FRANCE: Notes, Nov. 26, 1923

Much alarm was evinced in Paris over the decline in the franc, which touched the lowest point in its history at 19.23 to the dollar. Bonds also suffered a serious decline.

Senator Louis Martin, eager to raise yearly 30,000 more conscripts for the Army, proposed to pass a law prohibiting children, born of a Frenchwoman and a foreign father, claiming the father’s nationality at the age of 21. The Senator also proposed to permit Frenchwomen married to foreigners the right to recover their French nationality.

From the Ruelle Arsenal to the Gavres testing ground, near St. Nazaire, wasshipped a monster gun with a range of over 60 miles, throwing a projectile half a ton in weight,measuring 68 feet from breech to mouth. It was built in 1918 and was intended as an answer to Germany’s “Big Berthas.”

Said the Chicago Daily Tribune: ” A leading Paris couturier, whose clientele is chiefly American and English, has been forced to place signs in his fitting rooms that hereafter all customers must wear underwear. His dress measurers and saleswomen complained that many society women are dispensing with all undergarments following the latest style edict, which insists on supple, smooth lines.”