THRASHING THE GERMAN CROWN PRINCE.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 195, 28 July 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

THRASHING THE GERMAN CROWN PRINCE.

BERLIN' HOTEL MANAGER S REVELATION.

All German royalties are attended at tabie by their own butlers. The Crown Prince has an elderly butler who was once in tiie service ot an English peer, hi this connection 1 may relate a story that is well known in Berlin, concerning a former butler of the Crown Prince. I was told it by a servant in the Imperial household, out I cannot vouch for its truth (writes an Englishman, who was manager of a Berlin hotel, in "Pearson's Weekly"). As everyone knows, the Crown Prince has, like his father, a very violent temper, and when he was quite a young man his immediate attendants had to put up with a great deal ironi their Royal master. The attendant who chiefly suffered was a servant who acted as the Prince's butler and chief personal attendant. The Prince at that time was leading i pretty gay life, and sometimes would return to the Imperial Schloss in the early morning, not altogether sober, and sometimes in an excessively bad temper, which he would vent on the lucklesd butler. BOUND AND GAGGED THE PRINCE Now the butler was a giant of i Prussian, an ex-cavalry soldier, and for two years he put up with the Prince's temper; submitted without a murmur, not only to the most violent and insulting abuse from his royal mas. ter, but often to personal indignities, such as having boots flung at his head and wine in his face. The man had been drilled and schooled in all the strict discipline of the German army, and submited to insult and abuse from the heir to the throne as a thing as natural and proper as eating. But, like the worm, oven a Prussian soldier will turn, and one night, when the Prince returned from some carousal in a particularly lively mood and began as usual to abuse his attendant, the dormant temper of the big Prussian awoke.

He seized the Prince in his powerful grasp, and inflicted on him, with his own cane, a terrible chastisement. Then he bound the Prince hand and root and gagged him, and departed from ih Schioss. He was seen leaving by the soldiers on duty, but they tcok it he was going on some err.ru I - " : i.c Prince, The Beriin : t a night train and was never seen or heard of again, but the storv in Berlin is that he went to New York and obtained a good situation in the establishment of some millionaire. After this incident the Crown Princes' treatment of his rervants greatly improved, for His Royal Highness has had a lesson that iie did not readily forget. But to return to the more immediate subject of my experiences at tho hotel. We were patronised, as I have said, by all sorts of famous people. Among the visitors who stayed with us were tho King of Bulgaria and his son, Prince Boris. This was in 1912. 'Ilr; visit was an incognito one, and King Ferdinand stayed as the Baroft Rechoff and his son simply as Count boris o f Rechoff. A MESSAGE ARRIVED FROM THE KAISER. As a rule, when a royal visitor stayed at our hotel incognito, we generally knew his or her identity. Sometimes we were olficially informed of it, and if not, we usually learned enough to make at least a tolerably' rood guess as to our visitor s identitv before his arrival. But in the ca=e of King Ferdinand none of us at tin hotel bad any idea of his identity until he had been at the hotel for three days. He and his son came with but three attendants—a secretary and two servants —an unusual}' small retinue for a royal personage. A suite of fine rooms was engaged by the secretary by wire from Bucharest, and we simply concluded that Count Rechoff was a Bulgarian, or some foreign nobleman travelling under an name. Of course, we looked up th2 title, and, not finding it in any boo.; of reference, came to this conclusion Curiously enough, on the arrival of Count Rechoff an assistant at the hot"! said he recognised him as an Austrian banker who had stayed at another hotel in Russia where he had been formerly employed. . . However, three days later an inciuent occurred that led us to guess Irs identity. The Kaiser came to Berlin that ilternoon, and at four o'clock a mes—<igc arrived from the Schloss for Count Rechoff. We frequently had visitors who received messages from the Imperial Schloss, but the message in this instance was delivered by an equerry who waited for a reply, and th'S left us in no doubt that Count Rechoff was a roval personage. After this we had no difficulty in ascertaining his identity. One of King Ferdinand's ch;ei recreates was playing eribbage. He would often spend a whole morning_-n his private rooms p laying eribbage wit'i liis secretary or with some visitor. One of his most frequent visitors, by the why, was Baron Knhlman who was later sent to the German Embassy *n London shortly before the outbreak of war. . , On one ocasion King Ferdinands love for eribbage got him into trouble with the Kaiser. The King was due to dine at the Schloss at B-30 p.m. He began to play eribbage with his seerotary at about seven o'clock; at eight o'clock his secretary reminded His Majesty that ho was to dine at the Schloss* at S-150, and that he had not much time to spare, as it would take Irm ne-erly ha!f an hour to get ready. KING FERDINAND KEPT HIM WAITING. But King Ferdinand would not :oavo the unfinished game, and sent a menage to the Schloss asking the Kai-ei to exeus." bin; for bo'iig late, but that business affairs would prevent him arriving at tho Sch'oss betol e nin. o'cio'.k. . The Fmp -'or. I was told afterward-, received the messenger with a very bad !TOi-o. and --nt a message back o bis roval guest to say that, if be wished, h- could postpone his en paneto tlnnuM- nilocotluM*. v (M ' dinned, however, departed for the at about a ouarter to nine, •ml nianng.-d. 1 -impose, to appease hi< h<:~t '■■ v, i n l '> -onio'iow. Tvuli Fei din;• nd wa<. also, a <i' eot tlieati e-Loe". I think lie attended _ .1 tbe-it: 0 < verv nijiht during h's ten -lav \Vlr 11 pavin-i account at the Jio-t,-l liis «v-r I :rv di'olmrcd it in Mni_'li.' t.ank-n ■!• -. and he thpe 1 iho hotel f-vanl- on n verv eouernu- n-nle.

,I'sT BEHIND. P,,!|v " Does <he fel'ow the Ta-diioil. e Ir-.-lv?" T)ni! v : " Vos : but she never quite catches 1:"