starving of the prisoners. All rights of the prisoners were suspended and
they depended entirely on the will of the commander: many of these
political prisoners were imprisoned together with ordinary murderers; they
were not allowed to read books or to write letters; their families were not
permitted to visit them or even to send them provisions from home, so they
starved in prison. Such cruel treatment did not affect only political
prisoners but even people on remand, and it was nothing extraordinary for
them to be imprisoned for years on remand only. The deputies asked whether
the authorities wanted these prisoners to die from starvation.

The most interesting document is the interpellation of deputies _Stanek,
Tobolka and Co_. on the persecutions against the Czech nation during the
war. The interpellation has been published as a book of 200 pages which has
been prohibited by Austria to be sent abroad, but a copy of which we have
nevertheless been able to secure. The following are short extracts from
the volume:


The Behaviour of the Austrian Government towards the Czech Nation during
the War


"YOUR EXCELLENCY,--At a time when it proved impossible to continue to
rule in an absolute way in this empire and when after more than three
years the Reichsrat is sitting again, we address to you the following
interpellation in order to call your attention to the persecutions
which during the past three years have been perpetrated on our nation,
and to demand emphatically that these persecutions shall be
discontinued. They were not done unintentionally or accidentally, but,
as will be shown from the following survey, this violence was committed