Fifty Palaces.

Kaipara and Waitemata Echo, 28 August 1914, Page 2

Fifty Palaces.

KAISER'S THOUSANDS OF UNIFORMS. The German Emperor has more uniforms than any other Sovereign, so great are the number of military, naval, and other titles he owns in his own and other countries. His uniforms, which have been computed at nearly 8,000 in all, are in charge of his head valet, who has twelve other valets working under him. The valet requires to be an expert on military uniform, for it is no light task to remember the accessories in the way of swords, epaulets, helmets, etc., to go with nearly 3,000 uniforms, for each detail must be exact, and a mistake in regard to this would cost him his place. On one occasion, when his yacht, the Hohenzollern, was oil the British coast, the officials stationed at Port Victoria to receive him sighted him through marine glasses standing on the bridge in the uniform of a German general. Great was their astonishment when, on landing barely ten minutes later, he greeted them dressed as an English admiral. He was escorted to his special train wherein he disappeared for a i&w moments, walking into the saloon in the uniform of the Ist Royal Dragoons. Finally, upon arriving in London, he stepped on* the. train in the conventional frockcoat and top-hat of an Euglish gentleman. The keeping of such an extensive wardrobe is somewhat a task. It is said that for the four palaces in and round Berlin eighty boxes <;f naphthaline moth balls, and thirty of camphor and cedar shavings are required to resist the depredations of the moth. When it is remembered that the Kaiser has .nearly fifty other palaces besides in various parts of his kingdom, in all of which full sets of uniform are kept, it can be imagined that the money spent on moth destroyers must run into a tidy little sum every year.