LIVING IN MISERY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 186, 12 January 1912, Page 4

LIVING IN MISERY.

If the Turkish Government carries out its proposal to publish Abdul Hamid's voluminous journals, it probably will furnish the world with some sensational reading, but whatever revelations may be made they are scarcely likely to render the life of the deposed Sultan more miserable than it is now. Abdul Hamid is, of bourse, a prisoner at Salonika, and he is an intensely unhappy one. Naturally suspicious and distrustful, he has become even more fearful for his own life than he was when he was seated insecurely on the throne. It has been reported recently that he will not show himself at any of the windows of the Villa Allantini, in which he is imprisoned, because he fancies that his enemies are always lying in wait for him and would shoot him the moment he-ap-peared. He has turned a deaf ear to those who have urged that he is endangering his health by remaining continually indoors, and the most stringent medical orders have failed to induce him to leave the and. take, exercise in the garden. Qi^at.e^-he' has spent all his time in rooms on the 'first floor of the villa. He stubbornly refuses to descend to the ground floor because he has got it into his mind that there are bombs in the cellars, and he.will not go up to the second floor lest the villa should be set on fire and he should be. unable to escape. He never undresses, but he suffers from insomnia. His thin, bowed figure is seen wandering during the night from .room to room until he drops exhausted on a couch to snatch a little fitful slumber. During the daytime he works at carpentry. He has completed a large wardrobe, and he is very anxious to sell it in order to convince himself that his manual labor can produce something that has a marketable value. The Turkish Government, however, has forbidden the removal of the wardrobe from the villa on the ground that some undesirable communication to the deposed Sultan's friends may be concealed in it. It seems rather ridiculous for the authorities to be afraid now of their broken-spirited prisoner.