White Flywheel

No man alive can propound a pious witticism more deftly than the present Pope Pius XI.

Said His Holiness last week: "Material light has not been lacking in the place from which spiritual light spreads to the world, but it has been dim. It is now multiplied in a worthy and satisfactory manner to correspond with new needs."

So saying and with his ineffable little smile, the Supreme Pontiff threw an electric switch to inaugurate Vatican City's new electric lighting plant. Senator Guglielmo Marconi was present. The Pope recalled that when he was ordained a priest, the Vatican was dimly lit in some places by gas jets but chiefly by candles.

The flywheel of the principal Papal dynamo (there are four) has been painted white.

The Associated Press reported last week that "the Pontiff is submitting docilely but whimsically to a course of instruction through which radio experts and monsignori of his household skilled in diction are putting him. . . . Although the Pontiff will speak in Latin [over the radio Feb. 12] his advisers want his voice to carry over the air in such a manner as to thrill even the listeners who do not understand the words. The Pope has a clear, cultivated voice of rich timbre, but of moderate strength."

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