title: numpy genfromtxt issues with .txt input
body: <p>I'm trying to import a txt with strings and number columns using numpy.genfromtxt function. Essentially I need an array of strings. Here is a sample txt giving me trouble:</p>
  
  <pre><code>    H2S 1.4
      C1  3.6
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The txt is codified as unicode. Here's the code I'm using:</p>
  
  <pre><code>import numpy as np          
  decodf= lambda x: x.decode('utf-16')
  sample = np.genfromtxt(('ztest.txt'), dtype=str,
                          converters = {0:decodf, 1:decodf},
                                       delimiter='\t',
                                       usecols=0)
  print(sample)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Here's the output:</p>
  
  <pre><code>['H2S' 'None']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I've tried several ways to fix this issue. By putting dtype=None and eliminating the converter, I get:</p>
  
  <pre><code>[b'\xff\xfeH\x002\x00S' b'\x00g\x00\xe8\x00n']
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I also tried eliminating the converter and putting dtype=str and got:</p>
  
  <pre><code>UnicodeDecodeError: 'ascii' codec can't decode byte 0xff in position 0: ordinal not in range(128)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>I understand this is a troublesome function. I saw different options 
  (eg: <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/questions/16581070/numpy-genfromtxt-issues-in-python3">here</a>) but couldn't get anyone to work.</p>
  
  <p>What am I doing wrong? In the meantime, I'm looking into Pandas...
  Thanks in advance</p>