AUSTRIA and GERMANY announce their engagement KINDLY OMIT FLOWERS

From Simplicissimus, Munich

AN ANNOUNCEMENT ILL RECEIVED A GERMAN CARICATURIST shows that he has no illusions concerning the reaction of Poincaré, Mussolini, and Chamberlain to an AustroGerman union

thing which might lead to German hegemony. Italy, England, and particularly France the latter supported by the latter supported by the Little Entente of Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania, which she controls oppose the tendency toward political union of Berlin and Vienna. Nevertheless commercial rules and regulations in Germany and Austria are being brought into harmony, customs barriers are being lowered, cultural ties are being forged, and the believers in and promoters of union hope that in time Anschluss will exist in fact, although the other great Powers may withhold their blessing from any official solemnization of such an international wedlock.

CATCHING BOOTLEGGERS IN FINLAND

'N AMERICA, no special usefulness

IN

has been found for bootleggers who have been caught and convicted, in spite of the fact that some of the nation's keenest intellects are now devoted to outwitting the duller minds possessed by prohibition agents. Those convicted and sent to jail just serve their sentences at the public expense, as do other prisoners, and, during their leisure hours in stripes, devise cleverer wiles and devices for more successful and profitable operations when their terms of incarceration are past. In Finland prohibition is as old as it is in the United States, but experience there has apparently proved to be a better teacher.

When the Finns catch bootleggers, they put them to work making traps to catch other bootleggers.

The latest trap to be developed by the Helsingfors police is called a 'knife carpet,' and consists of an iron plate six feet long and six inches wide, in which is set a row of wicked-looking knife blades.

This apparatus, manufactured by former bootleggers serving sentences in Helsingfors prisons, is laid across the road to rip open the tires of automobiles which fail to stop in response to police signals.

Although it is too early to say how effective the device will prove in halting bootleggers headed from the coast to the Finnish capital with automobile loads of German Kümmel, its practicability as a destroyer of automobile tires has been established beyond question. Within an hour after the "knife-carpet" was first laid across the road, a car disregarded the signal and had its tires slashed to bits. The police were gleeful, until they found that the car contained an eminent Finnish general on his way to an important appointment.

LEGISLATING FOR THE GERMAN
SERVANT GIRL

THEN Germany had a Kaiser,

every domestic servant was required to carry a 'service book,' which contained the references given her by successive employers, their authenticity successive employers, their authenticity duly certified by the local police. Any intervals between the periods of employment indicated were closely scrutinized by a prospective employer, and households were thus protected against domestics whose pasts had chapters missing.

All this was cast overboard by the Socialist revolution of 1918, because Socialist revolution of 1918, because it was thought to work to the benefit of the employer rather than the employed. the employer rather than the employed. The fact that a section providing for the return of the 'service book' is included in a new bill put before the present Reichstag by the Socialists themselves is therefore significant. It perhaps indicates that domestic dishonesty has not decreased in the last ten years. It may also indicate that the socialists for that reason are placating the German housewife with the 'service book' in order to gain her support for other provisions in the same bill, which are thought to benefit the domestic servant greatly.

Some idea of what this 1928 German servant girl is like can be gained from a knowledge of how she spends her money. A correspondent sends to the Frankfurter Zeitung the following expense schedule of a twenty-year-old German cook:

The German servant girl is modernizing herself according to what she believes, from the American films she sees, to be the best American tradition. She puts silk stockings on her legs, that they may be displayed to as good advantage as the legs of the film stars; she watches her appearance carefully, paints and powders, spends little on undergarments not exposed to the gaze of friends and passers-by; she is literary to the extent of reading detective stories in addition to cook books; and, to increase the intellectual impression, which is reported to have a strong effect on the German equivalent of the American boy friend, she wears horn-rimmed spectacles, even though in her case she does not go to the needless expense of having lenses put in them.

Even if, outside of these externals, her situation has not changed greatly since the Kaiser's time; even if, as a cook, she is still paid fifteen dollars a month, or as a maid-of-all-work, ten; even if the conditions under which she works have not been altered except by the abolition of the service book' of monarchical days, nevertheless the Socialists feel that she has lost her old passivity, and has gained in intelligence and ambition to the point where they can count on her coöperation in the passage of new laws.

