"Worst in Decades"

Only when startling records are set does cold weather become hot news. Startling, last fortnight, was a whole series of such records, observed with attendant local hardships throughout most of Europe and the Near East. Parisians had not been so cold in 15 years, Londoners in 32, Romans in 80 years. . . .

Italy-Dalmatia. Not only were Naples and Sicily snowmantled, not only did Vesuvius and Mount Etna spurt red ashes into a white storm; but the cold grew so intense in Dalmatia--across the Adriatic Sea from Italy--that the surface of a minor mountain range contracted, causing severe landslides near Spalato.

At Rome the temperature touched 23DEG Fahrenheit--lowest at the season for 80 years--and a slight earthquake added to the general misery. The Beatissimus Pater, Pius XI, remained imperturbably seated in his study during the four minutes of earthcrust wabbling.

England. Sudden snow, quick-freezing sleet caught Londoners so unawares that within 24 hours 30 hospitals were tending 1600 patients injured by slips and falls.

Prince George, as his car sped through London, was victim of a vicious skid, overturned. Nonchalant, His Royal Highness crawled from the wreck, straightened up, lit a cigaret, hailed a taxi.

Meanwhile the King-Emperor and Queen-Empress sojourned amid huge drifts of country snow, at Sandringham. George V was known to have telegraphed his Keeper of the Swans certain instructions as to their wintry care.

Throughout England the freezing of rivers which generally remain liquid all winter was so exceptional that skates to the value of -L-1,000 ($4875) were purchased within three days from one London firm alone.

Five days afterward came a sudden thaw. From ice into water turned many a stream--including the Serpentine, that storied streamlet of Hyde Park, London, in which swam Peter Pan. Thus, it became possible to hold last week, the famous 110-yard Serpentine Swimming Race which is sponsored each year by Sir James Matthew Barrie. Last week he stood at one end of the Serpentine under an old, sopping umbrella and awarded to the winner of the race, one H. J. Edwards, the handsome, annually donated Peter Pan Cup.

France. Since Frenchfolk are proverbially less hardy than Britons, despatches reported no skating orgies or icewater swims in France, but rather much stark misery.

At Paris seven paupers froze to death in the streets. Some, it was told, had refused to accept warmth and shelter for winch they could not pay. Misjudging their powers of resistance to the unfamiliar cold,* they had stumbled on through the snow --too long. . . .

Fortunately--at least for such poor-proud folk--the French concept of a policeman's duty is paternal. It was so interpreted, last week, by M. Jean Chiappe, the Prefect of Police of Paris. With firm wisdom M. le Prefet ordered his gendarnes to take into custody every vagrant. Soon, in warm Paris jails, the needy were served hot soups and stews which they could accept without loss of honor. When the weather moderated they were released.

An act of such pure, understanding tact, observers thought, was finely typical of M. Chiappe. They recalled how he won fame (TIME, June 27) by his quiet, skillful arrest of Leon Daudet, editor of L'Action Francaise. Theatric, irrepressible M. Daudet had barricaded himself against the police and was supported by stalwart young Royalists armed with canes. Moreover public sympathy was with Daudet--both because of his high spirit and because the offense for which he had been sentenced to jail was merely technical. In such circumstances the arrest had to be nonviolent. M. le Prefet Jean Chiappe solved his problem by appearing in impeccable full dress at the head of irresistible forces of police and beseeching M. Daudet "in the name of France" to give himself up. Thus, Daudet could and did surrender without losing face.

Balkans & Near East. From Constantinople came news of "furious gales" over the Black Sea and record low temperatures in Asia Minor. Balkan temperatures sank to four below zero in Belgrade and; even lower in other parts of Jugoslavia. "Tall" but circumstantially repeated; was a story of how the dead, frozen bodies of 17 Jugoslavian soldiers were discovered "clutching their rifles and in perfect marching order . . . half buried in and supported by the snow.

The Danube was completely choked with ice, last week, from Vienna to the Black Sea, a distance exceeding 1000 miles.

Ships. For the first time in 12 years all cross channel ships and airplanes had to suspend service for some days. When the French channel steamer Engadine set out imprudently from Boulogne, towering seas swept off a hatch, flooded her bow, and burst through a bulkhead into the women's firstclass saloon. By supreme good fortune no one was drowned within the ship and she managed to limp into Folkstone harbor without foundering.

On the transatlantic run the Cunarder Andania was perhaps subjected to heaviest buffeting. When she reached Liverpool her master, Captain Doyle said: "It was as bad as we could have it and stay afloat. . . . Mountainous seas washed over us fore and aft."

* 9 above zero Fahrenheit.