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Page 9
This victory means a great deal to the workers. Their period of labor
will be reduced from fifteen hours a day to ten, and by the new scale
of wages they will be able to earn from $10 to $18 a week, instead of
from $5 to $10 as formerly.
The leader of the strike, Meyer Shoenfeld, has been working so hard in
the interests of his fellow-laborers that he is quite ill. At one of the
last meetings of the strikers he broke down in the midst of a speech he
was making, and was unable to continue.
When he heard that the contractors were about to sign, he insisted on
getting out of his sick-bed and going to the meeting, to make sure
everything was being properly arranged.
The success of the strikers will cause a slight increase in the price of
ready-made clothes, but few are likely to begrudge this when they
realize what an increase of comfort it means to the poor workers.
* * * * *
Austria and Hungary are not getting along as well as they might.
There are two reasons for this unfriendly feeling.
One is that Austria has asked Hungary to pay a larger proportion of the
common expenses of the two countries. It was arranged that Hungary
should pay thirty per cent. of these expenses, and Austria the other
seventy per cent., because Austria was much larger and wealthier than
the sister land.
Since these arrangements were made Hungary has become exceedingly
prosperous, and Austria now asks her to pay thirty-seven per cent. of
the expenses instead of the former thirty per cent.
Hungary will not listen to any arguments on the subject, and threatens
to separate herself from Austria.
These two countries are governed by one sovereign, and, like Sweden and
Norway, or the various States of our own country, have each their own
local government, but are united on all matters of foreign affairs,
national defences, tariff, etc.
[Illustration]
The Hungarians and Austrians are, however, people of very different
races, and, in spite of the years they have been joined under one
federal government, they have never grown to like each other.
The Hungarians are Magyars, and were originally of Asiatic origin. They
are a fierce, fiery race. The Austrians come of the same stock as the
Germans, and are of a much milder temperament.
Hungary is a conquered country. In the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries it was a very great kingdom, but in the sixteenth century its
power declined, and, the king having died, Turkey and Austria fought
for the possession of the crown, Austria eventually gaining the day.
Ferdinand I., a prince of the Austrian House of Hapsburg, was declared
King of Hungary, and ever since then the Emperor of Austria has been
crowned King of Hungary.
The Hungarians have never felt satisfied with the Austrian rule, and
have frequently revolted. The last rising was in 1848, under Louis
Kossuth. This rebellion was put down with the help of the Russians.
Last June a great patriotic celebration took place in Hungary, and this
possibly roused the national feeling so strongly in the hearts of the
Hungarians that it has made them a little more restless than usual.
This celebration was called the Banderium, and was to celebrate the
thousandth year of Hungary's existence as a kingdom.
The nobles of Hungary met together in Buda-Pesth, the capital city of
the country, and went in procession to the Houses of Parliament, and
swore allegiance to the battered golden crown which Pope Sylvester II.
had given to the first King of Hungary, one thousand years before.
It was said to have been a most wonderful and stirring sight to see
these nobles "dressed in the clothes their ancestors had worn, carrying
the banners under which their grandfathers had fought, weeping with
emotion around a battered golden crown," a relic of the days when their
fatherland was great and powerful.
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