So, if the new bill is passed, although the 'service book' may come back as a sop to the housewife, with it will come many compensating advantages for the servant girl. She will be able to demand of her employer, among a long list of other things, a bedroom which can be heated if necessary.' Certain duties which may and certain others which may not be assigned to maids employed in certain capacities will be specified in the bill. Most important of all is the proposed appointment of inspectors to visit private households and report on complaints lodged by maids against their employers. In the end, the German housewife may find that servant girls will come very close to being organized into unions as, say the Socialists, they very properly should be.

GRASMUS FAILED TO UNDERSTAND

WHEN Grasmus was in Paris this

WHEN Worie of the best

oats he had ever eaten in his life, but one mean trick was played on him.

Grasmus, it will be recalled, is the ancient German cab horse who drew Berlin's cabby 'good-will ambassador,' Iron Gustav, on a two months multiplestop jog from the German to the French capital. Naturally a horse like that had every right to expect to have things made as pleasant as possible for him, and Grasmus suspected nothing out of the

way when he was invited to the Latin Quarter to enter a race with a number of French cabs. The stage was properly set. A big crowd had already gathered at the starting point when Grasmus arrived, and more came from the cafés as the impatient hoofs of the racers clattered on the cobbles.

Grasmus was not in the least nervous. As he sized up his competitors, his confidence increased. He had been in the business nearly thirteen years and, given coöperation from his driver, felt sure he would win the race. But this time someone had informed the German Embassy of the event, and a young German attaché was on hand to whisper to Iron Gustav, the 'good-will ambassador,' that it would contribute to the success of his diplomatic mission to allow a Frenchman to take the competition.

When the starting signal was finally given, no such noisy racket of hoofs and rattle of rickety vehicles had been heard in many a day. Grasmus was well in the lead, until an unfamiliar tug at the reins slowed him slightly. Accustomed only to being urged to go, and never restrained, Grasmus was mystified. As the finish approached, he tried to pull forward again; but Iron Gustav controlled him just in time, and the German Grasmus underwent the shame of seeing a French horse beat him by a nose.

Iron Gustav was proud of his finesse in causing so close a finish. A new link in a chain of national friendship had been forged. But Grasmus, who did not understand diplomacy, looked dejected and disgusted, standing panting at the curb.

WHEN KRUPP OFFERED CANNON TO
NAPOLEON

TEN

EN years ago the name of Krupp, the great German armament manufacturer of Essen, made Frenchmen grit their teeth. To-day the animosities of the World War are so far forgotten that a French review, L'Europe Nouvelle, can make a huge joke out of one of the most curious business letters ever written. It is dated April 28, 1868, just before the Franco-Prussian War, and was sent by Friedrich Krupp, founder of the Krupp industries, to Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. In Krupp's own handwriting, the letter runs as follows:

'Encouraged by the interest which Your August Majesty has been kind enough to show in a humble manufacturer like myself, as well as by the happy

THE WORLD OVER

results of your great efforts and sacrifices, I risk begging you to deign to accept the gift of the illustrated booklet which I am taking the liberty of sending under separate cover. It contains a series of engravings of the newest products of my factories. I trust that the last four pages in particular, describing the cast steel cannon for which I have received orders from several European governments, will hold Your Majesty's attention for a moment at least, and thus justify my temerity in writing this letter. With sentiments of profound respect, and high admiration I remain Your Majesty's very humble and obedient servant, Friedrich Krupp.'

No Krupp cannon were ordered by the Emperor of the French. Eighteen months later the German uhlans, backed by Krupp's artillery, swept across northern France to Paris and dragged the last Napoleon from his throne.

AN

ENGLISH À LA CATALONIA

N ENTERPRISING Barcelona newspaper, El Día Grafico, is devoting several columns daily to English translations of news despatches for the benefit of visiting tourists. Efforts in Barcelona to protect the local Catalonian dialect against the advance of pure Castilian Spanish may have prompted the translator to try his hand at putting a few Catalonian touches to the English language. Here are some of the items.

