ITALY: Decree on Wives

Every Cabinet Minister is "His Excellency" but in Italy last week the title "Her Excellency" was restricted by drastic decree to the wife of Premier Benito Mussolini and wives of other members of the Order of the Annunziata, most exalted in Italy. Besides // Duce only 20 other persons comprise the Order, including 18 of the blood royal and Pietro Cardinal Gasparri.

Her Excellency Rachele Mussolini continued to mind her motherly business in complete obscurity last week. She is a peasant, the daughter of the keeper of a tiny village inn, invincibly modest and wholesome. To say that // Duce ignores Her Excellency and lives a bachelor's life in Rome is to ignore the fact that he also visits her from time to time in Milan or on their farm at Forli in northern Italy, bounces their latest babe upon his knee and otherwise demonstrates his warm family feelings.

To be entertained by Her Excellency and His Excellency is to spend a day or an evening with two middle-aged people who seem to enjoy frolicking like chil dren, eating hearty meals, reading the papers, hotly discussing the news, playing simple card games with a candle for illumination and blowing it out early.