LION OF JUDAH

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIII, Issue 19099, 21 August 1936, Page 9

LION OF JUDAH

BARBARIC SPLENDOUR SELASSIE’S COURT The barbaric "splendour ot‘ the Court of Haile Selassie, when he was still Emperor of Abyssinia, was described by the Rev. J. J. Strnhle, Seventh Day Adventist pastor, who ■ was a through passenger at Wellington by the Mak urn, bound for Sydney. Mussolini would have been a wiser man had he left the country to the Emperor’s enlightened rule; as it is he has stored up endless trouble for Italy. Such was the opinion expressed by Mr. Strnhle.

Travelling in Abyssinia two years 1 ago, in connection with hospitals at j Dessie and Addis Abalui, which the i Emperor had presented to the Seventh < Day Adventists, Mr. Strnhle on sev- 1 oral occasions had audience with the 1 Ethiopian potentate. On entering the J palace, he said, lie and his party were confronted by hundreds of white-robed retainers, whose long beards lent them an aspect of great dignity. When they | came face to face with the Emperor, . they halted at the sight, of several , tawny lions roving uncontrolled. The , Emperor beckoned them forward, and, ; seeing them hesitate, spoke to the lions, which slunk away at his word of com niand. Later, said Mr. Strnhle, he heard that these palace pets killed a couple of men, not long after his party waited on the Emperor. ENLIGHTENED EULER. The “Lion of Judah” impressed Mig

Strnhle us an enlightened ruler. He talked with the churchmen about the I hospital he bad given them at Dessie, and discussed the possibilities of estab- j lushing another at Addis Ababa. The outcome was that a hospital already in 1 process of const ruction was banded over to the Seventh Day Adventists, with an endowment from the Emperor. The justice of the “Solomon-like” ; king, as lie had been called, was often requisitioned to settle eases which ordinary courts could not decide. Mr. Strahle 1 quoted a typical . instance. A man gathering fruit fell out of a tree, killing 1 a young woman on whom lie landed. The '■ women’s relatives, supporters ot the principle of “an eye for an ■ eye and a tooth for a tooth,” demanded that the man should be put to death. The unhappy man, of course, strongly objected, ' and justices were unable to decide the matter. So it was laid before the Emperor. Ilis decision quickly ended the litigation. This was his judgment; the ,

women’s relative*, were certainly entitled to the man’s life, -but, if they wished to claim it. they would have to do so in the appropriate way. That was, by the father of the dead woman falling out of the tree on to the man. Abyssinia had formerly been very backward, said .Mr. Strahle, but under Haile Selassie had progressed, often despite the opposition of various, petty kings. Italy’s worst troubles perhaps still lay before her. The country had been subdued by poison gas, but the Abyssinians were born warriors, especially formidable on their own terrain, and if they could secure arms would carry on guerilla warfare of a type difficult to subdue. »