INTERNATIONAL: General State

The heat wave which waved and stayed in the eastern states of United America, waved its way across the Atlantic to stay with the disunited States of Europe. With the rise of the thermometer, vitality sank and with the increase of humidity, ambition faltered. An unnamed U. S. newspaper correspondent with more imagination than energy was locomoted about Europe. From the shade of his conveyance (it might have been from the window of his hotel or, again, a hyper-metropical vision from the U. S.), he lazily and laconically wrote to The New York World “on the general state of everything” in Europe: “Artificial sunlight aids the health of London’s Zoo monkeys. Fatal accidents from unexploded shells still continue in the French war zone. Mountains of American autos, boxed, too vast to house, clutter the Thames banks; new tariff rate July 1. The top hat, bashed by the War, is dusted off and blocked again for wear. In one week in April, 313 died of smallpox in Bombay. Over $24,000,000 was taken to South Africa in four years by farmer immigrants attracted by advertising. Strolling between the acts at the Palace Theatre, Kohlafeur, you can be bitten by a cobra. Constantinople is dirty and dejected—a busted-boom town, not oversatisfied with Angora. Algiers looks prosperous. Hyde Park of a Sunday is changed; British anti-Socialists, Fascists and Gospelers replace the ‘lunatic fringe’ that used to orate there. Nearly 100 cats live free wild lives at the base of Trajan’s Column, Rome. The clerk at the Grand Hotel, Paris, can hold a telephone in each hand and turn the pages of his ledger with his elbow. King George quotes Cromwell; his grandmother drove around a block in Manchester to avoid passing Cromwell’s statue.”