KING MILAN.

Te Aroha News, Volume VI, Issue 350, 13 March 1889, Page 4

KING MILAN.

Apropos of the news that King Milan o Servia has abdicated in favour of his son' who is now governing with the help of a Regency, it is of interest to have the following estimate of the late monarch's character from the pen ot Mr Labouchere, editor of • 4 Truth " :—" The Servians are, with few exceptions, the mosb thorough scamps that exist in the habitable globe. They have acquired all the vices of civilisation without losing those of savages. A friend of mine once advanced some money on mortgage. He never got it back ; judges, lawyers, and citizens united, to rob the stranger. He changed hislawyerfvequently, butheonly fell from Caiaphas to Pilate ; and, after a varied experience, he acquired the conviction, at the cost of several thousand pounds, that there is not one honest man in tho country. I am not, therefore, surprised that these scamps tolerate that arch scamp Milan as their king. Milan was brought up in Paris. His proper sphere would be making canons on Paris billiard tables, or hanging about the roulette board at Monte Carlo. By all accounts he was an arrant coward when the Servians were engaged in war with the Bulgarians. His wife may have been foolish ; but, married to such a man, it was difficult to be wise. He was perpetually engaged in some intrigue, which he blazoned forth with all the pride of a petit crave. He has capped his former exploits by the mode in which he has secured his divorce. The Metropolitan, who has no more power to grant him a divorce than I have, has taken the matter out of the Synod, and has obsequiously, and without even hearing the wife, pronounced a decree, and two Bishops who protested have been threatened with pains and penalties. Henry VIII. was somewhat arbitrary in his matrimonial vi6ws, but he never ventured upon so outrageous a dsfianoe of law and decency," -