6 JULY 1912, Page 9

The Times of Wednesday published a most interesting message from

its correspondent at Prague describing the Sokol festival which has just taken place there. The Sokol movement is one for physical culture among the Slays, and at Prague 35,000 members of the organization were present in their uniforms. The success of the Sokol movement might be compared with that of the Boy Scouts in Great Britain. The correspondent says that the display of exercises and discipline by the Sokols—young women as well as young men—was a wonderful sight. Although the organization is non-political it is none the less a signal proof of the cohesion of the Slav races—the Poles alone obstinately and un- generously standing out—and we cannot doubt that the thoughts of Slays must run on from this example of their power of racial co-operation to more ambitious thoughts. The correspondent remarks that the German Austrians learn nothing of all this from their newspapers. All they read about the festival was that three Germans had been brutally assaulted at Prague by Slays. The truth was that an ill-mannered band of Germans tried to stop the Sokol procession of over thirty thousand persons. It was Sokols who saved most of the Germans from the anger of the crowd.