ODD BITS

PAGEANT article on prisons depicts men stripped to waist, wrestling, with subtitle: "Violent exercise is encouraged as means of sublimating pent-up sexual desires." Which sexual desires?

Milwaukee man arrested, ordered out of town after his ghostlike face frightened bevy of cops. Explained he hadn't known powder on face was luminous, wore it because it gave him more finished look.

After calling police to arrest peeping Tom, an Ohio stripteaser gave cops autographed nude photo of self, inscribed, "What the Peeping Tom was peeping at." Ought to've been grounds to get Tom freed.

PASSING OUT ORCHIDS

Orchids to Winchell for recent column on history of censorship...

And to British film censor Watkins, who while decrying film violence, long since dropped taboo on married couples bedding together, with query, "Where else would you expect them to sleep nights"...

And to American Civil Liberties Union, answering Postmaster Summerfield's charge they confuse license with liberty. ACLU, not defending actual obscenity, criticized PO's many attempts to usurp a court function, citing ban on ESQUIRE mailing and recent ridiculous LYSISTRATA affair...

And to Tom Cullen for excellent summation of British homosexual fuss in April 25 NEW REPUBLIC...

And to US Court of Appeals for ruling gov't. can't arbitrarily and without due process restrict freedom of travel...

And to Warden Heyns of Michigan for statement that one third of nation's quarter-million prison inmates should be released immediately, as they were confined for minor reasons, and could adjust easily. He denied prison can be deterrent to crime, called for wider use of parole and probation...

And to Erle Stanley Gardner who told Pennsylvania Prison Society today's prisons are "crime factories". . .

And to Sidney Wachs of LA Probation Dept. for excellent explanation of dept's. work at Mattachine Society's Second Annual Convention . . .

And to James Barr, now finished with MAMA DOLL, his second play, even stronger than GAMES OF FOOLS. . .

And finally to American Law Institute. for far-sighted decision to urge basic changes in laws regarding adultery and homosexuality.

RECOMMENDED READING

THE OUTER RING, Audrey Lindop, (Appleton-Century, $3.75) account of conditions producing homosexuality in most moral of families.

Alfred Duggin's fine new biography of JULIUS CAESAR (Knopf, $2.50) recounts how Caesar outraged patrician Romans by sleeping with King Nicomedes as part of military bargain. Caesar's fellow Romans didn't object to act-but to prostitution.

HOMOSEXUALITY AND THE WESTERN CHRISTIAN TRADITION (Longmans, $3.50) by Derrick Sherwin Bailey, chief lecturer for Church of England's Moral Welfare Council. Painstaking but quite readable account of development of Church's attitude on homosexuality. Attacks many conclusions of Westermarck, Ellis, et al.

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