THE HOUSE OF HAPSBURG

Ashburton Guardian, Volume VII, Issue 2120, 27 April 1889, Page 3

THE HOUSE OF HAPSBURG

» ("New Zealand Tablet.") It would seem that the misfortunes of the House of, Hapsbnrg have not ended with the death of the Archduke Rudolph. The Empress, we are now to!d, expresses a determination to take her life, no that an heir may still be born to tbe Emperor, her husband. But the unhappy lady thus shows tbat she also shares tho affliction of many members of her family— and which was shared as well by tbe Emperor's mother, who died insaue. It is muoh to be feare% again, that the branch of tbe family who must now succeed to the Crown are not wholly free from the hereditary taint. It was at least reported a year or two ago that one of the princess in question on meeting a peasant's funeral one day when he was riding on boraebaok, stopped the oortege, and amused himself by jumpiDg Wb horse for some time back and forward over the coffin. A prank less grim, but evf n more outrageous, is also narrated of the prince in question or hiß brother. Bua practical jokes of such a kind can have only one explanation. Wbat. meantime, may we expect to be the effect produced by all this upon the people of the Austrian Empire ? They, no doubt (1 j view with some apprehension the existence of madners more or lei s developed m the reigning House, and will ne anxious for some obange bringing a better state of, things about. The evident suggestion is tbat the plans long fsserted to be those of Prince Biemarck for the completion of the German Empire will be served, and that the German element in the Austrian provinoes will itself beome anxious for the amalgamation alluded to. Whether thia might be brought about without a war |t would not be easy to aoy . but it must be evident that a war with Russia, in wbioh Austria was defeated, would very much fmther Its accomplishment. It might, moreover, teni to remove any apprehensions the (-I'ovemment of the Czer entertained as to the aggrandizement of Ger many, were the other provinces of the Empire tp be dismembered he'd out as a reward <o them. There is, besides, a large Slsvio population withio tbe Austrian confines who would gladly accept »uch a solution. Qn the whole, then, the unhappy event of Prince Rudolph's suicide aeems to have added to the perplexities of the situation which has been for so long perplexing and threatening Europe, and there is no absolute impossibility that we may, for example, eee ere long the fulfilment of the old prediction which foretold that, as the Crown bad come to the House of H_n9D'urg with a prince named Rudolph it woukP depart from them with a prlnoe of the same name. But, however, it may be, the illustrious House, as we at present behold it, is sorely troubled.