age of the atom will eventually bring. •

“two panoramic additions to the Seven Hills of Rome” is my new favorite euphemism for breasts.

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HOW ANITA EKBERG WAS DUPED INTO A ROMAN ORGY

The real inside on the hottest party since Little Egypt

by BENITO CARLO, Jr.

As a publicity grabber Anita Ekberg is well out in front of all Hollywood headline hunters, so it was hardly a surprise to her intimates when the sultry Swede made the front pages recently by being involved in a police raid on a torrid Roman ‘orgy.’ A few months later she again made news by announcing her intention to divorce her British actor-husband Anthony Steele. Though Steele was the little man who wasn’t there when Anita did her torrid cha-char, it’s no secret that he was horrified by the headlines that hit his spouse.

Now, INSIDE STORY can reveal, for the first time anywhere, that in the case of the Too-Hot Party, Anita wasn’t trying to make the front pages with a sexy gimmick—even though the raid was a publicity stunt!

It was the biggest and hottest publicity gimmick Rome had seen since Nero’s press agents made the world believe the Emperor fiddled while flames devoured the town.

But Anita had nothing to do with calling in the cops and cameramen. The INSIDE STORY of the Roman wing-ding is that the Swedish smorgasbord was duped, tricked, up-staged, out-sexed and out-smarted by a Turkish delight.

She was forced to play second-fiddle while a Turkish belly-dancer burned up the joint.

The belly ballet was staged by a comparatively unknown stripper who, like Anita, subscribes to the old show biz motto: “I don’t care what you say about me, only spell the name right.” In the case of the torrid Turk, however, the news boys didn’t even do that.

Her name appeared in print as Kiash Nanah, Haisch Nanah, Nana Kaish and Aiche Nana. And the Rome police blotter carried two different spellings. In any event, she is now known as the Naked Nanah.

The event which made her serpentine form a Roman spectacular took place November 6, 1958, in a small-time sucker trap—the Rugantino—in the Trastevere district, Rome’s working class quarter. American society playboy Peter Howard had rented the joint for the night to throw a party celebrating the 25th birthday of Countess Olghina Di Robilant.

The guest list read like a Who’s Who of Hollywood and Rome’s titled cafe society. Among the 150 revelers were American actress Linda Christian, another famous headline-hunter; Italian actress Elsa Martinelli; Anna Maria Mussolini, daughter of the dead dictator; Mussolini’s niece, Raimonda Ciano; Italian artist Novella Parigini, famed for her nude portraits; Prince Pier Francesco Borghere, member of Italy’s leading family, and dozens of other celebrities.

So far as Howard and most of his guests knew, it was a private party. The front door was locked. The press was barred. But somebody left the rear door open and saw that Rome’s tabloid newspapers and magazines were tipped off well in advance to expect fireworks.

Though Howard was footing the bill, Nanah’s agent suggested to the club owner that some things are worth more than money. Publicity, for instance. The kind that money can’t buy. The kind that would make the rundown Rugantino more famous than all the ultra-swank night spots along the glittering Via Veneto. And the club owner swallowed the bait.

The Naked Nanah planned to go into her act around midnight. Then, before she could reach for a zipper, she got an unexpected assist from La Ekberg, who was full of grape and excess energy.

In the midst of a torrid Cha Cha Cha, performed without benefit of escort, Anita started coming out of her form-hugging black gown like a snake shedding its skin. Her zipper and shoulder strap burst simultaneously, revealing two panoramic additions to the Seven Hills of Rome. And, like they say at ringside, the crowd went wild.

At this point, there was no longer any need for Nanah to warm up her audience. The small club already was super-heated by the thawing Swedish Iceberg. All Nanah had to do was fan the flames.

Nanah’s agent and the club owner called the cops and let the reporters and photographers in. As flashbulbs started popping, the belly-bouncer leaped to the center of the dance floor, stole the spotlight from wornout and overexposed Anita, and began gyrating as she had never gyrated before.

First she flicked a zipper down the side of her white evening gown. Then, as the dress floated cloudlike to the floor, she stepped out of her spike-heeled shoes. Her tummy tumbled like a Tums commercial and her hands did a butterfly dance above and around her throbbing breasts.

True to the ageless art of the belly-twirler, Nanah had planned to hold the boys in a spell of ever-mounting suspense until the police provided a headline – producing climax. But Anita’s preliminary peep show had aroused the princes, counts and play-boys to the point of no return.

Before Nanah could stop them, a strong hand helped her unfasten her flimsy brassiere and other hands clawed at her sheer, black lace panties and dusky undulating thighs. Still whirling like a hopped-up dervish, she dropped to her knees and hoped that her panties would hold. Then somebody tore them off, too.

