Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-08-24
ROME DECLINES
TOD|ScUSS WAR
Even Rumors Are Ignored, Un-
less They Happen to Be
Pleasant Ones.
POLICE PLY STRANGERS
WITH POINTED QUERIES
People Attend to Business in Fore
moons and Drink and Smoke in
the Afternoons.
BY HERBERT COREY,
Copyright, 1857

/ BY HERBERT COREY.
| Copyright, 1850
| ROME, July 26.-Life in Rome in
wartime is a losing struggle against
ennui. One yawns one yawn after an
other. There is not even the poor pleas
ure of listening to rumors which you
know in your heart are untrue, but
which at least may be repeated. 1t is
a way of making conversation. Con-
versation is one way of killing time
Here in Italy people do not repeat
rumors about the war, unless the
rumors are pleasant ones. If you wish
to repeat unpleasant rumors you form
secret society. Then the police catch
you. Here is story worth telling, be-
cause every one in Rome has now told
| II to every one else in Rome. 1t isn't
at all funny story. 1t just illustrates
| When are you going to pay me the
1000 lire you owe me?" asked a credit
or. The man who owed the money said
that he did not know at all when he
could pay that 1000 lire. The war had
mussed up his finances.
! But you must pay me-" said the
creditor. Il am being ruined by the
war; People owe me $4,000 lire. and
! Officer" said the debtor, reckoning
ITO gendarme. arrest this man. He is
spreading alarming rumors about the
war. contrary to the recent proclama-
the war"
Take him along. also" demanded the
creditor. He says he can't pay his
debts debt because of the war. That is
violation of the proclamation, too"
| Partly because of the proclamation
ana partly because no one knows any
thing about the war, and the weather
Is so hot as to make invention a bur
the weather is really hot, from an
American point of view. The terrors Of
the Italian summer were invented by
people that prefer to sleep in the middle
guide-books are full of directions to the
tourist as to the best manner of trying
70 escape heat prostration. One must
Always carry green umbrella, and, if
| ago staked out by the durable flea Of
the country, and by all means lie down
| IN dark room from noon to O'Clock
All nonsense. The Italian summer isn't
hot. A breeze comes from somewhere
every evening.
A "Hot" italian Summer.
am not posing as authority in Ital-
ian summers, of course But the Ital-
lans tell me they have been suffering
greatly because of the totally unprece-
denied warmth of the last few weeks
AT Naples every one had something to
say about it. If that sort Of weather
had come in Cincinnati, Ohio, in the
middle of July the merchants would
nave been trying to sell chest pro-
teetors to the populace. St. Paul and
Kansas City can give Rome points on
heating up. One can understand the
crime wave" that according to police
authorities used to engulf the Sicilian
population of New York about the first
OF August. They aren't used to that
sort of weather. People here talk of
the sirocco as though it were a me-
teorological devil. During the sirocco
Italian weather is far more endurable
than a hot spell in St. Louis You
don't see any one in America carrying
a green umbrella or wearing a sun
helmet just because it's good growing
weather. We don't go to sleep from
noon to 4 o'clock, either
There's nothing about the war in all
this. of course. Well, there isn't much
about the war in Rome. There are
more officers on the streets than there
heard that disputed. too. There are
no tourists whatever. That is good
thing, because tourists are not wanted
in Italy just now. When one goes to
the police station to get ones permit
to hang around and take leaden francs
in change the first question asked is:
What is your business in Italy? Just
pleasure?"
you that no one should seek to travel
for pleasure in wartime. If you say
it isn't, they want a lot of harassing
details. If you happen to admit that
write pieces about them they get
actually fretful. There are only a
few foreign newspaper men in Italy.
and for the most part they are writing
this sort of stuff about the war. Two
or three hang about the war office in
Rome and get little information from
time to time. Then they combine this
information with what they can make
out Of the official communicates in the
papers. and take the product over to be
speaking. it is passed because 1t has
no news in it. II it has news in it,
then the correspondent doesn't take 1t
to the censor, but turns it over to a
courier to be Struggled out Of the coun-
try. The better place for war CORE
spondents is at Milan. One doesn't
get so much news there, perhaps. but
il is nearer the border and the snug
Cling is easier. e.
People Drink and Smoke.
People here do all their work in the
forenoon and spend the rest of the day
in recreation and rest. The business
houses all close during the middle of
the day. Romans sit about in, their
little cafes and drink drinks that look
devilish and are completely destitute
Of punch, and smoke cigarettes that
are as fragrant as a fire in a weed
patch. The lower down in the lower
scale you go the more entertainment
you get during this period:
The flea hitherto referred TO IS chlehy
patronized though not at all monopo-
liZed by the lower orders. For time