Brouhaha

Italians, of late, have spent much valuable time disputing with Frenchmen. Last week four incidents engaged the interest of newsgatherers, made for bitterness and retractions.

P: Italian students played football with Hungarian students at post-Olympic games in Paris. Anti-Fascists among the spectators hissed and booed the Italians. Result--a brouhaha* French gendarmes intervened and several Italian students were injured.

Piqued, they returned to Rome, were met by Fascist Secretary General Augusto Turati. Said Secretary Turati: "France, country of all liberties, should be ashamed of having violated all duties of hospitality."

French journals sought to pacify, laid the blame on antiFascists, signalled a return of cordial relations between the two countries.

Had the forces of conciliation won? Secretary Turati decided that if they had, he would sour the wine of their victory. He published an edict prohibiting all imported (therefore, French) wines at Fascist dinners or militia messes. As everyone knows, most Italian wines are totally without merit.

P: Italian Consul Marquis di Muro was shot in the nose at the Nice consulate.

P: Three Frenchmen crossed the Franco-Italian border. Italian border guards, speaking Italian, stopped them, asked for credentials. The Frenchmen, speaking French, presented them. The guards, leeming their words derogatory to the regime of Signor Benito Mussolini, arrested them; fined two, imprisoned one.

P: Italian attention was focussed with little pleasure upon French military activities near the Italian border, in the Department of Haute Savoie. Crack infantry and artillery drilled, saluted, climbed mountains. The Berlin press saw a French menace to Italy.

* 0nomatopoetic French word for uproar, hurly-burly.