Nobile Bussed

Frenzied cheering and moist tempestuous kisses greeted Polar Pilgrim-General Umberto Nobile & Party, last week, upon their return to Rome. Correspondent Edward Storer of the Chicago Daily News counted kisses, counted up 100 men and women who kissed General Nobile alone, stopped counting, dashed to file the hot news in a special radio despatch.

Even Titina, the famed little yapping fox terrier bitch belonging to General Nobile, also received a Roman Fascist cheer: "Ala-Ala-Alala!'!" She (8 lbs.) was declared by Radio Operator Giuseppe Biagi of the Expedition to have fearlessly yapped at and stampeded a polar bear (400 lbs., approx.). "Polar bear meat is very good," added Signor Biagi.

A formal statement made by General Nobile, at Rome, ran: "If I should again return to the Arctic, I would use a dirigible identical with the Italia. . . *The flights made by the Italia constitute a record for flights over the Arctic regions. In three flights we covered over 5,500 miles in 134 hours actual flying time. This is about twice the number of hours flown by the Norge/- and about three times the distance covered by Captain George H. Wilkins in his flights." (TIME, April 12, 1926, et seq.).

"My conscience is at rest. . . . Everything was done to insure the success of the expedition."

Major Mariano contributed to the Nobile Saga, last week, another and still more bizarre account of how he and Captain Zappi left the Swedish scientist Dr. Finn Malmgren to die upon the Arctic ice (TIME, Aug. 6). Said Mariano: "When the unavoidable separation from Malmgren came and we dug him a trench we told him we would halt 100 yards away and wait there twenty-four hours in case he changed his mind and considered himself able to continue. We did this, and when we saw him, on one occasion, lift his head we shouted, 'Come on, Malmgren.' He shook his head, saying, 'Go on.' We continued then without him."

Signor Benito Mussolini did not publicly allude to the Expedition last week.

*The present expedition's airship, now lost. /-The Amundsen-Ellsworth-Nobile dirigible (TIME, Apr. 12, 1926, et seq.).