THE BERLIN SCANDAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14145, 21 August 1909, Page 2 (Supplement)

THE BERLIN SCANDAL.

PRINCE EULENBERG COLLAPSES IN COURT. A . heartrending spectacle was witnessed in the Berlin High Court, when Prince Philip zu Eulenburg collapsed utterly before his judges, his appearance moving even his most relentless prosecutors to pity.

As is well known, tho Prince is accused of perjury and subornation of perjury with regard to the German Court scandal of nearly a year ago. He was tried for this" offence and broke down. For the greater part of the year he has lived at his country seat, Lebenbcrg, where ho has been constantly under the observation both of the police and of medical men employed by tho police to watch the course of his illness, and to report whenever, in their judgment, he was well enough to stand his trial.

According to the report of these medical experts he had sufficiently improved in health. They reported, further, that the Prince protended to be worse than ho really was, and that it was no uncommon thing for him to simulate serious illness when, as a matter of fact, he was in fairly good health. At eight o'clock on a Wednesday morning the Prince, once the favourite of Kings and Emperors, probably the most powerful man in Germany, took his seat in the dock, yellow and haggard, and listened to the charges brought against him charges which would have agonised the bluntest feelings. . After replying to the questions of the president of the court as to his personal career, he complained that he was unable to follow the proceedings, that there was danger, should the trial continue, that he would be subject to serious attacks of palpitation of the heart, and that his life m consequence might be endangered. The president then took Prince Philip zru Eulcnburg over the report of the medical men in the service of the Crown, who had had him under observation, and the Crown prosecutor insisted that the Prince should be placed under arrest, in order that he might not have access to medicines which help the simulation of heart disease. The court, before deciding this, thought that, in order to set matters Tight, the defendant should •be again medically examined in the presence of the judges and jury. This was done, but while the doctors were at their work the wretched defendant became suddenly ill with one' of his heart attacks, his pulse mounting to 148 beats.

It was a. pitiable spectacle which was presented to the public when readmitted to the court. The Prince was ghastly, pale, and was lying full length on a stretcher, with the medical men at work around him, restoring him to consciousness. The most hardened believer in Prince Philip zu Eulenburg's alleged simulations must have seen that the man was at death's door.

. The medical men were again examined as to what should now be done, and on the strength of their evidence the court adjourned the case indefinitely, and the Prince, ashen grey and faintly breathing, was carried out on the stretcher and driven homo.

This will probably be the last of the case, for most people are beginning to feel that this miserable man has suffered enough, and that he is now practically an outcast with a racked and ruined mind and body.