It was then that the poliziotti arrived, stopped the show, closed the joint and, after placing the Turkish twirler under wraps, booked her for public obscenity. The charge was more than Nanah had bargained for when she plotted her publicity scoop. Tearfully, she told police and reporters that the strip-tease was not her fault. She said someone pulled down her zipper and other helping hands finished the job.

Police were not impressed by her story. Particularly as the good citizens of Rome next day savored the hottest Expresso in local history. Expresso, a tabloid weekly, published two full pages of strip shots, showing how she wiggled down to the bare facts. The photos showed she had plenty of assistance, but the strip sequence was her own idea to begin with. Copies of the magazine were confiscated by police, but not before thousands were sold.

The Vatican City newspaper Osservatore Romano branded the party guests “society lice” and suggested that Anita, Howard, Nanah and all other foreigners at the raided revel should be kicked out of Italy. Howard, a remote relative of the Vanderbilt clan, and Nanah subsequently got the official Italian boot and left, separately, for Paris.

“I like Italians,” Nanah said. “They have hot blood like the Turks. But it is better to live in Paris where the strip tease is permissible.”

Sophisticated Parisians remembered her from the many times she had stripped in Left Bank cafes and from another publicity stunt—the time in 1956 when newspapers reported she had vanished mysteriously after writing a single word on a paper in her dressing room: “Farewell.” All French police were alerted and, at the height of the publicity, Nanah reappeared in as good shape as before.

Though Anita lost the limelight to the Naked Nanah, she came right back with a publicity twist of her own. A repetition of her sizzling Cha Cha Cha. But this time she did her dance in broad daylight on the crowded Via Veneto, after making sure no sultry strippers were lurking in the wings to steal the show.

Let me show you how to make more money than you ever thought possible as a professional Chimney Sweep

Read my story, if you like the idea of earning $150 per day part time, $700 or more weekly in a business of your own . . .

My name is Tom Risch. I’m 28 years old, own my own home, a 22 ft sailboat and an antique Morgan sports car. I suppose more than anyone, I’m the person responsible for “re-inventing” the chimney sweep business — as I’D shortly explain. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no genius. You could have stumbled into this as easily as I did. And my story is one you should know, if what you seriously want out of life is greater personal freedom, satisfying work — and a lot more money than you’re earning now.

A dead-end road When I got out of school, I thought I had it made. I loafed around that first summer, then went to work for a house painter. But I didn’t like the boss breathing down my neck, so I went out on my own.

For the next few years I tried to make it as a house painter and general fix-it man. I had plenty of independence but I was going nowhere fast One day in 1973 I found myself in a lady’s attic fixing her chimney. An old top hat was lying on a trunk, so I put it on and started singing that great song from Mary Poppins — “Chim-chiminey, Chim-chimeney, Chim-chim-cheree, a Sweep is as lucky as lucky can be. . .”

Wondering what all the racket was about, the lady climbed the stairs and when I’d finished the chorus, asked me a fateful question: “Whatever happened to the old Chimney Sweeps?”

No Sweep in town I didn’t have an answer, but the question aroused my curiosity. At that time the Arab Oil Embargo was on. The incredible boom in heating with wood was just getting underway. Folks everywhere were starting to use their fireplaces and new woodstoves around the clock.

And suddenly, dangerous chimney fires were breaking out all over town. I knew the reason: woodsmoke produces creosote, a highly flammable substance that condenses on chimney flues. Unless the chimney is cleaned regularly, a fire is almost inevitable.

Starting over My local fire chief convinced me my services as a Chimney Sweep were urgently needed. But I had a lot more to learn — most of it the hard way.

Everything that happened next is told in a booklet I want to send you, free. Just let me say here that I made plenty of costly mis- takes and wrong moves — mostly because nobody was around to help me get started right. I realized I needed better tools. It took many months of hard searching to find the right equipment. I designed and built my own vacuum system — the first ancestor of the amazing SootSweeper” we use today.

$45 for an hour’s work My System makes it possible to complete a typical chimney cleaning job in less than an hour. My standard fee was $40 (most Sweeps now charge $45 to $50) — and people were glad to pay it. I found myself earning more money than I ever dreamed possible — $150 to $200 a day, $700 or $800 a week. And almost all of that was clear profit, for there’s very little overhead in this business.

I realized there were more chimneys in my town than I could ever hope to clean, not to mention in my state and the whole U.S.A. I realized my success didn’t have to be unique. I had friends all over the country who could profit from this wonderful opportunity. So I began sharing my experiences with them through AUGUST WEST SYSTEMS”

— the first nationwide organization to provide training, equipment and start-up guidance for independent Chimney Sweeps.

A wide-open field Since then we’ve helped over 5,000 men and women begin new, highly profitable businesses of their own as professional Sweeps. Yet they’ve just begun to answer the need: there are over 25 million fireplaces in American homes. Since 1974 woodstove ownership has leaped from 200,000 to over 5 million, and the end’s nowhere in sight The more the economy worsens, the higher oil prices go, the greater the need for your services. But what’s it really like to be a Chimney Sweep?

