MAD KING'S LIFE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 10516, 26 July 1910, Page 1

MAD KING'S LIFE.

Some remarkable details relating to the Mad King Otto of Bavaria are published from a diplomatic source by the "Giornale d'ltalia." Though shut up for forty years in castles, nmv in the Castle Furstemied. and thougii 62 years of age, Otto is still a fine, handsome figure, with a magnificent heard and flowing grey locks. The "stories about his periodical fits ox fury arc quite untrue. His Court is presided over by Marshal Baron Radwiss. and consists of a few trusty gentry belonging to the most ancient families of the Bavarian aristocracy. King Otto occupies the spacious and sumptuously furnished first floor of the castle, and he often passes the entire day out in the .park. The walls of liis apartment are hung with splendid paintings, principally <>i' hike and mountain scenes, , amidst which the Prince passed his ' happy boyhood. His medical specialist notes that these often exert a wholesome influence on his state of health, concerning which official bulletins are despatched every month to the Prince Regent and Government to be boned in the secret archives of the Royal Household. King Otto suffers terribly from insomnia, and often sits up in bed hali the night storing towards the. door, as if'expecting somebody to enter. I-te, however, rises punctually every morning at S, awl mutely allows himset? to' be dressed hy his valet. 'He has a ho!v horror of soap and water, and, of having his hair and nails, put, .so tin t servants have to await patiently a fa.vor.-,hie day for these operations, when the i;oor oajtient is in a state of complete apathy. King Otto smokes incredible" quantities of cigarettes, and always puffing away, save when he is absorbed in "his favorite pastime of studying the operatic music of his pet composer Verdi. Often he causes the castle halls to resound all day long with the melodies .of "R.igoletto." The diplomat relates that the first symptom "of brain decay in the young Prince, till then so bright, forceful, ana . courageous, was manifested during the FrancTi-German War. Just before t.llO siesre of Paris Kaiser William suni•.moiied him to the headquarters of the general staff, and kept him undei o) ««rvation, in company with Bismarcknnd Moltke. the reason being that King Otto had called out a squad of cavalry and ordered them to charge_ straight at a stone' wall, which lie insisted was a body of the enemy's infantry. He began preaching everywhere the stern necessity of concluding peace with France at any price. ■ Soon after lirt-er-cept-ed letters were brought to the JLmperor William, . which the Bavarian Prince had been despatching secre-uh to the enemy. It was then that the old Kaiser sadly sent for the demented Prince, decorated him with the order of the Iron Gross for services, rendered in the campaign, and packed linn ott : under a medical escort for a pleasure . trio in Spain and Italy. .