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OCTOBER

 

11, 1424 --Czechoslovakia. John Trocznowski was born one day when his mother went to visit the reapers during harvest. She was suddenly taken with labor pains and was delivered of her son under an oak tree in the field.
     In his boyhood, an accident deprived him of the use of one eye, and hence he was nicknamed "Ziska" or "one-eyed." However at the siege of Raby, he lost the other eye. As a young man, he became chamberlain to King Wenceslaus at the time when Emperor Sigismund had denied the safe conduct be promised to John Huss, and who then had him burned. Ziska became pensive.
     One day King Wenceslaus asked him, "What is this?"
     "I cannot brook the insult offered to Bohemia at Constance by the murder of John Huss."
     "If you are able to call the Emperor and Constance to account, you have my permission," the king responded thinking Ziska would soon pass it off.
     "Very good, my gracious master," the youth replied, "Will you be pleased to give me your permission in writing?"
     The king liked to sport and believing such a document perfectly harmless in the hands of one, who had neither friends, nor money, nor soldiers, gave Ziska what he asked under royal seal.
     Though entirely blind, he amassed an army and directed its movements foreseeing every emergency and coping with every difficulty. When an action was about to occur, he would call a few officers around him, and make them describe the nature of the ground and the position of the enemy. His arrangement was instantly made as if by intuition. The Emperor Sigismund has considered the arms of Bohemia invincible after advancing forty thousand soldiers into Bohemia only to be defeated by Ziska's hastily rallied force of peasants.
     What has contributed largely to his remarkable success is his novel method of contending with his enemy with his men constantly behind walls and ramparts while the enemy is constantly exposed. His method involves the wagons of the commissariat linked one to another by strong iron chains, and ranged in line in front of the host. The fortification was termed a "wagenberg;" and ranges in a circle and often encloses the whole army.
     Behind the first rampart rises a second rampart, formed with the low wooden shield of the soldiers stuck into the ground. These moveable walls are formidable obstructions to the German cavalry. Mounted on heavy horses and armed with pikes and battle-axes, they must force their way through this double fortification before they can engage the Bohemians. All the while they are hewing at the wagons, the Bohemian archers ply them with their arrows, and it is with thinned ranks and exhausted strength that the Germans at length are able to join battle with the enemy . . .. The Bohemians are armed with long iron flails, which they swing with prodigious strength. They seldom fail to hit and when they do hit, the flail crashes through the brazen helmet, the skull and all. They also carry long spears with hooks attached and with which they clutch the German horsemen and quickly being them to the ground and dispatch him. The invaders find they have penetrated the double rampart of their foe only to be dragged from their horses and helplessly slaughtered.
     Besides numerous skirmishes and sieges, Ziska has fought sixteen pitched battles from all of which he has returned conqueror.
     Today, he dies of the Plague and is succeeded by Procopius.

11, 1792 --Vermont. Mr. Caleb Blood preaches an Election Sermon before a convention of Baptist ministers, in which he declares "A wise magistrate will set a constant guard over the words of his mouth; that with a becoming moderation, he may express his resentment of injuries done him, and have all his language such as shall tend to prevent others from an uncivil, profane way of treating their fellow-citizens. A magistrate, who is rough and profane in his language, is a monstrous character. He is not civil himself, and we cannot expect but that the practice, at least, will do hurt in the community. He is not the gentleman; for any person of sense knows that a rough, profane way of treating mankind better fits the character of a clown than a gentleman. Can I suppose myself in danger of giving offence? No; I cannot think that so respectable a body as I am now called to address, will think me too severe in censuring so great an evil; especially seeing it so much prevails in our land at the present day."

11, 1895 --Turkey. Last year on June 20th, the Pope issued a bull directed to all princes and peoples, expressing hope of a reunion of Christendom. Today, Patriarch Anthimos II of the Greek Church replies charging Rome with innovations such as the doctrines of Papal infallibility, the Immaculate conception, baptism by sprinkling, and Purgatory.
 

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