Fading Honk

One of the chief triumphs of militant Corsican Jean Chiappe as Prefect of Paris Police was to stop Paris autoists from tooting horns after midnight. Helsingfors followed suit, as did Tokyo. And in London fortnight ago Minister of Transport Leslie Hore-Belisha decreed silent nights (TIME, Sept. 10). Last week Spanish policemen set out to enforce the same rule in Madrid.

Spanish taximen are men of honor, proud as hidalgos, and members of a Socialist union. Word went around the bodegas that cabbies were being arrested for exercising their primal right to toot their horns. Instantly the Castilian night grew hideous. From the suburbs, along the Prado and up the Gran Via,, thousands of taxis swarmed to the centre of the Puerto del Sol, there to park in a circle of clanging trolley cars and sound their horns until their batteries ran dead.

Riot cars loaded with police roared up. Bugles were blown, rifles made ready. "Quiet!" screamed the police. "Quiet or we fire!" The honking gradually faded away into the night.

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