THE BULGARIAN TROUBLE.

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume XIV, Issue 4770, 22 January 1887, Page 2

THE BULGARIAN TROUBLE.

The advertisement " Wanted a Ruler ; apply (enclosing- testimonials) at Sofia or St. Petersburg," is still standing in the European papers, and there seems an unconscionable difficulty in filling the vacancy. Of course none but bona fide princes who have served an apprenticeship to the business need apply ; but the international directory is full of these, and it is strange there are not more candidates for the appointment. A smart young man with an empty purso and an intelligent readiness to do as ho is told by the Czar — this is what is wanted, and it should not be so monstrously hard to find. The billet i would have been the very thing for Nicholas of Mingrelia, Prince, if the Bulgarians could only have been induced to take him. He is a young man in a chronic state of impecuniosity and highly noble. However, it was not to be. Ferdinand of Denmark, Prince, another likely candidate, was objectionable to Russia ; and at the present moment it looks as if George of Leuchtenberg, of whom nobody knows anything except that he is of course a duly registered prince, will secure the billet. If he feathers his nest as neatly as Alexander of Battenburg, who went to Bulgaria with nothing but the Czar's cheque for three pounds ten in his pocket, and now owns a considerable slice of the United States, he will have cause to congratulate himself. Of the brothers Bat- I tenburg, who have both been " taken up" by a mighty Empress, Alexander i 3 perhaps the more to be envied. Prince Henry, notwithstanding his domestic good fortune, has a mother-in-law ever present, whose conciliation is absolutely imperative. At certain Balmoral festivities the young Prussian, to whom top boots and spurs aro almost a necessary of life, was actually compelled to shiver in bare blue legs and a kilt. There must have been a procession of long German oaths in the Battenburg chamber that night. No ; the Bulgarian throne is undoubtedly the snuggest appointment that has ever been thrown open for competition among the European princelings for years past, and the man that gets it need not envy even the husband of Princess Beatrice and the resident son-in-law of our Most Gracious Queen. — Civis.