'Amsterdam. An aircraft of the hollandish army which was flying in the aroundings of Grave fell down from a considerable height. The two airmen flying in same have been taken out of the burning remains, entirely carbonized.'

'Mukden. The Chang Tso Ling's burial has taken place last Sunday. The burial has taken place last Sunday. The crowd was looking the funeral procession and blamed the Chang Tso Ling's political behavior.'

'Stockholm. The courageous swedish airman Lundborg, who saved the general Nobile, and that while trying to rescue the shipwrecked people broke his aircraft and was lost in the polar ice-blocks, has been rescued yesterday morning.'

'Sofia. Three unknown fellows have fired yesterday at midnight several shots against general Peteguerof. The general fell down seriously, and died while being carefully conveyed to the hospital.'

'Paris. Mr. Briand will submit to morrow to the Council the Kellogg's

7

contemplated agreement against the war. This agreement has been wellcome and the Quai d'Orsay is trying to make a real convention of the Kellogg's commentaries in reply to to France reservations.'

'Brussels. The circunstances by which the banker Mr. Loewenstein has passed away bring to the conviction that his death has merely been a self-murder. Mr. Loewenstein had been born in Brussels in 1874 and he was the third of the richest men of the whole world. The Loewenstein's widow has ordered that the fatal aircraft is sold at once.'

'Roma. The boxing match for the Europe Championship of half weight has taken place in between the Italian Mario Basisio (champion) and the mulatto Jack Walker (challenger) who has won by points.'

'Belgrade. Etienne Radich is growing worse. His wound suppurates and his heart spreads out. Radich is diabetic and cardiacal.'

'Roma. While everybody is hopeless in Norway as to Amundsen and Guilbaud's fate, italian people is growing anxious for Viglieri group. The fog and ice conditions prevent seaplanes to go down in polar regions. The seaplanes which had succeeded in getting Leigh Smith's cape, have been compelled to go back retracing their steps.'

'Cairo. The Egyptian government has just been resigned and the whole. country is very influenced by this event.'

Another theory suggests itself which may explain this collection of items from the principal cities of the world, if not their idiomatic phrasing. The LIVING AGE, in its June number, inaugurated the department Metropolitana consisting of characteristic and interpretive bits from the earth's metropolises. The department attracted immediate attention and stirred enthusiastic approval everywhere. Can the echo of this applause have reached the attentive ears of the enterprising editor of our Barcelona contemporary? Is El Día Grafico to have a Metropolitana all its own, and is what we have quoted the first installment of the series? The idea, we are sure, is a good one. The way it is worked out is a matter of taste, judgment, and literary skill. Our conception of these qualities is exemplified in our own Metropolitana found elsewhere in this number. But the items from El Día Grafico have their merit too.

AG

By Charles Hodges

GAINST a troubled background of Mexico's presidential crisis, Europe's chronic 'danger spots,' and China's battle for unity, the Anti-War Pact sponsored by the United States has run the gauntlet of Old World statesmanship with every promise of

success.

Reservations have given way to 'interpretations,' such as the British explanation of their empire interests, with all acceptances at hand in Washington toward the month-end. The August conference of signatories to complete the pact marks the last stage of this pilgrimage of peace.

Below the Rio Grande, Washington has been improving the stock of the United States among Latin-American nations.

Possibly nowhere has this shown to better advantage than in the human tragedy surrounding Mexico. The assassination of PresidentElect Obregón in the middle of July proved a crucial test for the Calles régime, with whom the United States has been working out a solution of paramount problems in MexicanAmerican friendship, and momentarily clouded the prospects for stabilization. The political balance has swung, however, in the direction of internal accord.

Next door, the American supervision of Nicaraguan elections, now close at hand, approaches its climax in the bitter battle of the

Liberal and Conservative Parties of the Central American republic. Though sentiment has become more favorable to the intervention of the United States, Washington's Caribbean policy possibly is the larger issue at the polls.

