COURT SECRETS

Greymouth Evening Star, 16 January 1928, Page 12

COURT SECRETS

BLOOD AND JEWELS. The Government of India has made an offer to the Maharaja, of Bharatjur to appoint a commission to inquire into financial and administrative conditions in Bharatpur State. Bharatpur, a Rajputana State with a population of about half a million and a revenue of £200,000, has of late years been the scene of one or two romantic incidents. The Maharaja was a lad in his teens, being educated in England, when the war began. He was then too young to be allowed to “join up,” but he wanted to do so. Early' this year the Bombay and Calcutta police were informed that some scores of thousands of pounds’ worth of jewels had been stolen from the Maharaja’s palace, or from some member of the Court entourage who had been entrusted with the treasure. It was explained that, to raise a loan for the good of his State, the ruler had agreed to part with the jewels —at least temporarily. There were emeralds, diamonds, rubies, ropes of pearls, and other precious stones.

Cheques given for the gems had been dishonoured. When a telegram was sent to stop the jewel caskets, which were on the way to the purchaser, it was found that the caskets had been emptied! Mysteriously the jewels came back —they had been found by a clerk, who said that a mysterious Anglo- Indian, who had been courting his sister, had left a bag of “important papers” at the sister’s house for safety. Somebody, out of curiosity, opened the bag—and, there were the lost Bharatpur jewels! Another recent Bharatpur mystery concerns the death, or murder, of a nephew of a high Court official.

A man who was convicted of the murder declared that the dead man’s •uncle was implicated. But the uncle was a favourite at Court and had been (it was said) jealous of his nephew’s attentions to a certain dancingmaid. It was then suggested that a British court should inquire into the justice of the Bharatpur verdict in the ease.

Only recently a new Prime Minister was appointed in Bharatpur. He seems to have found the finances of the State in. a disorganised condition. After the new Premier’s report the Maharaja went to Simla to see the Viceroy. The present Maharaja succeeded to the throne when a baby—in 1909 —his father being then deposed for killing an attendant who had offended him. Six years ago the Prince of Wales visited the Maharaja at his palace in Bharatpur and was entertained with a hospitality hardly surpassed by that with which “Ranji” has just received the Viceroy in Nawanagar. Just at the time of the Prince of Wales’s visit the Mahraja’s queen bore him a son. The child was christened “Edward Singh” (“Edward the Lion”). Later the Prince sent, the baby a brooch —with the Wales monogram and chest —to be worn in the headdress,