Swiss Laws, Greek Patriarch

Squiggle, loop, scratch went the fountain pen of a swart little Dictator-King Ahmed Zogu, last week, signing out the old Islamic law of Albania, signing in a new civil code based on the Swiss.*

No longer will an Albanian husband divorce his wife at pleasure in the Moslem manner simply by exclaiming three times, "I divorce thee--thou art no longer my wife!"* The minutest private acts of Albanians need no longer conform to the precepts of the True Prophet. Finally a salutary Swiss provision against carrying concealed weapons will completely alter, if it can be enforced, one of the most cherished customs of Albanians, who have always gone about with loaded pistols and sharp snicker-snees in their dirty blouses.

Another reform of King Ahmed Zogu has been to encourage Greek Orthodox prelates among his subjects to proclaim at Tirana a new Holy Synod of Albania, with Archbishop Bessario Javani as its President. In Constantinople the Most Holy Patriarch Basil of the Greek Orthodox Church was incensed, last week, to the point of anathematizing the new Albanian Synod. Soon he unfrocked with awful and pious curses both Albanian Archbishop Javani and his ecclesiastical accomplice the Archimandrite Tjamzi of Berat.

*Similarly based on the Swiss code is the new civil law imposed on Turkey by Dictator-President Mustafha Kemal Pasha (TIME, Feb. 21, 1927). *Egyptian Prince Sabit Bey divorced himself in this convenient fashion from Mrs. Jean Nash, famed "Best Dressed Woman in the World," after they had been wed for a whole month.