lievieiv or' Reviews, I/lS/Oe. 



The Great Esperanto Gon^ress. 



6oi 



Boulogne everyone was on the look- 

 out for Esperantists, and^ anyone 

 could direct you. But in Geneva, 

 as often happens in so large a 

 to"\vn, even the inhabitants did not 

 know the names of all the streets, 

 so could not direct us; and we only 

 found the Salle des Amis d'lnstruc- 

 tion just in time for the opening 

 ceremony. As the meeting was ex- 

 clusively for Esperantists who had 

 a right to vote, only green tickets 

 were admitted, but the hall was 

 tilled, galleries and all. The first 

 ceremony was the resignation of the 

 Committee of Organisation, and 

 the appointment of a new Congress 

 Committee, in which, as in every 

 future Congress, the president and 

 vice-president must be natives of 

 the country in which the Congress 

 is held. 



Then the declaration of the es- 

 sence of Esperanto and its neu- 

 trality as declared at Boulogne was 

 formally confirmed. Dr. Zamenhof 

 having first declared the Congress 

 officially open, he receiving, as al- 

 ways, a wildly enthusiastic recep- 

 tion. 



Went in the evening to the Vic- 

 toria Hall for the public meeting. 

 Mr. Moschelles was of course on 

 the platform with the numerous 

 other committeemen, and had ex- 

 pected his wife to join him ; but 

 we were turned back as not being 

 on the acting committee, so con- 

 cluded we would be cheeky enough 

 to seat ourselves in one of the re- 

 served boxes. Here, while I was 

 engaged in making notes of the 

 proceedings, Mrs. Moschelles made 

 some delightful sketches of the in- 

 tellectual faces just opposite us on 

 the platform. It would be difficult 

 for those who have never been pre- 

 sent at such a Congress to realise 

 the attraction of the sight of those 

 forty or fifty idealists from eigh- 

 teen to twenty nations, and par- 

 tiailarlv when one remembered 

 that the.se same counted amongst 

 their numbers officers from the Ger- 

 man, French, Swedish, and other 

 armies, Catholics and Protestants 

 of the most determined and oppo 

 site views. Socialists and Free- 

 thinkers with opinions of the 

 strongest, yet Es])eranto had drawn 



