SPAIN: Dangerous to Tranquillity

Spain has a Dictator, King, Queen and invalid Crown Prince.

Last week Madrid's dramatic censor forbade production of a new. play by Spain's leading dramatist, Jacinto Benavente, in which were to have appeared a fictional Prime Minister, King, Queen and invalid Crown Prince. The stage King and Queen were to have quarreled with their Prime Minister over whether religious or medical agencies should be invoked to cure the Crown Prince.

Spain's invalid Crown Prince, the Infante Don Alfonso, suffers from exactly the same dread and peculiar disease, haemophilia,* which afflicted the Tsarevitch Alexis, son and heir of Tsar Nicholas the Last. The Tsaritsa and the Tsar are well known to have fallen a prey to the notorious "Black Monk" and hypnotist Gregory Rasputin, whom they devoutly believed to be the only person capable of curing the Tsarevitch. In Spain rumors have long been irresponsibly current that Queen Victoria Eugenie has employed an obscure Catalonian doctor to attend the Infante Don Alfonso.

Therefore the Madrid censor was unquestionably justified in quashing Jacinto Benavente's play and issuing the following communique: "The dramatist has been authorized to issue his work only in a revised book form. It is believed that the public, when it knows the work, will realize it would be dangerous to the people's spiritual tranquillity and peace of mind to allow it to be performed."