A number of deplorable transactions ensued, and they were not all
committed by the Italianists. The proclamations which were sent from
Zagreb, exhorting the people to be tranquil, were printed in the two
languages, but some Croat super-patriots at Rieka tried to make the town
mono-lingual. At the railway station and the post office they removed
the old Italian inscriptions and put up Croatian ones, they wrote to
the mayor in Croat, which, although Dr. Vio has a Croat father and
visited a Croat school and a Croat university, was tactless; they wrote
that Croat would now be the language of the town, which was a foolish
thing to do. They even seem to have demanded the evacuation of the town
hall within twenty-four hours. And the irresponsible persons who made
this demand were very properly snubbed by the municipal authorities.