GERMANY: Craze Suppressed

Distressing reports vexed Berlin's chief of police last week.

A harassed constable phoned that one Herr Horoz, schoolmaster, had begun what he announced as a "six-day speech" in the famed Lustgarten; was pausing only occasionally for a sip of liquid nourishment.

Another policeman reported that a "134-hour dance" by one Alvarado Fernandez had resulted in his complete collapse after 26 hours, although female admirers were following him about the floor, spraying him with restorative eau de Cologne.

A third policeman announced that 100 "hunger artists" were waiting in the chief's outer office. Each desired a license to fast publicly in a glass case. Each hoped to break the 44-day German professional fasting record, now held by one Herr Jolly. Simultaneously came a wire from Leipzic with the news that a local faster had been caught sucking nourishment through a rubber tube on the 26th day of his fast.

Roused, the chief of police issued an order that no more licenses will be granted to "endurance freaks" of any kind. Sadly the 100 "hunger artists" melted away—all but one. He, persistent and nimble of thought, demanded a license "merely to eat in public"—to eat a whole 300-pound pig within ten days. Not to be thus circumvented, the officials ruled that "eating, in this sense, constitutes a feat of endurance."

Observers hoped that the "stunt craze" which has swept Germany of late may abate before this official restraint. Heretofore the "endurance artists" have earned much pelf as a drawing card for the curious at cafés, night clubs, beer gardens.