A TARANAKI LADY'S EXPERIENCES.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 October 1920, Page 6

A TARANAKI LADY'S EXPERIENCES.

AMONG BOLSHEVISTS IN HUNGARY.

Miss Susan Patterson, of Hawera, arrived by the Corinthic recently. She had spent 23 years on the Contneut. Possibly she is the only Ji'ew Zealand lady who had been under Bolshevik rule, and her sad story of the horrors of the terrible doings of Kun Bela should be read with great interest by people who are told by the Holland-Eraser extremists that Bolshevism has produced in Russia the "ideal popular State" and "organise as the workers of Russia and Italy have organised." Miss Patterson writes to the Siar, inter alia:

it was towards tlje end of August, 1914, that I was first interned in Budapest. Although the war had only just broken out, the feeling against the English was intense. Just as previously everything .English had been admired and copied—her language, her literature, her fashions, etc.—now of all hostile nations, she was most ahused and most detested. Her cruelty to Ireland, India, Egypt, and South Africa was notorious. She was grasping cowardly, false, hypocritical, lying, stupid, treacherous and cruel. Her reverses in the beginning of the war were received with acclamations of delight. For France there was considerable sympathy. She was chivalrous, brave and generous; but. England—that old cow—her house was burning under her and she was not yet awake. Our food was, from the beginning, very rough, A solitary dry semmelu (roll) and a cup of bad coffee was our breakfast. A plate of so-called soup, often unsalted and frequently smelling, a little chopped gristle with a most unappetising vegetable, was our dinner. Our supper was general!-- saeurkraut, with a diminutive slice brown bread. Sometimes the bread is mi"le of maize and wheat, but as time went on horse chcsuuts were introduced in it. We never went out of our room except into .1 little yard, where we walked and sat in fine weather. The first part of the time, I, as the only English woman, was treated with extreme cruelty, forcibly fed with their loathsome food, bullied' and insulted' and accused of crimes innumerable. <i. is impossible to write what Ma-; d--:ie and said to me. I would not defile my pen by writing it. T suppose their object was to drive me mad. I frequently fainted from exhaustion, and twice 1 doctor was obliged to give me an injection before I came to myself. Winn the news came that England and her Allies bad won, it teemed too strange to IwS- true. And yet, thank God, it was true! When my money was exhausted the authorities decline.! to keep me any longer, and applied to the Sinnnish Consul. who acted as temporary British Consul, also, to dispose of »>•> elsewhere. So one day, January 13. lrt]!>, T w sent \o Lipot, Mezo, a "large State asylum in Bondapest. This asylum is the refuge of tho homeless and peimilcw, and the phee was full to oversowing. The food, though poor, was comparatively plentiful. .Most of the work in the institute was done by the inmates. They cleaned the rooms, washed the clothes, helped in the ki'ehen, laid the tables for meals, washed up, worked in the garden, and mended the clothes. This last and giving English lessons was my occupation. There, were 20 to .10 Sisters 11I' Mercy in the institute, noble women in every respect, who devoted their lives to helping the poor anil sick, Xever an angry word or a complaint was heard from their lips. Whatever abuse they got from the patients they bore in silence and pity. Rumour* from the outer world reached us [lonietimes, and in course of time we heard how Count Karolyi had (led the country and given over the government to the Bolsheviks. This was in April. 1910, and the tirst change for us, was that all patients, whether paying or 11011-paying, in all three classes, received the same food. The director, doctors and staff also. The good work-

ors, among whom I was. sometimes pot a little; extra. With the clmngc, the reign of terror )>c?an for Hungary. There were innovations for good, of course, free hatha for all poor children, being one of them. The housing of the poor was the first consideration, and people were quartered 011 the rich and noble, according to ihc -i/.e of the families. Thus, families of three members were only allowed two rooms in their own houses, and the linlsht viks took especial pleasure in putting the lowest classes in the finest and most aristocratic residences. The havoc wrought by these invaders

was most deplora hie, valuable pictures works of art and beautiful furniture being ruthlessly destroyed by those vandals. 1 remcmlier a. case" of two sisters of the highest aristocracy, who iiad most undesirable tenants thrust upon them, and tliey themselves were given one small room in their own ancestral mansion. They wondered forth one day and disappeared—whether to self-destruction, Ood only knows. This is but one solitary instance among thousands. Panic fell on all the better classes, 1 lor nobody knew when his turn would come to be seized, thrust into prison, and after a mock trial, put to dentil, often after being first tortured. Spies were in every house, and nobody dared speak a word. People suspected of being against the Government were shot in the open streets and in the villages; as many as 40 men could be seen at once hanging from the trees on the highway. All religions were condemned by the Bolsheviks, but it was especially against the Catholics that their hatred was directed. Our good sisters were among tile first who were given notice to quit Lipofc Mezo. Some went •at once, disguised as peasant women, and I assisted in making a dress for our dear sister should the rest be forcil !y removed. It was unsafe for a nun or priest to be seen in the streets. Indeed li nuns disappeared in Hungary under the Bolshevik regime, martyred for their faith.

Quite recently the llathyuTiy palace in Budapest, was bought from the family liy the English as the future Embassy. for the trifling sum of £3OOO. The liatliyanys would not keep in their possession a house whieh had been the scene of such honors as 'were enacted 'in this. In the cellars .'IOO corpses "were found, all of people of standing, and a very large proportion of Catholic clergy. •Several of these had been crucified, and one priest had a horse shoe nailed upon the skull. Eleven nuns were there, the breasts being cut off, and otherwise mutilated and violated. Nails had been driven into the linger ?iails of many poor victims, and other brutalities tha't F cannot write. Fortunately, the reign of the llolsheviks was over before any definite steps were taken for removing our sibiers. Then "it was discovered that Lipot Mezo had been destined' by these monsters to be blown up, while a particular martyrdom was