According to Sigerson, politicals in Austria also were absolved from wearing prison clothes, might buy their own food and choose their work. I am told the same regime prevailed in Hungary under Franz Joseph.

The new constitution of the German Republic adopted at Weimar July 31, 1919, provides that[2] "The President of the Republic shall exercise for the. government the right of pardon .. . . . Government amnesties require a national law."

In the Scandinavian countries there is no provision for special consideration of ~ political prisoners, although a proposed

[1]My Life, August Bebel. [2]Article 49. change in Sweden's penal laws now pending includes special treatment for them, and in Denmark, although politicals are not recognized apart from other prisoners, the people have just won an amnesty for all prisoners convicted of political offense as I write. Neither Switzerland nor Spain makes separate provision for politicals, although there are many prisoners confined in their prisons for political offenses, especially in Spain, where there are nearly always actually thousands in Monjuich. Portugal also subjects political offenders to the same regime as criminals.

Concerning Turkey and Bulgaria, I appealed to George Andreytchine, a Bulgarian revolutionist who as protege of King Ferdinand was educated at Sofia and Constantinople, knowing his knowledge on this point would be authentic. He writes: "Turkey, which is the most backward of all modern states, recognized the status of political prisoners before 1895, or shortly after the Armenian massacres. Thousands of Bulgarian, Greek, Armenian and Arabian insurgents, caught with Arms in their hands, conspiring and actually in open rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, were sentenced to exile or hard labor, but were never confined in the same prisons with ordinary criminals and felons. They were put in more hygienical prisons where they were allowed to read and write and to breathe fresh air. Among some of my friends who were exiled to Turkish Africa for rebellion was a young scholar, Paul Shateff, by name, who while there wrote a remarkable monograph on the ethnology and ethnography of the Arabian Tribes in which he incidentally tells of the special treatment given him and his fellow exiles as political prisoners.

"There is something to be said for the political wisdom of the Sultans. Amnesty is an established practice, usually at the birthday of the Sultan or the coming to power of a new Sultan, or on Ramadan[1], a national holiday.

"In 1908 when the young Turks assumed control of the government, all political prisoners were released and cared for by the state. My friend Paul Shateff was sent at state expense to Bruxelles to finish his studies.

"Bulgaria, another one of those `backward countries,' established the political regime even earlier than Turkey. Politicals are allowed to read, to write books or articles for publication, to receive food from outside, and are periodically released on amnesty."