Fun in the Bank

Hardest working of Europe's great international bankers is spry, dynamic little Governor Vincenzo Azzolini of the Bank of Italy, who is always popping up unheralded to comb this or that Italian bank's books personally, while its officers simper and squirm. Last week Signor Azzolini made several most exalted persons squirm. After going over the quantities of gold wedding rings, gold cups and gold medals presented by Italians to their State to speed the war (TIME, Dec. 30), the Bank of Italy announced that the "gold" medal given to His Excellency Benito Mussolini by His Holiness Pope Pius XI to commemorate the solution of the Roman Question had turned out to be gold only on the surface. Thousands of gold wedding rings proved to have lead cores. The Fascist Press was highly incensed about the "solid gold" cup presented by the Lord Mayor of London seven years ago to the Governor of Rome. Brought to the Bank of Italy by Prince Ludovico Spada-Veralli-Potenziani, London's cup, in the words of Italy's analysts, proved to be "thinly plated with gold over silver, and not very good silver at that."

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