ce called Nere[vz]ine it was stated, in
the census of 1880, that the commissioner had found 706 Italians and 340
Yugoslavs. Consequently an Italian primary school was opened; but when
it was discovered that the children of Nere[vz]ine knew not one traitor
word of that language, the school was transformed into a Yugoslav
establishment. This is one case out of many; the 28 per cent. would not
bear much scrutiny.... But the Italian Government, at any rate the "Liga
Nazionale" to whose endowment it contributes, had been taking in hand
this question of elementary schools in Istria and Dalmatia among the
Slav population. The "Liga" made gratuitous distribution of clothing, of
boots, of school-books and so forth. Some indigent Slavs allowed
themselves in this way to become denationalized.
* * * * *
When, however, you examine the embroideries of these
islands--particularly beautiful on Rab and on the island of wild olive
trees, the neighbouring Pag--you will be sure that such an ancient
national spirit as they show will not be easily seduced. The Magyars, by
the way, whose culture is more modern, borrowed certain features that
you find on these embroideries--the sun, for instance, and the cock,
which have from immemorial times been thought appropriate by these
people for the cloth a woman wears upon her head when she is bringing a
new son into the world, whose dawn the cock announces. Older than the
workers in wood, much older than those who carved in stone, are these
island embroiderers. In this work the people reproduced their tears and
laughter.
RAB IS COMPLETELY CAPTURED
What will it avail to put up "Liga" schools in these islands, where the
population is 99.67 per cent. Yugoslav and 0.31 per cent.
Italianist--that is, if we are content to accept the Austrian
statistics? What ultimate advantage will accrue to Italy from the doings
of her emissaries, in November 1918, on the isle of Rab? It was Tuesday,
November 26, when the _Guglielmo Pepe_ of the Italian navy put in at the
venerable town which is the capital of that island. The commander, with
an Italianist deputy from Istria, climbed up to the town-hall with the
old marble balcony and informed the mayor and the members of the local
committee of the Yugoslav National Council that he had come in the name
of the Entente and in virtue of the arrangements of the Armistice; he
said that in the afternoon Italian troops would land, for the
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