Divorced from Two Hundred Wives at Once.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 2, Issue 341, 11 May 1881, Page 3

Divorced from Two Hundred Wives at Once.

(Daily Telegraph .) Sidi Muley Hassan, the Sultan of Morocco, has set a touching example of radical retrenchment to his subjects. Constrained to thrift by a financial crisis of no ordinary severity, he has shown the true believers submitted to his rule the way to “ reform their household bills ” in a highly spirited and thorough-going manner. Having completely drained the Imperial Treasury during his successful efforts to suppress the rebellion that raged throughout his dominions last summer, he has just set down the State expenses by some uncommonly sweeping measures, the first of which was the reduction of his own domestic establishment to about one-half of its normal strength, He dismissed at a blew 200 of his wives, bestowing their hands upon distinguished officers of his army, whose pay, in consideration of the'high favor thus conferred, he docked to the tune of some five and twenty per cent. A pleasing feature of this arrangement — to all, at least, except the immediate recipients of his especial grace —is the fact that his Majesty has made his matrimonial dispositions in such sort that all his older moieties have got new husbands, while he has reserved the young ones to gladden his own heartn. Instead of saddling the civil list with provision for these superannuated ladies, he has united them to gallant warriors at a positive saving to the public purse, for the gift of each exSultana has been by him decreed to compensate her respective recipient for

the loss of one-fourth of bis income. Muley Hassan’s popularity, it appears, has been increased to such an extent by this noble self-sacrifice on his part, that a few days ago, as he rode from his palace to the chief mosque, he was greeted with enthusiastic acclamation by the whole male population of Fez, his capital. This is quite a new experience for the Moroccan Sultan, who has been for some years past at open odds with his subjects.