Today it’s a lot different than many folks imagine. First, with The August West System you clean most chimneys from below instead of on the roof. Your cleaning tools are brushes attached to our exclusive Flexi-RodsM that let you do a quick but thorough job. The dust from the chimney instantaneously disappears into the SootSweeper in- stead of seeping into your lungs or all over your customer’s rug.

If you’re ambitious and a good planner, you can easily clear $150 a day, maybe a lot more. You can work full-time, or start part time while you keep your current job until your new business is firmly established.

I want to be straight with you: chimney cleaning is no lazy way to quick riches. It’s hard work, you do get dirty. But the rewards can be great Paul Biskner, a real dynamo from Garden City, Mich, says: “I’ve already had plenty of $1,000.00 weeks. Now I’m shooting for a $1,000.00 day!”

The perfect bootstrap business You don’t need special skills, business experience, a college degree or a big investment The August West System gives you everything you need to start earning money almost right away — and we keep on helping you with advice and answers to your questions as your business grows.

But you are the boss. You can work as many or as few hours as you want. You’ll enjoy wearing a top hat (and the response it inspires). You’ll like the feeling of knowing you are performing a needed service. Here’s what Isaac Watts of Madison, Va. recently wrote us: “Every job is different — a new challenge. When I come through the door in my top hat I get first-class treatment — it’s not like being a plumber or repairman. And I know my work is saving these folks from dangerous chimney fires. It’s work you can take pride in.”

Ask for free proof Find out more about the high earnings potential and other wonderful benefits you can enjoy as a professional Chimney Sweep. Just call me TOLL-FREE at 800-243-5166 and ask for ex tension 152. Or mail the coupon below. I’ll rush you a detailed INFORMATION KIT with the complete August West Story. Call or write today!

YES, send me your FREE INFORMATION KIT telling me how to make up to $150 or more per day as a professional Chimney Sweep.

August West Systems, Inc.

Box 603-Dept. 1502 Westport, CT 06881 Toll Free 800-243-5166 ask for extension 152.

Four Novel Toys You Can Make With Rubber Balloons

These drawings show the construction of four novel toys made from circus balloons that will prove highly fascinating. Fill the balloon with hydrogen and attach to it a postcard bearing your name, and a request to return it from whatever point it falls to earth. Thus you can learn in what direction and how far it travels. Another balloon, equipped with a gondola will float in the air like a wartime captive dirigible. The aerial torpedo which zips up through the air is made by affixing fins to an air-filled balloon. The unique air boat cuts through the water under power of air exhaust from blown up balloon.

TEN STAG MOVIE SUBJECTS

all ten only $2.00 (8mm)

GREATEST ADULT MOVIE BARGAIN EVER!

A once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you to get ten delightfully different, sensationally thrilling stag shows on film FOR LESS THAN THE PRICE OF ONE! Lovely, luscious young beauties go all – out to please… ten girls, ten action plots, ten exclusive stag subjects, the kind you’ve always wanted, the kind only Titan Stag Films gives you!

NOW! DON’T DELAY! SPECIAL LIMITED INTRODUCTORY OFFER FOR NEW CUSTOMERS ONLY!

RUSH $2 CASH, CHECK OR MONEY ORDER (FOR 16mm SEND $4.50) to TITAN STAG FILMS BOX 46856, WEST HOLLYWOOD 46, CALIF.

Leathercraft – The “HE-MAN” HOBBY

Make Leather Items for Gifts, to Sell, or for Your Own Use Get started now. LARSON Beginners’ Kits of ready-cut projects require no tools or experience. Free instructions included. Make belts, gloves, moccasins, billfolds, woolskin animals and mittens, other attractive leather items. Also America’s most complete stock for advanced hobbyists and professional craftsmen. SEND 10c TODAY for big illustrated catalog.

J. C. LARSON CO., 820 So. Tripp Ave.
Dept. 3044 CHICAGO 24, ILLINOIS

Ants as Household Pets

ANT houses for children to build and watch at school and at home, as many schools and homes now keep bowls of goldfish or other kinds of aquaria, have been introduced at Hanover, New Hampshire, by Prof. Frank E. Austin of Dartmouth College. An ant house consists of two sheets of glass held in a wooden frame, like the two panes of a double window. The space between the glass sheets is filled with layers of sand or soil like that in which the ants ordinarily live. An ant colony is started in this glass house by introducing either a part of an existing colony or a fertilized ant queen who can start a new one. The ants proceed to build typical underground tunnels and chambers in which the life of the insects goes on just as in a normal ant-hill, apparently indifferent to the exposure of insect secrets to human gaze.