COURT SCANDALS.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 3214, 14 June 1909, Page 5

COURT SCANDALS.

CHARGE OF PERJURY.

PROSECUTION OF PRINCE EULENBURG.

TO BE RESUMED. United Press Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright. BERLIN, June 11. Prince Eulenburg has arrived in Berlin. His prosecution on a charge of perjury is to be resumed. Almost a year to a day from the hour when the Kaiser banished him from his entourage. Prince Philip Eulenburg, late leader of the "inner round-table" of the court, was brought under a police guard io the prisoners' ward of the Charite Hospital in Beriin. On May Bth, 1908, he was taken from his sick bed at his magnificent Castle of Liebenberg, and conveyed under arrest in a motor ambulance to Berlin—a distance of 40 miles—to await his trial for perjury. The Prince had been under police surveilance at Liebenberg practically the whole of a week as a result of evidence given against him at Munich on April 21st, 1908, in the libel proceedings brought by Herr Harden against a Bavarian editor, who alleged that Herr Harden had received £50,000 "hush money" from Prince Eulenburg. Two witnesses—a milk-dealer named Riedel, and a fisherman named Ernst —testified during tha trial that they had for years been partners of the Prince in malpractices when the Prince (then a count) was attached to the Prussian Legation in Munich in thß early eighties. The evidence of Riedel and Ernst was so circumstantial, and produced so profound an impression that, the Crown Prosecutor felt impelled to institute proceedings against Prince Eulenburg for perjury. During the second MoltkeHarden trial in December the Prince declared categorically under oath that he had never in his life committed malpractices of the kind of which Herr Harden accused him. Matters came to a climax at Liebenberg Castle on May Bth, 1908, when Prince Eulenburg was confronted with the two incriminating witnesses m the presence of Judge Schmidt, of the Berlin Court of Inquiry. The confrontation was exciting and dramatic in the extreme. Prince Eulenburg was suffering intense pain from swollen knees, the result of neuritis, and had been propped, up in bed with pillows to face the ordeal. WheD Riedel and Ernst were led into the room the Prince louked them squarely in the face without flinching, and declared in calm and positive tones that he had never had anything to do with either of them. However, after Ernst had reiterated his confession, the Prince exclaimed passionately, "Jacob! Jacob! Has anybody given you money? Have you been bribed to say these things about me V Both witnesses stood firmly to their stores, and Judge Schmidt tDld the Prince that there was no alternative butlto give* them full credence. The Prince was placed on his defence, but proceedings were suspended, on account of bis bad state of health.