10 FEBRUARY 1939, Page 6

From estimates of the length of Herr Hitler's speech (such

as were admitted to this column last week) we can now pass to hard facts. An assiduous adder (or, if you will, add-er) has acquired what was apparently a complete verbatim report of the discourse and finds it to have contained 21,000 words, from which it emerges that the Fiihrer enunciated 155 words per minute without taking account of intervals for applause. I apologise for having suggested anything so moderate as 120. In a letter on a later page Mr. Vernon Bartlett makes a case for 30,000 words, giving a speed of 220 a minute. An independent investigation in- stigated by myself since last week, on the basis of the Frank- furter Zeitung's ostensibly verbatim report, gave a total of 15,000 odd. I am not so sure about hard facts after all.