A new calamity seems to be approaching now. Smallpox is breaking out in the poorer quarters and is claiming many victims, especially amongst the refugees. Another epidemic that is visiting Vienna is cholera. The fact is being kept very dark by the authorities to avoid panic; but it seems that during one week more than 500 lives were lost through the terrible disease. While taking my after-lunch coffee I was astonished to hear at my back a conversation taking place in the Venetian dialect; two soldiers were talking about the war, and their accents did not leave me in any doubt as to their nationality. I went to them and, after a few minutes, won their confidence and got them to talk. They had been wounded in Serbia and had been sent back to Vienna to be cured. Now they were well and were going back to the front again next day. I shall never forget the two poor young fellows; one of them was just twenty, the other about twenty-five; and both were natives of Trieste. They confirmed all that has been said about the system of the Austrian officers, and added things which I should not have believed had I not heard them from the victims of the atrocities themselves. They told me that in the Austrian Army the word of reproach has been substituted by a spit in the face or a stroke with a switch; the whip and the revolver in the hands of officers at the back of their men serves to send them forward. The hesitation of a second is punished by a shot. The soldiers obey; but during the struggle there is always a bullet for the brutal officer which does not come from the enemy's lines, and which avenges the murdered private. All sorts of tortures and insults are inflicted on the soldiers. I could not find a word of consolation for the poor chaps who were going back to such an infernal life. I shook hands with them and walked away. All the other soldiers--German or French, Russian or Serbian--are, after all, fighting somebody they detest for the victory of their Motherland; but these poor chaps, forced to give their lives for a nation they detest, to fight men against whom they have no hate and who could perhaps help them to get back their independence, are the most pathetic figures of the whole war. * * * The Austrian war loan seems to have been an absolute failure. Nobody wants to buy shares, and the few millions subscribed were taken by Government employees, who were forced to do so. The high financial world and the aristocracy have been very stingy; so now the Government is trying to get at the small purses. On the café table, at the post offices, and in the hotels numerous pamphlets are to be found saying that everybody ought to subscribe at least twenty-five crowns, not only as a contribution to the nation's need, but also as an excellent investment. Nobody seems to be anxious to make the excellent investment.