Madcap Trial

At Budapest three judges frowned upon a judicial bench stacked high with counterfeit French francs. Since trial by jury has now been abolished in Hungary, the jury-box -built -for -twelve was pressed into service to accommodate twenty-six defense attorneys. The twenty-four prisoners, who sat close together on three long benches, arose one by one as their names were called, and nearly all confessed to having taken part in counterfeiting the piles of banknotes, but stated proudly: 1) that they had done so by command of their superior officers; or 2) that they had acted from the most disinterested patriotic motives. The forty-nine witnesses, including six Counts, two Barons, and one Bishop, fidgeted meanwhile, sniffed with disapproval the air of a courtroom jammed to suffocation.

Thus, there began at Budapest, last week, a trial as seemingly nonsensical as that of Alice in Wonderland: the trial of those Gargantuan Hungarians who counterfeited 30,000,000,000 French francs, allegedly with intent to finance a putsch which would overthrow the present Hungarian Regency* and seat a Habsburg again upon the Hungarian Throne. (TIME, Jan. 18 et seq.)

As the trial proceeded a big-boned, fiercely-bearded, swarthy prisoner was brought forward. Though he had the air of a proud and unrepentant brigand, he had been, up to the very moment of his arrest, the respected Dr. Nardossy, Chief of Police of Budapest. He pleaded "Guilty!" in a booming voice.

"Dr. Nardossy," queried the Chief Magistrate, Judge Toereky, "how did it happen that you conspired with Prince Ludwig Win-disch-Graetz? How did he ever dare to broach this stupendous plan of forgery to you, the Chief of Police of Budapest?"

"Why not? We are old friends!" roared Dr. Nardossy. "We are accustomed to talking over many things together. We have acted from completely patriotic motives. . . . '

Judge Toereky prudently refrained from prying into the nature of these "motives." Instead he called another prisoner, a dapper little man with his hair cut in the German fashion, a nervous but determined young man, who clenched and brandished a cane in one hand while he gesticulated with the other. This was Prince Ludwig Windisch-Graetz, a descendant of the "Holy Roman Emperors."

"Do you feel guilty, Your Highness?" asked Judge Toereky.

"No," said Prince Ludwig Windisch-Graetz ; "this was no common crime, but part of a great patriotic fight .... I had not the honor to originate this gigantic scheme .... a circle, the members of which I shall not name, prepared it, and merely called on me for financial aid, which I gladly gave . . . . "

Again Judge Toereky made no attempt to fix the purpose of the plot, since so much as to hint at the return of the Habsburgs might result in serious trouble with France.

* Admiral Nicholas Horthy is Regent for this "kingless kingdom." Almost certainly a majority of the multi-national citizens of what is now Hungary look up to the House of Habsburg as the one authority under which they have ever been peaceably united. France and her allies have stood guard sleeplessly since the War, lest "the heir apparent," Prince Otto of Habsburg (still a child and residing in Spain with his mother, the former Empress Zita of Austria-Hungary), be "restored," or the Archduke Albrecht of Habsburg seize the throne.