President Climbs

Plump President Doumergue of the French Republic visited the new memorial building of the American Hospital at Neuilly last week with U. S. Ambassador Myron T. Herrick.

M. Doumergue wandered off by himself. Soon Mr. Herrick began an anxious search, became mildly alarmed, hurried about asking: "Where on earth is the President!"

At length the 62-year-old M. Doumergue was found chatting with a convalescent patient in a ward on the top floor. Cried courteous Mr. Herrick: "I trust the climb was not too fatiguing?"

"Mais non!" smiled M. Doumergue. "I have lived up five nights of stairs all my life. It has not hurt me to climb three flights* to visit the sick Americans."

*Elevators are confined to hotels, shops, and offices, in nearly all Europeans cities. The less pretentious hotels provide elevator service to take guest upstairs, but expect them to walk down. All but the most luxurious apartment houses have no elevators whatever. In Scandinavia there have installed a few unattened "never stop elevators," the cars of which pass slowly and continuously from floor to floor while agile passengers leap in and out.