CZECHOSLOVAKIA 



145 



mentor during my wanderings and asked 

 the man to drive me to the "Franz- 

 Josephs Bahnhof.'' 



He made it perfectly plain that Francis 

 Joseph is as dead in spirit as he is in 

 body, and that a new day has dawned in 

 central Europe. 



"Franz-Josephs Bahnhof ?" he laughed. 

 "There is no such thing. What you want 

 is Wilson Station." 



I had known it all the time, for my 

 ticket from Paris had read "Prague, Gare 

 Wilson," but I did not know then, as I 

 know now. that it is a very small Czecho- 

 slovak village that does not have its 

 bridge, park, square, or street named 

 after the American President. 



THE CZECH IS STIXGY WITH HIS VOWELS 



The Czech is both generous and hospi- 

 table, and to be his guest is to endanger 

 your digestion and sobriety for the rest 

 of your life, but he is very stingy with 

 his vowels. As we passed through a 

 large town which makes one man moisten 

 his lips and another whistle "The Ales- 

 sage of the Violet," I saw the sign "Plzen." 



"Why waste the V ?" I asked. 



The Czech assumes that an "e," an "i," 

 and a "u" convey the same sound im- 

 pression, so he gives Brunn the name of 

 Brno. 



Why he should spell it Berno, Birno. 

 or Burno he can't understand ; so he 

 leaves out the vowel and lets the reader 

 take his pick, since it's all the same sound, 

 anyway. But when the unwary traveler 

 carelessly mixes the German name with 

 the Bohemian and calls the Moravian 

 capital "Bruno," he thinks that's a poor 

 joke. 



The Czech prides himself that his lan- 

 guage is phonetic. Leaving out such little 

 things as pronouncing "rip" "zheep," it 

 is. "Zmrzlina" starts in with a hard 

 freeze, and then flows as fluidly from the 

 tongue as the hoky-poky ice-cream for 

 which it stands. 



If the Czech is stingy with his vowels, 

 that does not signify that he does not 

 amply reward a letter for overtime. 

 Y\ "hen you see a Czech letter wearing a 

 service stripe, you may be sure that it is 

 doing double duty. "Cop" would be un- 

 derstandable even to a wharf rat, only 

 the Czech would call it "sop" ; but put a 



service stripe (v) on the first letter and 

 it becomes "chop." 



L-u-c-k-y looks lucky, but the Czech 

 spears the "u" with an accent and deco- 

 rates the "c" with a service stripe, and 

 lucky becomes "lootchky," like Bolshevik 

 gold, and there you are ! 



Czechish is a peculiar language, but not 

 half as peculiar as the result attained by 

 those who take a perfectly fine word like 

 "Cech,''' which is pronounced "check," 

 and spell it "Czech." which is neither 

 phonetic nor intelligible. To start a 

 brave little people, who have troubles of 

 their own, out on the rough road of Cen- 

 tral European life with the awful name 

 of "Czechoslovakia" is to put a spirited 

 young colt under an unfair handicap. 



But "What's in a name?" asks the 

 Czech. 



And the best way you can reply is to 

 counter, "Yes, what is?" 



You ultimately learn that the train 

 which runs from Oderberg to Kassa, ac- 

 cording to the ticket, and from Bohumin 

 to Kosice, according to the time-table. 

 finally gets there, and if that is where 

 you want to go, why bother about names? 

 Only you must be careful to learn the 

 nationality of the man with whom you 

 are talking before you say "Poszony." 

 "Pressburg," or "Bratislava" for Slo- 

 A'akia's capital and Czechoslovakia's port 

 on the Danube. Lmless you find out in 

 advance of using the word, the chances 

 are two to one against you. 



THE GOVERNOR OF RUTHENIA IS A 

 PITTSBURGH LAWYER 



Both the Professor and I wanted to 

 see primitive conditions ; so we went up 

 to what is variously known as Ruthenia. 

 Rusinia, and Podkarpatska Rus and 

 started to chase the ultimate frontier of 

 civilization at forty miles an hour in the 

 governor's motor car. That is not the 

 way to come upon an ultimate frontier. 

 Such game is only stalked on foot or with 

 the aid of a sure-footed little burro. 



But we did get to conditions so primi- 

 tive that six human beings and four 

 cattle, not to count pigs and poultry, lived 

 in a single-room house, and we did ex- 

 perience the feeling which only carbolic 

 soap can quite relieve. 



As is now well known, the present gov- 



