Word: customs
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When Mr. Justice Holmes ascended from the Massachusetts Supreme Court to the U.S. Supreme Court in 1902, he brought along his custom of each year picking a bright young clerk from Harvard Law School. Himself childless, he explained that his clerks gave him the fun of fatherhood without the pain, since his "sons" changed every year. Holmes's legal family became so popular that it soon grew into a sort of Rhodes scholarship of U.S. law. Clerking for the Supreme Court is now a launching pad for all kinds of later fame -be it heading the State Department (Dean...
...called hitchhiking, and although many a student with a sign (GOOD CONVERSATIONALIST ALBUQUERQUE PLEASE) can still be seen, express ways and police are driving the custom out of style. But in Europe, the autostop, as hitchhiking is known in internationalese, is a thriving student institution. In universities across the Continent, and on many U.S. campuses too, college kids are about to dust off knapsacks and take to the open Autobahnen, routes nationales, carreteras and autostrade...
...border crossings, West German police have been known to halt a car and order the driver to take aboard a wholesome-looking stoppeur. Neatness counts, since it denotes respectability; so does a pair of knobby knees (male), because Germans like outdoorsiness. The thumb is a U.S. import; native custom dictates an erect forearm and a vigorous loose-wristed wag of the hand. One student last summer became king of the Autobahnen by carrying a sign that said: I KNOW A THOUSAND JOKES...
...astonishingly enough, there is hardly a woman who would be caught dead without gloves. Why? Largely because of etiquette. Even as "bold" and "modern" a social arbiter as Amy Vanderbilt, who last year went so far as to sometimes permit picking up chicken bones by hand (a custom she personally practices only at picnics), warns that "it is still not true that if one goes hatless, one also goes gloveless" and insists "they should be worn to complete a street or evening costume." For eating hors d'oeuvres, "the right glove, at least, is removed or rolled back...
...much the ruling in McLaughlin and Hoffman v. Florida will affect other state miscegenation laws will not be known until the court hands down its decision next fall. But the tide seems to be running against the old Southern custom. In 1948, the California State Supreme Court ruled California's miscegenation law unconstitutional under the 14th Amendment. Antimiscegenation laws have since been repealed in other states; in Nebraska one was wiped off the books only last year. Goal of the N.A.A.C.P. in this case: "Freedom to join in marriage with the person of one's own choice...