"On April 5, 1897, Count Badeni published the notorious language decrees for Bohemia. This ordinance placed the Czech language on an absolute equality with the German in all governmental departments and in the law courts all over Bohemia. … After 1901 all officials in every part of Bohemia were to be obliged to know both languages. The refusal of the Germans to admit the language spoken by 62 per cent. of the population of Bohemia to an equality with their own is not quite so preposterous as would at first sight appear. Without subscribing to Professor Mommsen's somewhat insolent dicta about 'inferior races,' one must admit that the Czech and German languages do not stand on altogether the same footing. German is a language spoken by some 60,000,000 of people, the language of a great literature and a great commerce. Czech is difficult, unpronounceable, and spoken by some 5,000,000 in all. It must be remembered, too, that the two nations do not really live together in Bohemia, but that the Germans live in a broad belt all round the country, while the Czechs inhabit the central plain. There is no more reason for a German Bohemian to acquire Czech than there is for a citizen of Edinburgh to make himself master of Gaelic. On the other hand, every educated Czech naturally learns German, even in a purely Czech-speaking district. … It must also be remembered that the decrees, as such, were of doubtful constitutionality; the language question was really a matter for the Legislature to settle. The decrees at once produced a violent agitation among the Germans, which rapidly spread from Bohemia over the whole Empire." _The Internal Crisis in Austria-Hungary (Edinburgh Review, July, 1898)._ AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1897 (October-December). Scenes in the Austrian Reichsrath described by Mark Twain.