Chaussee Kisselew, at the White City, the dance floor is crowded until daybreak with slender, rather effeminate-looking officers in beautiful uniforms of green or pale blue and superbly gowned and bejewelled women.  Indeed, I doubt if there is any city of its size in the world on whose streets one sees so many chic and beautiful women, though I might add that their jewels are generally of a higher quality than their morals.  As long as these bewitching beauties behave themselves they are not molested by the police, who seem to have an arrangement with the hotel managements looking toward their control.  When Mrs. Powell and I arrived at our hotel the proprietor asked us for our passports, which, he explained, must be vised by the police.  The following morning my passport was returned alone.

“But where is my wife’s passport?” I demanded, for in Southern Europe in these days it is impossible to travel even short distances without one’s papers.

“But M’sieu must know that we always retain the lady’s passport until he leaves,” said the proprietor, with a knowing smile.  “Then, should she disappear with M’sieu’s watch, or his money, or his jewels, she will not be able to leave the city and the police can quickly arrest her.  Yes, it is the custom here.  A neat idea, hein?”

Though I succeeded in obtaining the return of Mrs. Powell’s passport I am not at all certain that I succeeded in entirely convincing the hotelier that she really was my wife.

Rumania is at present passing through a period of transition.  Not only have the area and population of the country been more than doubled, but the war has changed all other conditions and the new forms of national life are still unsettled.  In the summer of 1918 even the most optimistic Rumanians doubted if the nation would emerge from the war with more than a fraction of its former territory, yet to-day, as a result of the acquisition of Transylvania, Bessarabia and the eastern half of the Banat, the country’s population has risen from seven to fourteen millions and its area from 50,000 to more than 100,000 square miles.  The new conditions have brought new laws.  Of these the most revolutionary is the law which forbids landowners to retain more than 1,000 acres of their land, the government taking over and paying for the residue, which is given to the peasants to cultivate.  As a result of this policy, there have been practically no strikes or labor troubles in Rumania, for, now that most of their demands have been conceded, the Rumanian peasants seem willing to seek their welfare in work instead of Bolshevism.  Heretofore the Jews, though liable to military service, have not been permitted a voice in the government of their country, but, as a result of recent legislation, they have now been granted full civil rights, though whether they will be permitted to exercise them is another question.  The Jews, who number upwards of a quarter of a million, have