Voynović, "that there are witnesses who say he did not utter certain words in 1913, and no witnesses who say that he did; but I am convinced that he uttered them." The ferocity of the punishments may be seen from the example of Alexa Petković of Pančevo, the father of nine, who was condemned to hard labour for nine years because his twelve-year-old son, during the War, is alleged to have said to him: "Father, don't accept German money; it won't have any value." At the same place, in 1914, the Serbian peasants were brought in from the village of Bortša; there was no proof that they were traitors, but they had been denounced and they were sentenced to be shot. With a military escort they were promenaded through the town, each one of them having to hold a Hungarian flag. At the scene of execution the Hungarian élite, together with their wives and daughters, were assembled. And after the bodies had been thrown on to a cart they were flogged, for some unknown reason, by one Blajek, a detective, while the audience cried "Eljen!" ["Hurrah!"]. But the War brought to an end the bad old days of a tyrannous minority. It will be shown, in a year or two, when a proper census is taken, that the Magyars were always much more in a minority than they ever admitted. Instead of nine millions out of the eighteen millions--which was the pre-war population of Hungary--it will be found that the Magyars themselves numbered barely six millions, though in their efforts to obtain recruits they charged only one crown and afterwards nothing at all for a naturalization paper. The day has gone by when a father could be interned for being a Serb, while his son, an assistant notary, was reckoned a Magyar--only Magyars being eligible for that office. The day has gone when the Buda-Pest Government could order its officials while taking a census to swell the Magyars' numbers as much as possible: the officials at Subotica confessed on oath, after the War, that they had received orders to this effect. One of their practices was to put down as "uncertain" those Serbian children who were too young to speak. Even those who were most willing to be absorbed into magyardom were often indigested: one finds in the statistics cases of converted Jews who, being asked to state their religion and nationality, replied to the former question "Catholic" and to the latter "Jew." THE SOUTHERN SLAVS PAY PART OF THEIR DEBT TO THE HABSBURG MONARCHY