Austro-Hungarian
contract for one year, else Hungary will act independently of Austria,
and a separation of the two monarchies may follow.

After the news of Badeni's resignation there were still angry
demonstrations in Vienna, but after the police had released Dr. Wolff
peace gradually settled down on the city.

* * * * *

Turkey does not seem to have taken Russia seriously about the old war
debt.

In spite of her assurance that she had no intention of increasing her
navy or enlarging her store of war materials, she has placed an order
for one hundred and fifty large cannon with Krupp, the famous German
gun-maker.

These cannons will cost a large sum of money, and the various European
Powers are watching with much interest to see what Russia will have to
say to it.

It is rumored that the Turks look upon Germany as their most powerful
friend, and are willing to defy Russia or any other nation so long as
Germany shows a disposition to stand by them.

This winter is likely to give us some more interesting chapters in
European history.

* * * * *

The Sultan of Turkey has fresh worries. The Albanians are now rebelling
against him.

Albania is on the western border of European Turkey; its shores are
washed by the Adriatic Sea.

It is a mountainous country, inhabited by a war-like race of people, who
are much given to robbery and brigandage.

The Albanians are a curious people. They claim to be descended from the
Pelasgians, who were a people of Greece, supposed to be the most
ancient race in Europe.

They arrived and settled in Europe centuries before men began to keep
records of the events that occurred, and so their origin is unknown. It
is supposed they came from Asia, and probably from India.

The Albanians base their claim to Pelasgian origin on their language,
which differs from any known tongue, and cannot clearly be connected
with any of the mother tongues. These mother tongues were the original
languages from which the various modern languages are derived.

More than one thousand languages are spoken on the globe, and these are
so different that each is unintelligible to the speakers of the other.

The study of these languages is an especial science. Students of this
science, philologists, as they are called, have traced, classed, and
grouped these thousand languages, until they have divided them into six
main groups, or mother tong