we dispatched a young lady to the New York Public Library to check the newspapers for August 10, 1910, and determine which one of these interesting claims was correct. She came back with the caption that was printed under the picture in the New York World on that date: “This photograph was taken by a World photographer an instant after Mayor Gaynor was shot. Supporting him is Benjamin C. Marsh. … Rushing to his assistance is Edward J. Litchfield, a Brooklyn neighbor of the Mayor.”

Are there any other candidates?

“Strictly between us, you’re sweeter than Venus …”

An even greater puzzle has grown out of—we ehoose the expression carefully, as will be seen in a moment—our frontispiece photograph in the June, 1967, issue. The focus of interest here, of course, is the succulent one-piece bathing beauty being surveyed by the celebrated Earl Carroll as part of the contest for the title of The Modern Venus. Although various members of our staff examined this picture with much care and enthusiasm, not a single editorial eye noticed a peculiarity since drawn to our attention by several letters from readers who must have looked at the whole thing more objectively than we did. Here is one such letter:

“I found the picture series on the 1931 ‘birdwatchers’ and ‘birds’ in the June —67 issue amusing and nostalgic. One thing mystified me, however. While glancing at the picture of the erstwhile bathing beauties, I noticed that there was a feminine left forearm seeming to spring forth from the brow of Earl Carroll and grasp the vertical shaft of the scales’ height-measuring device. As far as I can tell there is no body in the photograph to which the forearm should properly belong.

Trick photography? Optical illusion?

Perhaps it belongs to one of the Coney Island ghosts I heard about during my boyhood in Brooklyn!”

Well, we went back to our picture source to see if there was any sign of trick photography or fancy dodging in the darkroom: there was none. So far, in addition to Mr. Simon’s suggestion about ghosts, it has been proposed that the arm obviously belongs to Venus herself, who in the tradition of Greek goddesses is indeed emerging full-blown from the brow of Earl Carroll, twentieth-century Zeus of female pulchritude; or that, alternatively, the arm is one of the two notoriously missing from the Venus of MiIo, here materialized in order to help measure the contenders for her name. Any other inore or less reasonable speculations will be gratefully entertained.

Panegyric for Panay

One picture that we published in a recent issue evoked special interest but luckily led to no puzzles. A photograph in the April A MERICAN H ERITAGE showed ail American seaman oil the gunboat Panay firing at attacking Japanese planes with a Lewis gun.

In his haste to reach his post, he had neglected to put on his trousers. Readers wanted to know the identity of this impetuous hero, and we are pleased to report that he was—and is—Ernest R. Mahlmann, chief boatswain’s mate at the time of the Panay incident. Mahlmann won the Navy Cross for his out-of-uniform performance; he is now retired and lives in EImhurst, Long Island. This tribute to him, by Vaun Al Arnold, appeared in the Bureau of Navigation Bulletin shortly after the episode:

Commend me to that noble soul Who, in the battle’s heat, Rushed to his post without his pants, The bomber’s dive to meet; Who stood upon the rocking deck In careless disattire, With shirt tail flaunting in the breeze, To deal out fire for fire. Old Glory’s color deepened As she floated o’er this son— The man who had no time for pants But plenty for his gun. Come, name a million heroes, But to me tliere’ll never be A finer show of nerve and grit On any land or sea— Then dwell upon your epics; Should you feel an urge for chants, Recall the sinking Panay And the gunner minus pants!