A number of deplorable transactions ensued, and they were not all committed by the Italianists. The proclamations which were sent from Zagreb, exhorting the people to be tranquil, were printed in the two languages, but some Croat super-patriots at Rieka tried to make the town mono-lingual. At the railway station and the post office they removed the old Italian inscriptions and put up Croatian ones, they wrote to the mayor in Croat, which, although Dr. Vio has a Croat father and visited a Croat school and a Croat university, was tactless; they wrote that Croat would now be the language of the town, which was a foolish thing to do. They even seem to have demanded the evacuation of the town hall within twenty-four hours. And the irresponsible persons who made this demand were very properly snubbed by the municipal authorities. MELODRAMA These excited patriots, delirious with joy that at last their own town was in their hands, did not set Rieka on fire, nor did they murder women and children; but the Italianists forthwith sent wireless messages to Venice, screaming that all these enormities were taking place. A few of them rushed off in motors to Triest, where they made themselves into a Committee of Public Safety, picked up some Triest sympathizers and flew on to Venice, where they related breathless stories of foul deeds. One, which appeared in the Italian Press, was that three children of Rieka had been publicly committed to the flames. FARCE On November 4 an Italian destroyer, the _Stocco_, shortly followed by the _Emanuele Filiberto_, a cruiser, came on their errand of humanity. The I.N.C. at once organized a plebiscite--by which is meant not a dull giving and counting of votes in the usual election booths. A plebiscite, at all events a plebiscite at Rieka, signifies for the Italianists a mob assembled in a public thoroughfare; photographs of such assemblies illustrate their pamphlets and are entitled "plebiscito." At the harbour the Italian Admiral, whose name was Raineri, told the joyous I.N.C.--who now had flung aside their anonymity--that he had come to bring them a salute from Italy, and that he had been sent to shield Italians and to protect Italian interests. The plebiscite threw up its hats and waved its flags, and shouted its applause and sang its songs. Flowers fell upon the Admiral, and on his men and on the guns; the ships, as we are told, were changed to floating gardens. But the sailors did not disembark. Some ladies, members of the plebiscite, besought the Admiral to come ashore, and hoping to persuade the men, they climbed on board and playfully seized many sailors' caps, which in the town, they said, could be redeemed. Then shortly afterwards, the Yugoslav officials came to greet the Admiral, as did the commandant of the Yugoslav troops which had been for several days guarding the town. Meanwhile some unknown persons had been up in the old clock-tower and, for reasons known