] did not go to Italy for several months. He was a learned
Slovene, an ex-Professor of Gorica University, known also as a stern
critic of any poetry which was not dogmatically religious. He gave vent
to his dislike of the poetry of Gregor[vc]i['c] and A[vs]kerc, both of
them priests. The former, being of a mild disposition, bowed before the
storm; but A[vs]kerc wrote a cutting satire on his critic. The
Austrians, disapproving of his religious and patriotic activities,
thought they would smother him by this appointment to a rather
out-of-the-way diocese. But his influence spread far beyond it, and in
the islands he was so solicitous for the people's material welfare that,
for example, he founded savings-banks, which were a great success. It
was unavoidable, as he was a man of character, that he should come into
conflict with the Italians, for their commanding officer, a naval
captain of Hungarian origin, was not a suave administrator. He charged a
priest with making Yugoslav propaganda because he catechized the little
children in their own language; another priest on the island of Unie,
which forms a part of the diocese, was accused of making propaganda,
because he has had in his church two statues--which had been there for
years--of SS. Cyril and Methodus. They were removed from the church, he
put them back; finally he was himself expelled and Unie remained without
a priest. The naval captain was irritated by the old Slavonic liturgy,
which is used in all except four churches of the diocese, but if he
could not alter this--Dr. Mahni['c] referring him to the Pope--he and
the Admiral at Pola, Admiral Cagni, could manage with some trouble to
rid themselves of the bishop. This gentleman, who was in his seventieth
year and an invalid, said that he would perhaps go to Rome after Easter.
On March 24 the captain told him that the admiral had settled he should
sail in three days, but the bishop was ill. On the 26th the captain
returned with a lieutenant of carabinieri to ask if the bishop was still
ailing; the admiral, it seemed, had ordered that two other doctors--the
officer of health for the district and an Italian army doctor--should
verify the report of the bishop's own medical attendant. The three of
them quarrelled for two hours, but finally they all signed a memorandum
that the bishop was ill. On the 31st the captain came to say that a
destroyer would arrive and that it would take the bishop wherever he
wanted to go, for t