In South America, the promise of Chile and Peru reaching a settlement of their feud over Tacna-Arica becomes more substantial with the two West Coast republics once again shaking hands. This resumption of diplomatic relations, Washington feels, is but the prelude to a full liquidation of difficulties which the good offices of the United States have long sought to clear up.

es

In the Orient, nationalism continues to color the picture. The Chinese Nationalists, escaping the Scylla and Charybdis of Japan and the Treaty Powers, have made good their mastery of North China. Manchuria, that apple of Nippon's eye, has indicated its intention to return to the Chinese fold. Yet such prospects of Chinese unity seem too good to be true pecially with the Mikado's land openly declaring against the extension of Nationalist control to the Manchurian provinces. A smaller flame of nationalism, the Philippine independence movement, burns less aggressively as native leaders become reconciled to Governor-General Stimson's policies. The British in India, however, find themselves once again confronted with the power of Gandhi, as the Hindu apostle

of non-coöperation renews his programme of governmental paralysis. Closer to Europe, the struggle of Egypt over her relations with Britain, complicated by the all-important Suez Canal, has resulted in the failure of another parliamentary régime; a three-year dictatorship in Cairo, received as a 'surprise' by the British Foreign Office, opens up a new phase in Egypt's post-war status.

Europe's long existing sore spots - from the Baltic to the Adriatic- are providing their quota of anxiety. Poland and Lithuania, struggling over the city of Vilna, once more are deadlocked; the dispute goes to the looming League Assembly. Hungary becomes bitter over the results of the Transylvania land question, Rumania being the other party to a controversy which has left Budapest bitter against Geneva. Jugoslavia's internal crisis, precipitated by the shooting of Croatian leaders, leaves the paramount problem of Italy's Adriatic expansion still in the air by again postponing ratification of the Nettuno Conventions, pending for many months. Rome appears to be sympathetically inclined toward Belgrade in its difficulties.

Progress, however, is to be recorded in the settlement of the Tangier Question, which has been complicating the Mediterranean situation. Here, a diplomatic equation has been worked out to satisfy Spanish, French, Italian, and British interests and prestige.

T

By Vilhjalmur Stefansson

HE Arctic and Antarctic are not

only 'far as the poles apart' in distance; they are antipodal, too, in many other striking qualities. This raises new problems for the two Arctic flyers, Commander Richard Evelyn Byrd, of the United States Navy (retired), and Captain Sir George Hubert Wilkins, of the Australian Army (World War service), when in September of this year, as they now plan, they sail with northern experience to guide them in their southern adventures.

Byrd, of course, knows the Antarctic through books as well as through the speech and counsel of many who have been there. Wilkins has these advantages, too, but in addition he knows the Antarctic personally, for he was second-in-command of the British Imperial Antarctic Expedition of 1920-21, and he was chief of the scientific staff with Sir Ernest Shackleton in his Antarctic expedition of 1921-22.

The differences between the Arctic and Antarctic are so striking that they might have been specially created for rhetoricians to describe in balanced sentences. They are antithetical, they complement each other, they are reciprocal, too, in a way of speaking.

Basic is the difference that the Antarctic is in the main a small continent, the Arctic in the main a small ocean. The Arctic should, indeed, be named a sea rather than an ocean because of its lack of size. Now that we are beginning to cross it frequently by air and know it more intimately, we are tending to revert to the Elizabethan usage and speak of it as the Northern Sea, the Polar Sea, the Frozen Sea, the Arctic Mediterranean, or almost anything else than an ocean. The mistaken idea of its great size seems, by the way, to be derived mainly from that convenient but otherwise wretched type of map known as the Mercator projection, which makes Australia look only one-third as large as Greenland, although it is three and a half times as large, and even more distorts the Northern Sea until it impresses you as being larger than the Pacific, although it is smaller than one-twelfth of the Atlantic.

But Antarctica is not a very small continent, for it is larger than Australia. There is, of course, the possibility that

THE ANTARCTIC expediTHE

tions planned by COMMANDER BYRD and CAPTAIN SIR GEORGE WILKINS for this month are drawing the World's attention to the South Polar Regions.

