The Czar.

Te Aroha News, Volume V, Issue 207, 18 June 1887, Page 3

The Czar.

The Czar is reported once again as suffering, at times, from fits of despondency that border on a state of alienation, and in confirmation of the truth of this statement a correspondent from Vienna imparts the following facts: "On the subject of hereditary insanity among the Imperial family it will be necessary to trace the lines of descent from the undoubtedly crazy Paul of Russia. A great deal has been said of late about the present Czar of Russia developing lines of mental likeness to this ancestor, who was his great-grand-father. It is worth noticing that the two sons of King William of Holland who have died within the past six years, both undoubtedly crazy, were also great-grandsons of this lunatic Paul. All about The Hague in tlie names of streets, institutions, and even factories, you can see reminders of the old King's mother, Anna Paulowna, who lived at the Dutch capital till her death, in 1865, and was greatly esteemed by everybody. She was the daughter of the Czar Paul, as Nicholas was his son. The two Orange Prince 3 were her grandsons as the present Czar is the grandson of ! Nicholas. The para 1 lei may T>e carried back, indeed, to the fathers of these three meß , William 111. of Holland and Alexander 11. of Russia oame to the throne as young men. Both succeeded to an inheritance diminished and shaken by > foreign conquest. Both began their reigns by great liberal activity, and earnest efforts to improve the condition of their people. Both gradually relaxed their efforts, lost touch with the popular feeling, and became selfishly indifferent to public interests and selfishly devoted to their own pleasures. It was the open alliance with the Princess Dolgorouki, which humiliated and broke the late Czarina. They tell in Holland and Paris even more disreputable conduct on her husband's part, which saddened the last years of the late Queen of Holland. And thdh from this generation of Paul's grandson you may pass to that of his greatgrandsons — embracing the two Orange Princes who died lunatics, and the Grand Duke Constantino, who hasbeen sequestered for giving his mother's diamonds to Fannie Blackstone, and those a gift from thejpresent Czar,