Americana

P: U.S. citizens now smoke a billion cigarettes a day, according to the calculations of the Federation of Tax Administrators.

P: New York City officials totted up the results of a year's vandalism in public parks: 1,000 trees ruined, 11,000 square feet of windowpanes smashed,* 500 wire trash baskets destroyed, 4,500 light fixtures broken, five miles of slats bashed from park benches.

P: A Stonewall, Ga., milkman named H. T. Bradberry found a U.S. mail pouch containing $239,000 in currency lying beside the Atlanta & West Point Railroad tracks. He turned it over to postal authorities, who grabbed the sack, subjected him to gimlet-eyed questioning, finally told him he was free to leave--but did not utter one word of thanks.

P: The Treasury complained that it was losing a billion dollars a year through tax evasion, asked Congress for 10,000 more men to collect it.

P: The Post Office Department celebrated the 30th anniversary of the first airmail flight--a deed of derring-do by an Army pilot who, on May 15, 1918, flew 144 lbs. of mail 218 miles from New York to Washington in a World War I "Jenny." On the anniversary date, two jet planes flew eight ounces over the same route. Time: 27 1/2 minutes.

P: W. C. Wingo of Memphis, Tenn. put a headlight on his electric mower and began cutting his lawn at night. This made him miss his favorite radio programs. So he equipped the mower with a radio.

P: New York's Daily News noted that nearly three years after the late Fiorello La Guardia bullied his city council into renaming Sixth Avenue the "Avenue of the Americas," it was still Sixth Avenue in the vulgate of most New Yorkers.

P: The Memphis and Shelby County (Tenn.) Medical Society suspected that some of its members were having themselves paged at the local ballpark for advertising purposes, gave each man a number to be used for public summons. The calls fell off immediately.

P: New York's Democratic Congressman Arthur G. Klein suggested that the Treasury print a three dollar bill, bearing a portrait of the late President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

P: George Eiferman, 22, an awesome mass of sun-cured muscle, won the A.A.U.'s annual "Mr. America" contest in Los Angeles' Shrine Civic Auditorium. The judges thought Eiferman, an ex-Navy man and trumpet player, had a better build than twelve other bubble-biceped youths. Height: 5 ft. 9 in.; weight: 197 lbs.; chest: normal 47 1/2 in., expanded 50 in.; waist: 30 1/2 in.; biceps: 17 3/8 in.

* For other news of broken windowpanes, see EDUCATION

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