Mummy

While many an able tenor languished last week in comparative obscurity, the name of a tenor who has been six years dead appeared prominently on the pages of newspapers.

Had he been six years buried, Enrico Caruso would not have enjoyed so large a burst of posthumous fame. The Caruso corpse, however, has not moldered in the earth, nor has any worm yet tunneled the golden passage of its throat. Like the late Nikolai Lenin (among all famed contemporaries the only other one) the body of the great singer has been subjected to a process of embalmment which will preserve the natural contour of his face and figure for, it is alleged, 100 years. At first, when he was put to rest in the Caruso chapel in the Naples Cemetery, his visage was exposed to view, for any strangers to. see. Six months ago, however, the glass top of the casket was replaced by an opaque lid.

In this mausoleum, last week, there stood a throng of silent persons. These were relatives of the late Caruso, including his widow Dorothy; come to pay homage to the greatest of their clan. Soon they knelt in an attitude of prayer before the casket. Mrs. Caruso left the crypt, leading by the hand her daughter Gloria II, who was weeping.

Gloria is not the only descendant of

Caruso. Enrico Jr. and Rudolpho, natural sons, are also at large. It was Enrico Jr. who last week arrived in the U. S. on an errand concerning his father's business affairs. His errand concerned specifically the royalties for Victor records which, as the records are sold, are now paid to the tenor's widow according to arrangement in a U. S. court. An Italian court had arranged that one half of these royalties be paid to Mrs. Caruso, one eighth be paid to Gloria Caruso and the rest to Enrico Jr., his uncle, Giovanni and his brother, Rudolpho. To eliminate the discrepancy in these advices upon his inheritance was the business of young Enrico; he hoped that U. S. officials would agree with the Italian verdict. No singer himself, he is not wealthy.