What difficulties will be encountered by these two gallant flyers in their expeditions? How will the obstacles soon to confront them off the tip of South America differ from those they have already overcome in the North? From the point of view of exploration, what is the significance of the fact that the two poles of the earth are almost as different as black and white? An experienced Arctic explorer tells us in this article.

what we think of as one land mass may be instead an island in size somewhere be instead an island in size somewhere between Greenland and Australia, and one or more other islands separated

and by Wilkins and Eielsen in 1927 when, by the echo method, they found 17,000 feet about 550 miles northwest from Alaska.

Although the Antarctic Continent is on the average higher above sea level than any other continent, it is not yet known to contain any mountain as high as the leading peaks of the five other continents. For the Antarctic Mount Markham is 3365 feet lower than Mount Elbruz (Europe), 4356 feet lower than Kibo Peak (Africa), 5200 feet lower than Mount McKinley (North America), 7980 feet lower than Mount Aconcagua (South America), and 14,041 feet lower than Mount Everest, considered not only the highest mountain of Asia but of all the world.

The Arctic, although deep considering its small size, is by no means the deepest of all the oceans. The Wilkins sounding is 5968 feet less than the greatest recorded depth of the Indian Ocean, falls 14,366 feet short of the greatest depth of the Atlantic, and 17,210 short of the Pacific.

ENERALLY speaking, the old

from it by a depression running from the fashioned ideas about both of the Ross Sea to the Weddell Sea, cutting off what we now call Graham Land from the rest of Antarctica. The depression running between those two bights may prove to be a real division of land masses. But to the traveler, whether he walks or flies, it will remain of theoretical interest, for it is masked with such thick ice that nothing but elaborate deduction or observations by technical scientific methods can determine that the ice rests on land that is below sea level rather than above it.

As if to conform with what resembles an antithetical plan, the ice peaks of the Antarctic Continent are about as much above sea level as the greatest depths of the Northern Mediterranean are below it around three miles in each case. The highest altitude observed in the South was in 1902 by Scott, who found Mount Markham to be about 15,100 feet. The greatest depths measured in the North were by Storker Storkerson of the third Stefansson Expedition, when in 1918 he sounded by wire and a lead 15,000 feet at a point about 90 miles north of eastern Alaska,

polar districts do apply to the Antarctic and do not apply to the Arctic. There is, for instance, a real ice cap around the South Pole; around the North Pole there is no ice cap except when the journalists are talking about it. It is probable that the most intense cold on earth is found shortly after midwinter at the South Pole. At the North Pole the corresponding temperature is probably only half as far below zero and from 10° to 30° warmer than many places where Europeans live, as, for instance, the Verkhoyansk locality in the Yakutsk Province of Siberia, where grains are cultivated in summer with a July temperature of 90° in the shade, but where the winter cold reaches 90° below zero. It is probable that the South Pole minimum is lower than 120° below zero, Fahrenheit; the minimum at the North Pole is probably never colder than 60° below. Incidentally, there are towns in the United States that have observed minimum temperatures from five to ten degrees lower than the theoretical minimum for the North Pole.

E

A

N

THE ANTARCTIC REGIONS

It would be a mistake to conclude from these midwinter temperatures that exploratory work in the Antarctic has been conducted in the past at lower temperatures than in the Arctic, or that it is likely to be in the near future. On the contrary, most Arctic travelers have reported colder weather on their journeys than has any Antarctic traveler. This is because the favorable exploring season in the Arctic is in the winter but the favorable season in the Antarctic is the summer.

It used to be supposed that Arctic exploration could be done only in spring or summer, and the early expeditions followed that principle. But Sir Leopold McClintock and others got away from it around 1850, and then began the long exploratory journeys by sledge. Peary laid it down as a principle that a well conducted Arctic expedition should commence sledge operations in January or February and finish by April, or at the latest in early May. But all Antarctic explorers have begun their work in spring and finished it by autumn. This will doubtless be the practice there for the immediate future.

