"Beware the Cigaret!"

Since the Civil War, most news from Spain has been written from afar, contributed by correspondents who 1) could not get in, 2) could not find out much if they did, 3) did not like what they found out. Last week Carey Longmire, open-eyed correspondent of the Paris New York Herald, turned in a report of a real trip through Spain. Having no truck with the official and political life, Correspondent Longmire wandered through the towns noting the price of eggs, the looks of posters, the crowds at bullfights, jokes, songs and the length of women's bathing suits, came back with a common man's view of a postwar world.

He found out that maids in the houses of Madrid noblemen get $4.50 a month, adding--either as a slur on aristocrats or a tribute to maids--that you can tell the maids from the aristocrats on the street because the maids are not allowed to wear hats. Gas is 50-c- a gallon. Trains are slow and jampacked with soldiers, who ride for nothing. There is plenty of fruit for sale --oranges, plums, cherries--but fish gets mighty tiresome after seven or eight meals in a row, and eggs may be available only two or three days a week. There are not only few Germans and Italians in Spain; there are few foreigners of any country. The Italians and Germans Correspondent Longmire saw looked like harried businessmen trying to put across some deal, and the only Italian officer in uniform he saw annoyed the natives by driving too fast.

But in North Spain one man in three is in uniform, in Madrid one man in five; theatres shut down for two minutes at 11 p. m. for an official news broadcast and the national anthem; bullfights are suspended half way through for cheers for Franco, the anthem and the fascist salute--a ceremony that has much in common with humorless Italian and German leader-worship, and more in common with the seventh-inning stretch.

Ironic to Correspondent Longmire were posters warning Spanish women who had just passed through a bloody civil war of unsuspected dangers of peace. "Spanish women!" read one, "Beware of the cocktail! Beware of the one-piece bathing suit! Beware of the cigaret!" At San Sebastian, fashionable beach city, he admitted to blinking at the spectacle of girls swathed in bathing dresses that reached their knees, learned that bathing suits must carry knee-length skirts and have tops that reach the neck. Penalty for less bathing suit: $18 fine. Women cannot lie down on Spanish beaches, and men must wear tops as well as trunks. Last year Pugilist Paolino Uzcudun tried to beat the law by swimming in a dinner suit and top hat, was hauled off to court for making fun of the rules, released when he proved there was no law forbidding swimming in evening clothes.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.