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Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 124, 12 October 1912, Page 4

BULGARIANS AND MONTENEGRINS. The "Grand Old Man" of nineteenthcentury politics, and the dominant figure in the late seventies (at the time when newspaper correspondents drew upon Ab'.dul Hamid, Sultan of Turkey, now deposed and confined, the execrations of mankind for his nameless atrocities' in Bulgaria), paid a splendid tribute to the character of the Montenegrins, likening them to the heroes of Marathon and Thermopylae. In after years' he had something to say about the' Bulgarians ,—at least, so says the late Christie Murray, novelist, lecturer, correspondent, journalist and wanderer. Mr. Murray had occasion to call on Mr. Gladstone at ■Hiiwarden. In honor of the occasion he donned What he admits was an extraordinary specimen of an overcoat. ' He •was received kindly, and at his departure the G.O.M. accompanied him to the door, and so saw him in his coat. It attracted the statesman's eye. "Dear me,' Mr. Murray, may I ask where you obtained that remarkable coat?" '"From Bulgaria, sir," was the answer. "The gift of a chief." "Well, well," mused the great man, "I have read and written and spoken a groat deal about Bulgarian atrocities, but this is the first time I haveever seen one." The Montenegrins have another tradition which recalls that of the days of the Saxon Alfred, when it is ,said a man might leave his purse on the .King's highway with the certainty of finding it on returning to look for it after discovering his loss. So, too, with Montenegro. One remarkable law of the Black Mountain Kingdom, asit is called, directs that any man finding a purse or jewellery upon the road shall place the •same upon the nearest stone, so that the loser will' have- only to retrace his steps to recover hig property. That law is never violated. A Montenegrin thinks (nothing of shooting a man with whom he disagrees, but. would shrink in horror from the idea of stealing the veriest trifle. Montenegrin law is more severe upon the thief than upon the homicide. A faimous war correspondent of the seventies bf last century, one of the men who proclaimed the wrongs of the Balkan Christians to the world (Mr. W. S. Stillman), has left on record many striking examples' of this national trait. He says: "It was notorious that he was carrying several hundred pounds in gold, Russian subsidies for the families of the killed and wounded; but in'the wildest and loneliest parts, with only one man for escort, he was never molested.. During two campaigns his despatch bag with his store of small money hung on the pole of his unguarded tent, but not a coin disappeared. The entire free male population being away at the front, the sum of 3000 florins, to be paid to the banker at Cattaro, in Austrian territory, was entrusted to a prisoner in the Cettinje gaol; and the man duly delivered it and reported at the prison before night." The King of the Montenegrins is worthy of his people. He is one of themselves. It is quite natural for liiiu to go to the front and lead his warriors against the despised Turk. He is said to be a splendid shot and a fearless rider, as becomes the King of a race of mountaineers, and he is also a poet, having found time to write two tragedies—"The Empress of the Balkans"- and "Prince Arbanit"—in addition to a volume of Serb poetry.