Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1915-08-16
MYSTERY SHR0UDS
SAN MAR|N0'S ARMY
No One Can Tell Whether 1t
is at War With
Austria.
BY HERBERT COREY.
Copyright, 1851

BY HERBERT COREY.
Copyright, 1919
RIMINI, Italy, July 21.-The thou
sand-year- republic of San Marino
is at war with Austra-or is not at
war with Austria. I do not know. l
tried to find out. but l was not let.
How could it go to war with Aus
tria?" laughed the Italian officer who
placed me under arrest here today. 1T
only has an army of eight men,
We urged that it had been reported
in the United States that San Marine
had formally declared war against
Austria, in spite of the disproportion
between the two. San Marine has but
II, 600 people in all. 1t covers but
twepty-four square miles, and those
square miles are upon the top of a hill
$500 feet high, which one reaches by
glorified goat track. We defended
it's military theory. 1t is true that it
has but eight men in it's standing army.
But its detractors should not forget,
we said, that it has national guard
of sixty others. The United States de-
ponds upon the same system, and in
about the same proportion. We re-
scented these jeers.
Has. San Marine gone to war;" asked
the officer of other officers nearby. We
had evidently impressed him. They
shook their heads in dissent.
IF it has. we haven't heard of it,"
said they 1T is true that 500 men
Italian army. That is permitted. you
know. But if it had gone to war We
should have been told
Some International Etiquette.
Our demand that we be permitted to
visit San Marine opened an interesting
question of international law. We were
most unwelcome visitors at Rimini.
That city is in the war zone, and for
eigners, ARE prohibited. But San Ma
rino is an independent republicans
been independent ever since Pope ur-
ban recognized it in 1631-and the
Italian officers were in doubt as to
their authority to forbid citizens of one
neutral country visiting another neu-
trail country They solved the prob
lem most ingeniously.
You can visit San Marino,' they
wish to make that quite clear
Unfortunately" they added, the
diligence for San Marine does not
leave Rimini until o'clock tomorrow
morning, whereas we regret that you
must take the train out OIL fIlilllHl DIT
5 o'clock this afternoon"
We compromised on that They grace
fully put away our compliments on the
manner in which they had evaded a
legal ENHANCEMENT. They insistently de-
clincd our admiration. To the very
last-to the moment when they turned
us over to the policeman who put US
on the train-they maintained that
they had not in any way INSTRUCTED
our quite legal desire to visit San Ma
rino. 1t was merely that we did not
have the time. To console us, they
took us about Rimini in what passes in
Rimini for hack They showed US
the graves of Sigismondo Malatesta
and his wife, 1sotto. We admired
excessively. He seems to
century.
"Sigismondo," said the officers. de
sired immortality for his wife and
himself. So that he created. court
here to which he attracted poets and
painters and saints"
Poets and Saints Bones.
A very practical man, this robber
chieftain. He held that poets who
would not come should be made to
come. When he heard of a good,
lively versifier-a kipling of the mid
die ages-he sent out a posse with an
his patron whether the poet came in
happiness or in chains. 1t occurred to
that his court would be all
the better for a flavor of holiness. that
flavor having been VIGOROUSLY missing
from the Malatesta menage for the
several centuries they had held Rimini.
So he ordered his men-at-arms to catch
him mess of hermits and prophets.
The current supply being unequal to
this demand. he robbed various graves
and transported the sainted bones to
his court. One suspects Sigismondo
must have been most unpleasant
but these "reminiscences re-
deem Rimini. Otherwise one would
only remember it as a town of fiat
stone houses and dusty, empty streets,
upon which a fierce white sun beat
down. That is not quite accurate. 1t
was here, zoo years before Sigismon
dos time, that Giovanni Malatesta the
Lame put to death his wife Fran
cesca and his brother Paolo. Ehel
world is the richer for the tragedy. 1t
was on that grim story that Dante
based his poem of Francesca da Ri
mimi
More might be told of Rimini. for
this is truly histo!Sc ground. 1t was