Mrs. Charles H. Higgins of 160 West Fifty-ninth Street, who recently returned from Europe with Mr. Higgins, gives an interesting account of their trip through Italy during the disturbances between the striking Socialists and the Fasciati. Mrs. Higgins writes in the New York Times:
"Few Americans traveling in Italy during the last few months have been able to understand the political crisis which came to a head during the first week of August. The Socialists were trying to win out and probably would have succeeded if the fine young Fasciati, burning with loyalty, had not sprung forward, manned the trains and restored order.
"The Socialists started their big strike by cutting off all the railway and streetcar service, and no newspapers were issued. It was very hard for us Americans in Florence to tell really what was happening. In Italy, a strike is rather different from one in this country, for often they have a twenty-four-hour strike, but on the day following service is resumed almost as usual.
"Scramble for Train.
"We started for Venice about 9:30 o'clock on a glorious Italian morning, three days after the big rail strike. We had almost arrived at Bologna, quite peacefully, when the guard told us that we must change trains, and we had to scramble to catch the train, which was the last leaving for Venice that day. There was only one first-class car, and it was teeming with soldiers wearing the Fasciati caps and uniforms and supplied with a most astounding array of fighting implements. We squeezed our way through the corridor, my sleeve catching on one side in a revolver stuck jauntily."  In a sash, and my skirt being torn by a business-like looking knife, the thief in the boot. 