We have just taken a close look at your 83,876 fellow readers of TIME in Europe, Africa and the Middle East, to learn more about them and the way they live. A sampling of 10,385 readers answered the questionnaires we sent, and many of them attached interesting letters about themselves.

A Danish reader, Paul Grene, who enclosed a picture of his very comfortable home, rashly extended an invitation to have TIME correspondents visit him. He wrote: "If one of your correspondents should happen to be in Denmark . . . and have a few days off, ask him to come over and see us. We have some pretty good fishing and shooting and a fairly comfortable spare room."

Being gracious hosts is apparently a well-entrenched habit among TIME'S Atlantic Edition readers. Answers to the questionnaire show that they entertain an average of twelve guests each month in their homes. Not a few of these guests must walk out with slightly thumbed copies of TIME under their arms, because about two out of five readers reported that they pass their copies on to relatives or friends. Another 13% give their used copies to libraries, clubs and hospitals. And three readers wrote us that they turn in their used copies at the newsstand.

Some other data on Atlantic Edition TIME-readers: their median age is 38 years.* Almost three out of four attended colleges or universities. Most are citizens of the countries in which they live; only one out of six is a U.S. citizen living abroad.

Atlantic Edition readers seem to have hobbies as diverse as the areas they live in. It is no surprise, of course, that travel is a favorite activity. Seven out of ten have traveled outside their own countries during the past year, and a similar number plan such travel for the coming year. A few letters described more unusual hobbies, such as one from Alfred H. Marsack, a British senior political officer in the Aden Protectorate. In the past year, Marsack went to India, Ceylon, Malaya and Borneo to get color pictures of "fish, orchids, reptiles and headhunters for lecture purposes." He wrote: "I cannot get a daily newspaper where I am; if I could, it would not replace TIME . . . I always look forward to enjoying its contents from cover to cover, advertisements included."

More than half of the Atlantic Edition readers are in business and a third are in professions. Of those in business, 25% are presidents, managing directors or officers of their companies, 12% are owners or partners, and 49% are department heads or technicians. A doctor in Tel Aviv, Israel wrote: "TIME has assumed in my life the place of a very beloved living being ... I can hardly find--in a language which I have acquired only from books--the words of expressing the importance you have gained throughout this last decade . . . When, during certain periods, your paper could not be obtained, there was a void in our life, the world was shut out."

Of every 100 families who read the Atlantic Edition, 59 own refrigerators, 49 gas stoves, 41 electric stoves, 30 have electric washing machines, and 63 have vacuum cleaners. There are 140 radios, 87 autos and ten television sets among each 100 families, and 32 of the families have one or more dogs. Six of each 100 own a motorboat or yacht and one owns a private airplane.

"Owning no yacht, motorboat, private airplane, country seat, automobile, icebox or TV set ... I hesitate to forward this questionnaire," wrote one English reader. "Besides, I am a little piqued at finding no space for the make and year of my bicycle."

So untypical is this possessionless reader that, during the past year, American and foreign business bought 4,430 pages of advertising in TIME'S international editions.

*All the figures given exclude readers among U.S. military personnel stationed overseas.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.