A MAD BALKAN CITY

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 178, 14 December 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

A MAD BALKAN CITY

BUCHAREST REFUSES! TO BE REFORMED. Mad Bucharest is wroth with mild Crown Prince Ferdinand Victor Albert Meinrad. Bucharest is happily, gloriously bacchnntieally insane'; and unreasonable Ferdinand wants to make it sane. Ferdinand is heir to the throne, nephew of.childless King Carlos and of carolling Carmen Sylva. He has a handsome wife and a still handsomer daughter. He is rich, 47. and slightly ' asthmatic. He should therefore know better than to go about correcting thiis incorrigible world. But Ferdinand is an optimist, and wants to reform Bucharest. That city is optimistic also, and' declines to consider the grim contingency of reform. "1 was mad," it chortles, "long before 'Sti, when hroft Doctor' Ferdinand arrived from his native llohenzolleni; and i. shall be mad, please Heaven, long after he returns." WHEREIN' MADNESS LIES. Bucharest's madness lies in an inordinate craze to be the smartest, wildest, liizarrcrit, lljfrtiest, j;ambl,y-est of all Europe's reprobate? cities. Compared with it most towns are nests of Puritan boredom. All who want vice without charm, luxury without comfort, gambling without honesty, and splendor without soap rush Bucharest-wards. They have a good time in Rumanian style. But it is not good enough for reforming Ferdinand, who says that since the other Balkan States are going mad—politically—it is time for Rumania to get sane. Rumania leere insanely. It has had two record harvests, and a boom of factoryibuilding, hotel-starting, speculation, swindling, enrichment, and ruin; and it is in no mood for the sour-faced counsels of Savaurola Ferdinand. Bucharest's madness effloresces variously. First, in a hell-lire craze for gambling which has seized all Rumanians from princes to gipsies. Rightly, there are gipsies, but no princes. Wise Rumania's law-givers forbade titles, but there, as in other democratic lands, (people invent their own titlcri; and there is no landowner, however hard up, who does not disvover —at least when abroad- that he's a prince. The Rumanians have lately had their land rents doubled by the kindly Providence which ripens crops, and their idea of having a good time with it is to see it pass '0 swidlers.

THE GAMBLING (..'.RAZE. ■ All Rumanians gamble. Small boys gamble ,01 ' lls(,( l matehes. mid antique beggars gamble for their last grey hairs. Mad Bucharest has IWt.DUO citizen,-, and —so the the Rumanul says—it has (iSO gambling dens. About one for every 500 citizens! Ga iibling goes on without ceasing, punctuated Iby murders tend suicides, which no man takes notice of. Sometimes, however, things happen that. even drag the police out of their own "ambling; dens. Lately the suicide of Lieutenant Luders (of German origin) led to a great kioK-up. It was then that respectable Ferdinand got his first shock, lie )eani"il that not only Bucharest and Kustendji (which is Rumania's chief port) were thick with gambling hells, but that the royal borough. Sinaia. is thicker still, isinaia is a small town at the foot of the high Carpathian mountains. It boasts the line royal chateau palace Pelischer. and there are parks, palace Pelischer ;an dthcrc are parks, walks, and hotels, and of late the landowners have taken to building villas there. It was short-sighted Ferdinand who set them building villa-, and now he is sorry, for the villa-owners turned Sinaia into the biggest gambling centre of its size on earth. Ferdinand was so keen on developing Sinaia and on creating a Piiiinauian. Versailles ihat lie built villari .himself. Tie dragged out of Bucharest the half-Oriental magnates. They were to live in "European style": that means to wash, keep nice gardens and wear silk hats. The magnates came to Sinaia and transformed it into a blossoming Monte Carlo. In the little town of 4(1(10 residents there are numberless secret and private hells, where baccarat, ec.irlc. rouge-ei-noir. ronlctle. and some bn .'cancer Rumanian swindling games are played from morning to night. Prince Ferdinand has heard sad lales of his Sinaia Versailles. A penniless oll'icer who came suddentv into £47.000 gambled three-fourths of it awav on an Augu.-I night. Next day tie bad to join his regmient at Brnila. ITe insisted on taking with him the gambler who had won his money, so that the game might be played out. Before the train readied liraila he lost everything. lie died a (lav Inter. Onlv when his heir was present with t.O.r.'s for .C4(i,0()0 did society guess that he had died bv'his own hand. Naturally there are protests. The Arch-. hishop-Prima of Rumania said: "Everyone gambles excessively. Many never work; they live on gambling profits while they win. and when they lose they beg or swindle." A report issued by the Ministry o,f Domains shows that, of a group of 7uo estates iu little Wall«e.hia\7o a year, a.nd«sj*sQ lnui^^^HHHHH|HHHfebyMtfk^^fl[

