Page 1 Advertisements Column 2

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLI, Issue 12698, 29 October 1904, Page 1 (Supplement)

A prominent and distinguished member of the large Russian colony in Paris has been giving a French interviewer amazing 1 accounts of the magnificent possessions and j properties of the Tsui. In all, he is the | mastei of one hundred palaces and chateaux, scattered about all over his vast empire; and each one of them is marvellously furnished and marvellously filled with servants. Something like 55,000 butlers, grooms, footmen, valets,. chefs, coachmen, gardeners, etc., are housed in the hundred residences, and their total salaries amount to the enormous sum of 20,000,000 francs, or £800,000. In the many stables are some 5000 horses, while the heads of cattle may placed at 50,000; but even the distinguished and well-informed member of the Paris ; Russian colony hesitates at stating the num- ; ber of the inhabitants of the Tsar's kennels, ■ the dogs being entirely innumerable. Na- : turally, the Tsar is not familiar with all ' his palaces and chateaux. Out of the bun- > dred, indeed, there are no less than sixty- ; two upon which ho has never set eyes, and ; which, in all probability, he never will see. i But the servants are there, and everything j is ever in readiness in case the Tsar shou'u i take it ino his head to look just- once I, k>u i bis truly magnificent abodes. { I