Japan’s Army is flexing it’s muscles on Jan. 11, 1937 and is actually running the government. The Army’s strength now is 250,000 men and 13,000 officers. According to LIFE, “No soldier in the world takes so readily to discipline. He can march 50 miles a day on a diet of fish and rice. He will commit suicide in action.” In just a few short years Allied forces would be on the receiving end of these personal qualities. LIFE concludes that the Japanese “are gluttons for exercise and clean-living.”
Miners in the anthracite coal region of Pennsylvania had been experiencing hard times since the mid 1920′s when coal companies introduced new machinery that displaced many men. And when the depression arrived people and towns were becoming more desperate every day. Miners used the skills acquired on the job to secretly mine coal on company land to heat their homes. Then they used it as barter for food and other services. As the depression continued these illegal operations expanded to the point where thousands of tons were being mined each day. The coal companies had been attempting to cartelize the industry for decades and were strongly opposed to this competing production. By 1936 400,000 tons of stolen coal was being sold to New York City alone, LIFE states. Local juries would not convict the bootleggers, and local, state and federal officials would not pursue the issue. Government officials knew that unemployment was up to 75% in some PA towns and but for bootleg coal many faced starvation. Mining coal illegally was also very dangerous work. Timbers are required for support and miners used whatever timber was available nearby which was often inadequate. Many collapsed and children were at risk of falling in them. As a consequence of years of illegal mining, fires like those in the Centralia, PA mines…started in 1962…continue to burn today. Bootleg mining declined during WWII as men were sent to war. Alternate fuel sources like oil and gas greatly expanded after WWII and bought an end to this activity.
In the early days of LIFE pictures of pretty women in baths or bathing suits were often featured. In this issues we learn that a wax bath to remove two pounds of excess weight cost $10, and it involved 50 pounds of hot wax being applied on each female patron. In London a Thames River mud bath was popular with the fashionable set. A 15 cent bottle of powdered milk was all that was necessary for American women at home to enjoy a milk bath cherished by the Romans since 100 BC.
