Croats as very pernicious enemies. _La Rassegna Italiana_ of December 15
called its first article--printed throughout in italics--"I Prussiani
dell' Adriatico," and took to its bosom an "upright American citizen"
returning from a visit to "Fiume nostra," who defined the Yugoslavs "on
account of their greed and their brutality and their spirit of intrigue
and their lack of candour as the Prussians of the Adriatic." Personally
I should submit that the Prussian spirit was not wholly lacking in those
two Italian officers who penetrated on November 25 into the dining-room
at the quarters of the Custom-house officials and informed them that
they wanted their piano. No discussion was permitted; the piano
"transferred itself," as they say in some languages, to the Italian
officers' mess. The Prussian spirit was not undeveloped in a certain Mr.
[vS]tigli['c]--his name might cause his enemies to say he is a renegade,
but as my knowledge of him is confined to other matters, we will say he
is the noblest Roman of them all. He likewise had a dig at the
Custom-house officials; I know not whether he was wiping off old scores.
Appointed by the I.N.C. as director of the Excise office, he
communicated with the resident officials--Franjo Jakov[vc]i['c], Ivan
Mikuli[vc]i['c] and Grga Ma[vz]uran--on December 5, and told them to
clear out by the following Saturday, they and their families, so that in
the heart of winter forty-one persons were suddenly left homeless.

A CANDID FRENCHMAN

This and innumerable other manifestations of Prussianism were brought to
the attention of the French, so that it was not surprising when a
Frenchman made a few remarks in the _Rije['c]_ of Zagreb. His article,
entitled "Mise au point," begins by a reference to the Yugoslav cockades
which were sometimes worn by the French sailors. This, to the Italians,
was as if an ally in the reconquered towns of Metz and Strasbourg had
sported the colours of an enemy. "The cases are not parallel," says the
Frenchman. "You have come to Rieka and to Pola as conquerors of towns
that were exhausted, yielding to the simultaneous and gigantic pressure
of the Allied armies. These towns gave themselves up. Are they on that
account your property, and are we to consider as a dead-letter the
clauses of the Armistice which settled that Pola should be occupied by
the Allies? I am not so dexterous a diplomat as to be able to follow you
along this track; let it be decided by others. But