A MISERABLE EXISTANCE

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 10 January 1912, Page 3

A MISERABLE EXISTANCE

The intense unhappiness of a deposed Sultan was the subject of a message ijublished in a Homo paper in November last. It is stated that the former despot fears for his own life as much as ever. In consequence of his apprehension that his enemies aim to assassinate him, ho carefully avoids showing himself at either of the windows of the Villa AUatini, wherein he has been imprisoned since he was deposed nearly two year3 figo. He believes that he might be shot from without if one of his pursuers caught sight of him, Neither ontieaties nor urgent advice regarding the dauger to his health from remaining permanently indoors noi stringent medical ordors can induce Abdul Hamid to leave the house and take exercise in the garden. He not only refuses to leave the house, but remains stubbornly on first floor of the villa. Ht> refuses to descend to the ground floor, believing that there is a danger of bombs being concealed in the oellar. Likewise he lefuses to ascend to the second floor, because he fears that the villa might be bet on fire and that ho might perish before escape was possible. Trembling day and night for his life, the unhappy exSultan leais a miserable existence. He never undresses and ho suffers from insomnia. His thin, bowed i'v/uro waudois during the night from room to room until finally he drops exhausted to fitful slumber on some ottoman. During tho daytime he works as a carpenter. He recently oompletocl a largo wardrobo. Curiously ouough he has a burning desire to sell it, not so much, it appears, to earn money asti convince himself that his manual labour can produce something worth buying. AVhatever tho cause may be, he entreats his warders for permission to send the wardrobe away from the villa to be sold, But this request has beeu refused because the Turkish GovefLrnent fears that the wardrobe might contain concealed within the wood somo undesirable communication tc the ex.-Sultan's friends,

At a gathering in connection with the Boy Scouts' movement, held at Clayesmore School, Pangbourno, the following letter was read from M? Rudyard Kipling; •* PJ.P.'s notion appeals to the class pf buys who go through youth unpunished' and almost entirely without any notion of lojalty and discipline. The public schoolboy still retains the in estimable privilege of being licked for wrong doing, and of "being taught ihe sapred gospel of " jolly we}l must." \ rou wanf 'a d.iffp.rpnt bait far th/> gayevmus" class. Their psvuhology is 'different, or else they would not be loaders m time of stress, short rations, exposuie and pain. Something must bo thought out for them on their qwn lines. What it is I don't quite see. lam suye of it that the present trend/Qf legislation is making milksops oi democracy, and for them B P.'s pUan is about the only way of salvation that I have seen,"