With regard to wind distribution, the Antarctic is so regular that it is incredible to us of the northern hemisphere, who are not brought up to any such thing. This regularity of the winds follows mainly from the symmetry of the land. The Antarctic continent is roughly circular. The South Pole is approximately in the centre of it; the centre is, roughly speaking, the highest part, and the land slopes away in every direction. This frozen and icecovered land is surrounded, therefore, in a circle by an unfrozen and ice-free ocean. The other three southern continents are about equally far away in their three

directions, South America, Africa, and Australia. According to a theory worked out in greatest detail by Professor William H. Hobbs, of the University of Michigan, and partly originated by him, the wind action of the Antarctic district has been explained with clearness, but not in any simple way that can be condensed into

a magazine paragraph. You are substantially in accord with that theory, however, if you think first of the fact that cold air is heavier than warm. Then you recall how cold it is in the centre of the Antarctic Continent and how any air that is there will tend to slide down all the sides of that Continent away from the high centre, like water sliding off the back of a turtle. The farther the air slides, the more momentum it will get. Furthermore, it will move faster when it gets to where the hill is steeper, and that is generally near the edges of the continent. Then, moreover, the sea all around the land is comparatively warm, and so there will be rising currents above it, creating a partial vacuum for the air that has been sliding and sliding faster toward the edges of the land to rush down into.

Here you have the main explanation that states the rule and covers everything but the inevitable exceptions that are brought about by various subsidiary forces described by Professor Hobbs. Remembering the rule and forgetting the exceptions for the moment, you are not surprised to learn from Sir Douglas Mawson that the average wind velocity for a whole year at his winter base, Adelie Land, was approximately fifty miles per hour, that the greatest velocity for the windiest month was 60.7 miles per hour, the average for the windiest day was 107 miles per hour, and 180 miles per hour the highest velocity of single gusts.

You are made to realize the exceptions, however, when you find that no Antarctic expedition has recorded nearly as high velocities as Mawson because their base stations were located in other parts, and that some expeditions, such as those of Scott and Amundsen, were in large part exempted from strong winds because of their choice of wintering quarters.

A corollary to all the above is that there could never be much wind right around the South Pole. We knew this

would be so, and both Scott and Amundsen observed conditions there which indicate that a wind has never blown at all for the last thousand years, or at least not with any violence.

When the violent winds blowing off the edges of the Antarctic Continent proceed in every direction north into the ocean, they are diverted from their course by the rotation of the earth, producing the storms of the Roaring Forties.

It used to be thought that there was a corresponding symmetry of wind circulation around a North Pole centre. This idea has been dispelled gradually by the observations of travelers, and new theories have been formed by Hobbs and others which make Greenland play in the north somewhat the part which the Antarctic Continent plays in the south.

Greenland has the will to dominate in the north but hardly the power. It is chief among many forces, no doubt, but by no means omnipotent like the South Polar Continent. Still there are many similarities, if no strict parallels. Instead of the complete absence of winds at the centre of the Antarctic Continent, these are few and weak at the centre of Greenland. Her winds speed up towards the margin, too, but are interfered with and confused by large northern hemisphere cyclonic storms that originate outside.

Both in Greenland and the Antarctic the gravitational and centrifugal gales stop occasionally, to take their breath as it were, for reasons of temperature, friction, and other complicated things that have been worked out in part by the scientists and are now in process of more complete solution.

There are various symmetries about the Antarctic that are wanting in the Arctic. In the South, for instance, the mathematical pole is approximately in the centre of the area of land ice and is, therefore, also the hardest point to reach. In the North, the mathematical pole is nowhere near the centre of the floating sea ice and is, therefore, nowhere near being the hardest point to reach. That point lies about four hundred miles from the North Pole in the direction toward Alaska and has been named the Pole of Inaccessibility, or for short the Inaccessible Pole. We can say, then, that the South and Inaccessible Poles lie on top of each other in the Antarctic but that the North and Inaccessible Poles are four hundred miles apart in the Arctic.

Similarly the coldest spot in the southern hemisphere, or the Cold Pole, is doubtless at or very near the South Pole. For the three main factors which