Thin Ladies Flayed

"I know hundreds of ladies of the aristocracy and upper classes who believe that they have accomplished a super-human feat when they have presented their husbands with one son, as if they had performed a galling duty imposed by law to the exclusive benefit of man.

"Voluntary barrenness and reducing cures to rid her miserable body of every ounce of superfluous fat are the greatest crimes a woman can commit under the Fascist regime. . . ."

Thus last week stormed L'Impero, the arch-Fascist daily whose young proprietor-editor, Signor Mario Carli, is so especially a favorite of Il Duce.

Today it is not enough that Italian fathers are responding potently to the Dictator's plea for better, faster begetting (TIME, Oct. 8 et ante). It is not even enough that Italy now leads all Europe in surplus of births over deaths.* Brushing such trifling achievements aside, young, ardent Editor Carli continued, last week, his slashing indictment of barren thin ladies, set a relentless quota:

"Every Italian woman must give to her country at least one son every two years. A refusal on this point will be equivalent to pushing men on the road to polygamy --which, however, is contrary to Fascist moral principles.

"Flight in the face of maternity--that divine maternity that, together with some brief physical suffering, gives the loftiest and deepest joys of life--is as culpable as the desertion of soldiers in the face of the enemy, as the attempt of the taxpayer to escape the payment of taxes. . . ."

*Latest annual figures: Italian surplus 475,000; German 408,000; English, 179,000; French a mere 65,000,