A PRINCE'S "PRANKS."

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3193, 19 May 1909, Page 7

A PRINCE'S "PRANKS."

If one half of the scuiiaaiuiiS siOi - lc§ told of the Crown Prince of Servifl are true, there can be small wonder .at his compulsory renunciation ot his right to suec-ecd his father to the tlood-staincd throne of Scrvia; indeed, if a tithe of the taks have foundation in fact, Prir.ce George ought to have been placed years ago in a criminal lunatic asylum. Only in his twenty-second year, and with his status as Crown Prince going back no further than the middle of 1903 —prior to which he was a person of no importance—Prince Georere of Rervia has for the past six years befin constantly before the public eye, usually in the character of a young man of vicious and violent temperament, whose chief claims to notoriety were h:s absolute disregard of social and political etiquette and a total lack of those qualities which mark a man out as being fit to hold any high office of state. In fine. Prince George has been exhibited to the public as an "unlicked cub" of the worst possible kind, prone to anger, swift to violence, a cowardly bully towards those upon whom he dared yet let loose the vials of his wrath, utterly wanting in filial affection and in respect to the responsibe Ministers of State. The worst scandal related of Prince George concerned his private life. It has been reported that in fits of crazy anger he had insulted, and even offered physical violence, to officials, soldiers and servants of the Palace, that he had thraah:d his tutors, and had openly insulted his father in the pressnee of others. The Belgrade journals have more than once insinuated doubt 3as to his sanity, and a correspondent of a Vienna journal actually reoorted that the Prince had become insane, and was likely to be interred in an asylum abroad.

It was reported not long ago that a mouse had been caught in Prince George's room. With the living animal in his hand, he went to the two sentinels at the entrance to the Royal Palace, and, lifting it near the mouth of one of them, commanded him to bite off the head of the mouse. The soldier refused, whereupon the Prince--so the story goesthreatened him with violence, and did actually draw his sword on the man. In the Skupshtina recently a deputy asked a question about a Prince who was reported to have murderously attacked two footmen j with a hammer, and there was no doubt in anybody's mind that Prince George was the person the deputy referred to. The "last straw" which nroke the back of the Servian Ministry's indurance of the Prince's "pranks" is yaid to have been a murderous attack on a groom of the chambers. M. Kohkovitch had been for some time in the service of the Prince. On the night of March 17th, it is alleged thatj when the Prince returned to the Palace a fearful scene occurred. The Prince knocked M. Kolakovitch down and kicked him with his spurred riding boots about the head and body., He

then ordered two sjldiers to carry :he insensible man to the guardhouse, whence he was transferred to the hospital, where he died three days later, leaving a wife arid six children. Almost all the Belgrade oapers addressed questions to the Government and the police as to why no inquiry was made into the affair, and two days later the journals openly accused the Prince of murder. The Prince is not without friends. In some quarters it is alleged that he is the victim of foul intrigue on the part of certain Servian politicians who have the ear of the local press. In February a representative of the. "Pall Mall Gazette" had an interview with the Prince, who declared that what the Tress said of him was lies, and that the reason for this was his bluntness, hi 3 frank outspokenness. The interiewer describes him as "a youth frank and honest, full of vivjeity and superfluous energy, chafing under restraint, perhaps, and mourning the absence of activity and the presence of forethought in his nation. Tall, athletically knit, healthy looking, with deep-set, serious eyes, which may be kindled instantly into merriment, and with all the evidence of courage writ upon his face."