Strolling Around the Town

If James E. Shannon, veteran Seattle Precinct constable, is victorious in the November 6 election, he will be starting his twenty-ninth year on the job.

Shannon was elected when the late Judge John B. Gordon became a justice of the peace, and has been on duty at the Police Headquarters Justice Court ever since. One of his campaign promises is that he saves the county the expense of office rent every year, because he carries his papers in his pocket instead of using an office.

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The Stroller, who once attempted to read the Analects of Confucius -- and rather enjoyed it while the whim lasted -- has a new-old enthusiasm. Guess what: Montaigne's Essays, no less.

They're lots of fun, and old Michel Eyquem Montaigne is surprisingly modern. Right now, the Stroller is amusing himself copying out maxims which might do very well as a guide to living in Seattle in 1934 although they were written by a philosopher in France in the latter 1500's.

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Stroller's nomination for the mantle of Charles Dickens: Albert Halper. Having enjoyed his "Union Square," have you sampled his new book, "The Foundry"? And there are some poignantly beautiful excerpts of Halper's Chicago recollections, in sketch form, in Carl Van Doren's new anthology, "Modern American Prose."

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DeCasto Earl Mayer, mystery man who was sent from here to prison for life in 1929 in connection with the robbery and disappearance of James Eugene Bassett, Baltimore, Md., school teacher, has built himself a little curio business from within his cell at the Washington State Penitentiary, according to Garfield Davis, state parole officer.

Mayer, still as gaunt and silent as when he faced innuendo murder accusations during his trial here, sits in the cell day after day braiding horse-hair and whittling mementoes for sale at parks and curio-shops.

Mayer borrowed the "makings" for his first curios from other inmates. Mayer was sent to prison as an habitual criminal after he was found to have had possession of a watch and automobile of Bassett's.

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James Y. Sakamoto, blind editor and publisher of The Japanese-American Courier, took a great deal of pleasure last night in recording the opportunity opened to his fellow second-generation Japanese, Tara Aoki.

Aoki leaves Christmas Day for Japan to assist Prof. Takeo Iwahashi, Japanese philosopher, in opening a vocational school for the blind at Osaga. Like Sakamoto, Ooki and Professor Iwahashi are blind, although Aoki is not totally so. Aoki, graduate of the Vancouver School for the Blind, was interviewed here recently by the noted Japanese philosopher and teacher.

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L.O. Shrader, City Council committee clerk, wanted to get off a street car in Second Avenue, just before it turned into its Pike Street loop, to catch another car across the intersection.

But the street car operator would not let Shrader off, because passengers cannot be taken on or let off until they make the turn into Pike.

Shrader rode impatiently around the corner, but when he finally could get off, the other car was gone. By the time another car arrived, Shrader had forgotten he had paid one fare and had a transfer in his hand, so paid another fare when he boarded, the car, thereby completing the ruination of his disposition for the time.