Fascists snapped to attention last week, carried out curt orders in haste. Il Duce’s logical and ruthless spirit was astir. Before the week was out he haded has “an Augustan conception of grandeur.” 3) Decreed, to the discomfiture of Fascismo’s capitalist well-wishers, that every merchant in Italy must display both the wholesale and retail price of his goods, and must throw open his books to the Government, which will permit him to make no more than what it considers a fair profit. 4) Inaugurated a tax on bachelors, the proceeds of which will be devoted to the care of “indigent women and children.” Said Il Duce: “Italy is prolific. She must remain prolific! The failure to contract matrimony does not result from the desires of women. The State majestically intervenes to give judicial impulsion to a moral duty.”*
*Former Dictator Pangalos of Greece imposed a tax on bachelors which rose between age 20 and 40, and fell thereafter as the proliferous potentialities of the bachelor decreased. Bulgaria and the Irish Free State have a somewhat similar tax. A sensation was created recently in Sofia when a Turkish eunuch applied for exemption.