Word: gutta-percha
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Like many other little girls, Electra Havemeyer liked to collect dolls. Her collection eventually included early American rag and wood dolls, dolls made of bisque, china, papier-mâchÊ, wax, rubber, rawhide, gutta-percha and celluloid. She also liked dollhouses, and wound up owning 43 of them, some big enough to accommodate people...
...chewing-gum base from the U.S. entered Germany recently falsely labeled "raw gutta-percha"-a duty-free item. Hard-to-recognize electronic devices are classified as items simpler and cheaper; high-grade steel is listed as low-grade. "Many goods are thoroughly packed," says a badgered customs man, "and with great amounts coming through, we can't unpack everything...
...stockpile mummified leftovers from previous wars and to lend them out to the villagers as needed. From his handsome riverside fortress in Kuching, he brought modest prosperity to the kingdom by exploiting its oil and rubber resources as well as diamonds, birds' nests (for Chinese gourmets) and gutta-percha (for golf balls). In 1941, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Brooke raj, Sir Charles gave his people a constitution and set them on the road to self-government. Contemplating war-ravaged Sarawak in 1946, Sir Charles sadly realized that his raj had become an anachronism in the postwar world...
...found herself involved in an emotion-charged argument with the family of the Camelback's vehemently anti-Communist Proprietor Jack Stewart. Convinced that Mrs. Robb had not only impugned his politics, but criticized his hotel's food and service as well (she described the luncheon peas as "gutta-percha"). Stewart gave the Robbs five minutes to get out of the Camelback...
...islands is under cultivation. Agricultural methods are very primitive. Little has been done to improve them. The soil and climate of the Islands, however, is as good as the best in the fabulously rich Indies. All manner of tropical products can be grown there--rubber, camphor, coffee, tea, cocoa, gutta-percha, cocoanuts. Of these we import each year enormous quantities, but only a very small percentage comes from the Philippines. If, therefore, Americans would help the Filipinos to develop their great resources, the benefit would be mutual. We need their products. The need our financing and technical skill...