Alalas

Signer Mussolini announced last week that the new tax on Italian bachelors (TIME, Dec. 20) will vary directly with the individual's potential proliferousness, rising between the ages of 25 to 45 and then falling to nil at the age of 65.

The following classes of bachelors were announced to be tax exempt: 1) priests, 2) sufferers from inheritable diseases, 3) military and naval officers, 4) paupers and invalids adjudged incapable of supporting a wife.

Signorina Edda Mussolini, 16-year-old daughter of II Duce, flung a champagne bottle last week at the stem of a great liner, crying: "I christen thee Augustus!"

The Augustus, "the first all-Fascist built ship," will be the largest motor ship in the world (33,000 tons). She slid into the water at Genoa last week only eight months after her keel was laid, and her great Diesel motors will send her churning to South America seven months hence.

The Fascist newsorgan II Tevere explained editorially last week why, of four recently awarded Nobel Peace Prizes, not one went to an Italian. Wrote the editor: "Fascismo wants justice for itself and others and has no ax to grind under false pretenses of peace. . . . [Referring to the Nobel award of Vice President Dawes]. Some nations unable to bear the burdens of victory fell prey to so-called economists who were nothing more than agents of international finance. The Dawes Plan aims to give the great War the judicial verdict of a bankruptcy trial. Where is there peace in all this? The Dawes Plan has nothing in common with peace!"