THE ATTACK ON THE CZAREWITCH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXVIII, Issue 8662, 3 September 1891, Page 6

THE ATTACK ON THE CZAREWITCH.

A letter from Prince George of Greece to his father, the King of the Hellenes, appeared in the semi-official Danish paper, the Berlingske Tidende, for Wednesday evening, July 15. In it tho Prince gives an account of the attack on the Czarewitch at Otsu, near Kioto, on May 11 last. After lunching with the Governor the party left in their jinrikshahs on their return journey to Kioto. " We passed," writes Prince George, " through a narrow street, decorated with flags and filled with crowds of people on both sides of the thoroughfare. I was looking towards the left, when I suddenly heard something like a shriek in front of me, and saw a policeman hitting Nicky (the Czarewitch) a blow on the head with his sword, which he held with both hands. Nicky jumped out of the cart, and the men "ran after him, Nicky with the blood streaming down his face. When I saw this, I too jumped out, with ray stick in my hand, and ran after the man, who was about fifteen paces in front of me. Nicky ran into a shop, but came out again immediately, which enabled the man to overtake him ; but I thank God that I was there in the same moment, and while the policeman still had his sword high in the air I gave him a blow straight ou the head, a blow so hard that he had probably never experienced a similar one before. He now turned against me, but fainted and fell to the ground ; then two of our jinrikshah pullers appeared on the scene ; one got hold of his legs, while the other took up the sword, which he had dropped in falling, and gave him a wound on the back of his head. It is God who placed me there at that moment, and who gave me the strength to deal that blow ; for had J been a little later the policeman had probably cut off Micky's head, and had my blow missed the assailant's head lie would have cut off mine. The whole thing came so quickly that the others who were behind us had seen nothing of the whole affair. Nicky sat down. Dr. Piurnbach bandaged up" the wound as well as he could ; and we drove him then, escorted by soldiers, who had in the meantime been called, to the Governor's house. I must say that I admired Nicky's pluck ; he did not faint a single tune, nor did he lose bis good spirits for a moment, and yet he had two large wounds in the head above the ear. The one wound was five centimetres long, the other six, and both had penetrated to the skull but, luckily, no further. An hour and a-haif afterwards we drove him to the railway station, which is about twenty minutes' distance from the house, and then returned to Kioto. The regular bandaging of the head was done in our house at Kioto, and lasted about an hour arid a-half. Nicky stood it splendidly. This over, he was quite well, and hud neither pain nor headache. When we had finished our dinner, he turned in and slept for nine hours without awakening till the morning. He had no fever, and not even a headache." ______