sages from Tropic for TV newscast audiences, putting in a plug for the sale of Tropic by mail order as he did so. Mr. Coy Watson of KABC asked him to send him a copy of the book and Mercer made his first sale. All the while Mercer was handing out Cosmo Book Sales cards as fast as he could-to TV men and as many spectators as came near. He didn't take time to notice that he handed one to a uniformed bailiff. Shortly after court reconvened, the judge asked the jury to retire, and ordered Mr. Mercer before the bench. Mercer stepped forward scattering cards offering Tropic for sale as he did so. He was severely admonished by the judge for his actions, but it was too late, Mercer had already amply made his point. Judge Holaday was about the only person in and around the court house that day to which J. D. Mercer did not try to sell a copy of Tropic of Cancer.

A WORD TO THE WISE

New Captain of the Hollywood Div. of the L.A. Police Dept., Henry Mack, "is out to whip an ugly problem." You guessed it. The problem is too many homosexuals in Hollywood. Capt. Mack elaborated all the usual complaints: "It is reliably estimated that from 5 to 10% of the total Hollywood population is homosexual." "Most of the 85% jump in venereal disease rate during the past year is a result of these sex deviates."

"Surveys show that over a five year period the rise in the veneral disease for the Wilshire-Hollywood area has been 937 per cent. Hence it is apparent that the homosexuals present a serious health problem." (This reporter once asked the Health Department to support such charges, but they were never able to. It is our opinion that homosexuals are unusually clean.)

Chief Mack complained further: "There are 20 bars in Hollywood that cater almost exclusively to these people (Lack-a-day!). Servicemen who visit the community sometimes fall prey to them. The navy reports that last year it had to discharge 1,300 men because of venereal disease."

The list of complaints hardly bears repeating. But it behooves those in the area to take care. Vice-cops have already been caught snooping about, and in a couple of places that have been considered entirely safe. All the police need is the necessary evidence for a successful prosecution of a case and they will arrest. The way Capt. Mack's men work, it is not hard to get that evidence.

SOMETHING FOR THE BOYS?

A major TV network has found, while checking ratings on its westerns, that every time one of the western heroes-manly fellow

-took his shirt off the number of viewers went up. It found at the same time that another western series in which the hero was the kind women like to mother, never gained such popularity as the first.

When the network had to schedule reruns, instead of putting on 6 shows on each western, they showed instead, 12 of the manly hero, none of the mothering one. They selected shows in which the hero removed his shirt often.

The decision shows much network virtue, although probably inadvertent. When the broadcast executives went over the ratings and saw that the number of viewers had gone up for "manly hero," they are reported to have thought "that women do like to look at attractive men just like men like to look at attractive women." No comment.