WITHOUT PREJUDICE

Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 301, 20 September 1928, Page 10

WITHOUT PREJUDICE

NOTES AT RANDOM

(By

T.D.H.)

One of these days the League of Nations may provoke a war by holding a disarmament conference without permission from Washington.

M. Rostand, in his new play, has thrown out a kindly suggestion, as recorded in the news the other day, that the Prince Imperial, killed in the Zulu campaign of 1879, was in reality assassinated by England, and that Queen Victoria was privy to the conspiracy to have him put away. A reader has directed T.D.H.'s attention to Archibald Forbes’s account of what occurred, that famous war-correspon-dent being on the spot in Zululand when news reached headquarters^o£ the tragedy and interviewing the eyewitnesses. This scion of the Bonapartes, acclaimed on his father’s death as "Napoleon the Fourth,” was twentythree years old at the time of his death/ There seems very little doubt that his participation in the Zulu campaign was the result of an intrigue, and that Queen Victoria was privy to it, but so far from the object of the intrigue being to bring about the Prince’s death, it was to allow him to get rid of his reputation iu France as a mere idler.

The Prince as a boy of fourteen was with his father in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, and after the fall of the Empire was living in England with his mother, the ex-Empress Eugenie. He attended Woolwich Academy ami graduated creditably and qualified for the engineers and artillery. He offered to serve with the French forces in Tonking, but the French Government refused to permit this. When British troops were being hurried out to South Africa after Rorke’s Drift, the Prince, burning to earn his spurs as a soldier and bull'd up _ a reputation that would enhance his prestige in France and favour his ambition to return ultimately as Emperor, offered ills services. The Government knew that to assist the Prince Imperial in his desires would be to build up illwill in Republican France, and refused this volunteer. But the objections were over ruled from the highest quarter, and when the Prince set it was from Windsor Castle.

The Prince Imperial was given no commission and was merely unofficially attached to the headquarters staff. Finding him far too venturesome, I,ord Chelmsford, who had command in Ute campaign, finally put him on to office work. However, one day Lieutenant Carey was going to complete a sketch of the new proposed camp site, and the Prince begged to be allowed to accompany him. As (lie country had been well scouted over it. was thought this would be all right, and an escort of six troopers and six Basuto scouts was ordered. Through a misunderstanding the Basuto scouts never joined up. The sketch having been made from a hilltop, the Prince insisted on descending to an apparently deserted native kraal at its foot as a good place for lunch. The horses were off-saddled, no sentries were posted, and everybody was taking things easy. The handful of huts was surrounded by a tall growth of Indian corn, and on one of the troopers reporting seeing a Zulu it was decided to saddle up.

The Prince demanded another ten minutes’ rest, and finally, when the party went to their horses, a volley of twenty or thirty bullets was fired into the party. Everybody bolted, Lieutenant Carey in the lead, and the Prince last. His charger was sixteen hands high and always difficult to mount. The Prince was running beside it and tried to jump into the saddle. A trooper, looking behind, saw him seize a strap, the strap broke, the Prince fell backwards, and his horse trod on him and galloped away. Nobody saw the Prince’s end but the Zulus, but his body was found next day with many assegai wounds. The strap that broke was found to be paper-faced and not leather at all, so that shoddy saddlery was the immediate cause of the tragedy. It was an unglorious episode in the campaign and Lieutenant Carey was courtmartialled for his part in it. It was stated that he never once looked back to see where the Prince was. But M. Rostand must have a fanciful imagination to call the affair an assassination.

“J.A.W.” writes: “The chess-playing automaton mentioned by you yesterday, the invention of Baron Kempelen, and exhibited all over Europe a century ago, once fooled Napoleon. The Emperor played against the machine at Schonbrunn. After losing the first game Napoleon sought to test the contrivance by deliberately making a couple of false moves. The pieces were replaced each time. The Emperor essayed a third test, but at this juncture it would appear that the automaton was getting annoyed, as the figure, garbed in Turkish dress, swept all the pieces off the board. It was discovered some years later that the apparatus was cleverly manipulated by an individual concealed iu the box on which the Turk was seated.”

There is an old story on the Liverpool Exchange that the following arrival was once chronicled at the port of Liverpool:— . “The Devil, Captain McHell, arrned from Hell with a cargo of brimstone. Some considered this only an eftort of wit, but others asserted it was genuine. Mr. Basil Lubbock records tn “The Last of the Windjammers that there is an East Prussian port called Hell, or Helle, and there certainly was a well-known schooner called the Devil with a full-length gilt efligy of his satanic majesty as a figure-head. The Devil was launched at Preston in ISbb. Her owners were two brothers Uli m c “ Miller, and it is said that they fuiled. to agree on a name for their new craft. At last fine exclaimed impatiently, ‘ Call her the Devil if you like.” At which the other roared back, “The Devil let her be!” The Devil proved an unlucky vessel, and iu view of her many mishaps the underwriters begged the elder Miller to alter her name, but he not only refused, but duly named a new schooner the Sheitan, with a still more elegant effigy of the devil as a figurehead. This vessel was most successful, and had no ill-luck. Old Gentleman : “So you’re lost, little man? Why didn’t you hang on to your mother’s skirt?” , Youngster: “Couldn’t reach it. “Mummy, isn’t that monkey like grandpa?” , “Hush, darling ! You muStn t say tilings like that.” , “But the monkey can’t understand, can he, mummy?” GREAT IS TEETH. Think trulv, and thy thoughts Shall the" world’s famine feed. Speak truly, and each word of thine Shall be’ a fruitful seed. Live truly, and thy life shall be a creat and noble creed. —U. Bonar.