"SMOKED AND DRANK."

Shannon News, 28 August 1925, Page 3

"SMOKED AND DRANK."

, SO LADIES WERE ARRESTED. ! PURITANS IN ITALY. < . i LONDON, August 1. I The Fascist organ, "Epoca," says the Rome correspondent of Tne Times, '• expostulates on what it describes as ; the eccentric behaviour in a Florentine cafe of two well-known English ' ladies, who '-wore the most elegant gowns, smoked cigarettes in long ' ivory holders, and draak glassfuls of : whisky and brandy," thus attracting ! the attention of the cafe crowds. ; Epoca says that when the ladies , left, a crowd of youths followed them, i whereupon a policeman demanded to ; see their passports. The ladies apj pealed to the British Consul, who did 1 not consider that the incident justii fled a demand for an apology. I It is understood that the subject will be raised in the House of Coni- ! mons. J Epoca adds; This is another attempt i to calumniate Fascist Italy. I A cable published on July 28 stated that in a letter- to the Daily Mail, Mrs'Handel Booth (wife of F. H. J Booth, ironmaster and former Liberal I M.P.) had complained that while she I and Miss Margery Lawrence were ' crossing a crowded street in Florence I plain-clothes police arrested and took them to a police station. She demanded to be taken to the British Consul. They were shadowed by a motor car full of police to their hotel, where the police told the manager they were spies. With the assistance of an Italian lawyer they escaped spending a night in the cells. The Consul even tually obtained an apology, but no explanation. Mrs Booth added there had been four similar cases in the previous fortnight, those arrested in eluding an Englishman and his wife and a young American and his sister. The latter pair were imprisoned for lour days.