j'cus. Us more, usual fate is to lie staked at a gambling orgy, during which vast quantities of raw Russian spivils (the latest Bumaniaii tipple) are drunk. Yet .Rumania is not a drunken city. It is too busy with other vices.

AND 'THK LA 1)1 KM. In- its small way mad Bucharest, rivals Europe's great cities. The fashionable, Caiea Viel'viei, which runs north from the centre, allows fine automobiles, wellgroomed gast trotters which excel Moscow's, and well-groomed fat gentlemen who rival Berlin's The "biriari" put to shame the cabs of Paris. They are well patronised. Mad Bucharest holds it. bad form to walk. "To thirst—to walk

—to die," says the proverb. The carriages groan under stout, beautiful gorgeously-dressed, ili-combed ladieshalf Parisian, half Odalisques. (avalieii would faint at their beauty, principles, and practices. The first is to get the flesh soft and plump by eating starchy foods and by rubbing in burning paprika. This work is done by the cook. Dirt and magnificence ensanee one another. Just now there is a reaction from fat, for the Direetoire dress and thin Crown Princess Marie have set the mode. But fatness indicates prosperity in Bucharest; and the solid, sensible classes rightly cherish their reputation lor prosperity more than they cherish their reputation for chic. All this is distasteful to ultraEuropean Crown Prince Ferdinand; he thinks that gambling men spoil the army, s and that ladies tattoed with paprika make bad mothers for soldier lads. What oll'ends him more is' that ISucharest never goes to bed. After its bad theatres—and its worse Italian opera at the National Theatre—Hose their doors, Bucharest asks itself how it will spend the evening. If it goes to Kostrotseheni or some other lively suburb, it returns next day. Every park outside the city is full all night of llirting pairs, attended by gipsy musicians with weird talents and weirder greed. Bucharest's lovers show their merit by throwing extravagant sums to these gipsies. The gipsy picks up the coin, stretches his hand for more, and usually gets it. Lately a Minister of the Interior told Roumania's Chamber that merchants complained that they were robbed wholesale by their clerks "on the romantic basis." To be loose on morals is practically the programme of all Liberal •.sections of Roumanian society; and that is another reason why Ferdinand, who is a highly respectable prince, wants to call a halt to mad Bucharest's unsteady race.

THE ARMY. Ferdinand Victor is a serious soldier, lie wtis bred in a starch-stiff Prussian regiment; he is now Chief Inspector of Cavalry; he has read lectures on ''the royal, factor in war"; and he lias sadly concluded that the moral factor in war is not on the side of corrupt, dissipated, please-yourself Roumania. Roumania's army is the strongest in the Balkans. Its technical and medical equipment are beyond doubt best; and it has first-rate artillerymen with good guns. During the Russian attack on Plevna Roumanians proved their worth; and ever since then King Carol and Ferdinand Victor have looked on Roumania as a semigreat Power, destined to lead the Balkans. But Ferdinand Victor grieves to admit that the richer and fatter Roumania becomes the worse are its morals and manners. Reform is to come through the Court, says Ferdinand. After last winter's revelation about gambling in the smart club "Bucuresei," no member of the club was invited ,to Court. Ferdinand now proposes to boycott flower cursos. balls and festivals at which "an excessive luxury appears." He wants "a Spartan spirit in the army." Someone distorted this into "a Prussian spirit." An explanation had to be issued that IT.R.H. did not say "Prussian." But the story held good, and increased the anger of Bucharest's young bloods at the Germanisation of the court. King, Queen, heir and wife of heir are all Germans. "Are we to be degraded into a race of slow-growing, googled. sausage eaters?" asks mad Bucharest. Probably not. More likely Bucharest will grow madder than ever. At least, until money gives out, or until war comes. Then the tough, rough, penurious Bulgarian boor will eat up the brilliant Latin Ruman. For, of all the Balkan peoples, the Bulgar is the only one sane—painfully and unconscionably sane.