Rome.—The Italian Government has placed a tax on all foreign words used as advertisements. This has been done in a patriotic spirit to make Italians understand that their own beautiful language is all-sufficient and needs no outside help.
But the air is full of protests, for there are many trades and professions where foreign words are almost a necessity, and for certain modern words there is no Italian equivalent. "I yield in patriotism to no one,'' said a hairdresser. "and I am willing to give up salon de toilette, but if I don't put up at least one cotffeur outside my ship, what foreigner will come to me to be shaved?' A word that will be taboo" under the new regulation is '"bar."" "That's all very well." said a harassed barkeeper, ''then find me another word that will express the same thing. A bar is a place where people drink without sitting down. Tf I put up cafe' they'll all expect little tables!"
Then there are the trade signs which have been engraved on marble or painted on walls, or even encrusted into the tiles of the floor. Are people expected to pull their shops to pieces to get rid of the obnoxious words? One mau strenuously defends the word chic on the ground that it is not foreign but international, and therefore partly Italian. He says he can bring "irrefutable proofs" of his contention. A motor owner at Milan has offered to give up tha word garage if the municipality will find him' an Italian word that means exactly the same. 2Rimessa means a. livery stable and obviously refers to horses, so that won't do. So far the municipality has not given him an answer. Hotelkeepers are indignant because they say that the word hotel is understood to mean a first-class house, while alberto, like the French auberge, implies a lower standard.
The words coupon and cheque will disappear from banks to be replaced by cedole and assegno. "Tearoom" wil vanish, and one can only trust that sheer instinct at five o'clock will guide the British to a "Sala da The." Con-factioners say they must be allowed to retain the expressions marronne glacis and fondants. Who would. want them if they were called marront ghiacciatt and fondentit?
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.