2 NOVEMBER 1907, Page 17

NEWS OF THE WEEK.

ON Sunday last a serious riot took place at Csernova, in Hungary, in which thirteen Slovaks were killed, eight severely wounded, and some eighty slightly wounded. Among the dead were five Women and two children. The ultimate cause of the riot was the suspension of a Slovak priest by the Magyar Bishop, who had appointed in his place a priest of Magyar sympathies. As our correspondent "Scotus Viator " points out in a letter which we publish in another column, the disturbance is an incident in the attempt of the Magyar Government to Magyarise the two millions of Slovaks, one of the Slav sub-nationalities in Hungary. The Slovaks are naturally a gentle and religious people, but their feelings have of late been very deeply stirred, and they are now demanding those rights of nationality from the Magyars which the Magyars have always so sternly insisted upon maintaining for them- selves against the Austrians. How deep is the Slovak feeling may be gauged from the fact that on Wednesday the victims of the riot were buried without religious rites, their families having refused the assistance of Magyar priests. All except one of the victims who succumbed to their wounds refused the Sacraments for the dying, says the correspondent of the Times, rather than submit to tbe presence of a Magyar priest at their deathbed. In the case of Roman Catholics so devoted as the Slovaks, this fact is a sign which the dominant race in Hungary will be mad to ignore.