LAOS: Three-Headed Elephant

The kingdom of Laos is a wild and mountainous strip of land in the interior of Indo-China. It is almost twice as large (89,320 sq. mi.) as Pennsylvania, has a population of 1,012,000. Last week, at the Elysee Palace in Paris, Sisavang Vong, King of the Laotians, and French President Vincent Auriol signed a treaty establishing Laos as an independent nation within the French Union. French soldiers, who henceforth would be required to salute the Laotian flag, should have little trouble recognizing it: a red field bearing a three-headed white elephant topped by an umbrella.