An Englishman traveling through Bohemia thus describes the people in the _Illustrated News_: “As for the people there was not a sign of the dreamy sadness and strange mysticism of the Slav that one is forever reading about. They worked with a dogged energy and commonplace industry that would not have been out of the way in Zola’s peasants. In no other country is it so impossible to remain unconscious of the surplus population question and the hopelessness of the peasant’s fate. In Germany, or during our rides in France, in Italy, in England we sometimes had the road to ourselves; in Bohemia, never. There was always someone just behind us or in front of us.” This latter statement about the density of population will be understood when we remember that but 4½ per cent. of all the land in Bohemia is not under cultivation. * * * Like Ireland Bohemia is governed by a lieutenant governor appointed by the sovereign. The highest legislative power in the land is the diet convoking in Prague and composed of 242 members elected by the people. One archbishop, three bishops and two university rectors, however, hold their seats by virtue of office. As may be imagined the power the diet exercises is very limited, the deliberations depending on the pleasure or displeasure of the emperor, who selects the presiding officer. The latter is styled as the “marshal,” or “high marshal.” The diet has the prerogative of electing a standing committee of eight members known as the “land committee” (zemsky vybor) and over this committee again the marshal presides. For political and administrative purposes the country is divided into circles, the circles are sub-divided into captaincies. The two crownlands, Moravia and Silesia, have each 100 and 31 deputies in their home diets, respectively. The government officials, though great reforms have taken place of late, are far from popular. This is especially the case with the military captains, for whom the people conceive as much liking as the Italians had for Radetzky and Pachta. Insufferably stiff, cold, repellent and severe, they were regarded by the people as the source of all their woes. THE BOHEMIAN REVIEW OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE BOHEMIAN (CZECH) NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF AMERICA Jaroslav F. Smetanka, Editor, 2324 S. Central Park Ave., Chicago. J. J. Fekl, Business Manager, 2816 S. St. Louis Ave., Chicago. Vol. I., No. 1. FEBRUARY, 1917. 10 cents a Copy $1.00 per Year _Masaryk and His Work_