"Buried Alive?"

A neat little trick in the repertoire of every French Prime Minister is the one by which he picks exactly the right split-second to adjourn Parliament before Mm. Les Deputes upset his Cabinet. Always as a session draws to its close French legislators become hyperexcitable, super-suspicious, jealous of their power, ready to shout the Government out of office on any pretext. All last week the Chamber was bedlam.

"Grafter!", shouted some one on the Right, while Socialist Leader Leon Blum was shouting from the Tribune. "Make your charge openly!," he bellowed, and everyone seemed to shout at once. Rising from his seat near the centre of the chamber M. Edouard Herriot, onetime Prime Minister, everlasting Mayor of Lyons, finally stilled this particular tempest by assuring the Chamber that he (Radical-Socialist) had known M. Blum for 40 years and knew that the Socialist leader is not a "grafter."

"Guaranteed Deaths." On the Verification of Deaths Bill there was stirring debate. "Messieurs we must spare Frenchmen the terrible agony of burial by mistake!," cried one protagonist. "What happened to the Abbe Donnat? On the day of his ordination he fell into a state of complete lethargy and was pronounced dead. Had he been buried at once what a great, what an irreparable loss to France!

"Instead, three days later, while his body lay before the altar, and holy men chanted the Office of the Dead, the Abbe suddenly awoke and sat up in his coffin!

"He not only lived for many years thereafter, he died at the age of 89, Cardinal Archbishop of Bordeaux and Senator of the Gironde! Messieurs, can France afford to bury alive men who may become her foremost citizens?"

Critics of the bill jibed good-humoredly at a clause recommending cremation after the fact of Death has been indisputably established. They cried: "So, by cremation you would spare us the 'terrible agony' of being buried alive?"

Tardieu v. Blum. Amid the good and ill-natured hubbub, henchmen of Prime Minister Andre Tardieu adroitly slipped through bill after vital bill. When he refused to allow further debate on several measures, Socialist Blum taunted:

"Are you afraid for the life of your Cabinet?"

"All these past nine months," shot back M. Tardieu, "you have been doing nothing but trying to prevent my projects from succeeding and now you want to go on talking!"

At last, during a lull, M. Tardieu by raising an eyebrow signaled one of his Deputies who quietly proposed that the Prime Minister make the next vote one of confidence. He did so, won by a majority of 48, not astounding but sufficient. Quick as a magician producing a rabbit, M. Tardieu drew from his pocket and read to the Chamber an executive order signed by the President of France, genial Bachelor Gaston ("Gastounet") Doumergue, adjourning Parliament until November.

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