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Grief of the Ally. Italians last week rode to cold homes in dark, jampacked busses. The grapevine added details to succinct communiques reporting the setbacks in Albania and the shake-up in the High Command (see p. 28). There were uncon firmed reports of rioting. In Rome there was grumbling over ever-increasing prices and the severe rationing of already frugal meals. Spaghetti, flour and rice were added to the list of rationed foods. Any farmer withholding his crops from compulsory storage was ordered imprisoned for a year.
The blockade had cut off more than 80% of Italian imports, 90% of imports of oil and fats. The cotton reserve would be exhausted by the end of 1940, rubber and wool shortly thereafter. The price charged by Germany for coal hauled across the Alps made heat a luxury.
The Italians, a humorous people, got a wry pleasure out of tipping their hats. In a country where the proper salute is an upraised hand word passed quietly that hat-tipping was an expression of the yearn ing for peace. Many hats were tipped on the streets. Humor of another kind was furnished to a fashionable audience largely of women in Rome by Major Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, founder of the futurist school of Italian poetry. After telling his audience that "the Italian is hated by the masculine world, but adored by the feminine world," and proposing the formation of a corporation for the exportation of Italian love, Futurist Marinetti produced a few of his "Aero-Poems." The Aero-Song of the Bombing Plane said:
"Women don't love silent, gentle little aeroplanes that don't know how to bomb."
The Aero-Song of Gasoline: "Thousands desire thee, 0 Pipeline, but to me alone thou givest thy gasoline kisses."
Sorrows of the Vanquished. Last week Gestapo Chief Heinrich Himmler summoned a conference of staff officers from Germany's armies of occupation to consider measures for dealing with unrest.
That meeting was the best evidence of Europe's state this winter.
Belgium was grim because the country had been looted of foodstuffs, because 50,000 workers had been deported to Germany, because there was no real leadership in the nation, with its Government in exile in London and King Leopold stead fastly refusing to become a puppet. When Jews in Antwerp were ordered to wear armbands a few weeks ago, masses of gentiles appeared on the streets with identical armbands.