Law Is Upheld

A very upsetting ruling came down recently from Appellate Justice Paul Vallee.

Shocked
by the discovery that three men were held in jail for five days before
being arraigned, he stated in an opinion, "It appears the police are
permitted to flout, defy and violate the law they are sworn to uphold."

Asked for a ruling on Justice Vallee’s opinion, City Atty. Arnebergh
advised Chief Parker that prisoners must be arraigned within two days
after being arrested, to be taken before a magistrate without delay. It
also raises the question whether it’s legal to arrest a person on
"suspicion."

That hollow laughter you hear is from those who weren’t so lucky.

LAST WEEK was
a nightmare of embarrassment and frustration for a lady in South
Bel-Air. Fourteen of her checks, mostly for household expenses,
including a $33 item for a supermarket were returned NSF by her bank.

She
couldn’t understand it. Neither her husband, who insisted he’d
deposited her allowance, as he does the first of every month. In fact
he hinted she’d overspent for Christmas.

Then he checked his stubs and found he’d absent-mindedly deposited her allowance into his account instead of hers.

Worst part was that the lady couldn’t explain the mistake to the stores. They were closed because of the strike and New Year’s.

Yesterday,
she timidly faced the world, sustained only by a rising anger. There is
a $1.50 charge for a check that bounces. Fourteen times $1.50 is $21.

* *

CRYSTAL BALL
You wonder how the world will be
In the year 2000, you say?
They’ll just be showing on TV
The movies they’re making today.
– MARTHA MANHEIM

* *

NOW THAT the
experts have finished with theirs, I would like to nominate as the most
sobering story of 1958 the one about the woman who jumped off a
downtown building and struck a passerby, killing him, and pinpointing
the transience of life. It was the talk of year’s end parties.

* *

CAUGHT IN TRAFFIC
— A women motorist stopped mid-block in Pasadena to let a man cross
the street and he said. "Thank you, mam"  — the letters on her license
plate . . . KeithHomeiel of Whittier blinked when a Cadillac came by
with a little Nash Rambler on its tail. Then he saw the Rambler was a
pickup car, hitched to the Cad’s bumper . . . While waiting to enter a
drive-in theater Mrs. AHoft of Van Nuys heard a beautifully dressed
young lady alone in the car ahead tell the attendant, "I’ve been stood
up and I don’t want him to find me anywhere in case he changes his
mind!"

* *

AROUND TOWN — A panhandler on a
downtown street asked a phone girl named Dorothy for a nickel to buy a
sandwich and now that she has had time to think it over she wishes
she’d asked him where one can buy a sandwich for a nickel . . . The
metered postage imprint on envelopes from ABC-TV proclaims that this is
Rin Tin Tin’s 40th anniversary. Ah, life is just one big milestone after another.

* *

LOOSE ENDS
— No truth to the rumor that lady contestants on quiz shows are chosen
for their virtuosity as screamers. It just seems so . . . Everyone who
uses a typewriter should be happy about 1959. It’s easier to type than
1958. You can keep your finger on the nine . . . That sign on Highway
80 near ElCajon , "Dig this crazy road. It will be cool when Hazard’s
done," is a deliberate play on words, three subscribers advise. R. E.
Hazard of San Diego is the contractor . . . It’s only a matter of time,
Harry Cimring feels, until someone comes out with that Chihuahua cha cha, the Kamchatka cha cha and, inevitably, the Chattanooga Choo Choo cha cha.