EMPRESS EUGENIE'S JEWELS.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 7685, 8 February 1904, Page 7

EMPRESS EUGENIE'S JEWELS.

The; ex-Empress Eugenic, when the waves began to dash about her throne, determined to sell the greater part of her jewels in hope to do something to save the dynasty. Publicity had to be avoided, and a market was not to be found in Europe, newly thrilled by the horrors of Sedan. The Empress looked to the East for a market. An Englishman waa on his way home for a holiday. A telegram at Bombay awaited him from one of the greatest European financial houses and informed him of the determination of the Empress. The difficulty had been to find a man with sufficient influence to bo able to approach the princes of India in secret with a view to selling them the jewels. Not less hard was it to lay hands on the man who had moral strength sufficient to carry with him surreptitiously hundreds of thousands of pounds' worth of jewels in lands where tbe Queen's writ did not run, and where the protection of the constable is not immediately available. Every care had been taken to ensure secrecy. The jewels had been taken to pieces; the gems removed from their settings; the latter " jointed" to admit of their folding and being worn around the waist of their bearer in a bolt of soft leather. The Englishman put on the belt, armed himself with a trusty revolver, engaged as trusty a servant, and set forth on his mission. For three months he wandered over road, rail and river. The responsibility of his trust, the constant danger of discovery, the difficulty of disposing of his burden, were worries that combined almost to kill him. At last he was successful. The jewels were sold to a Prince who esteemed them the more for that they were the property of a distressed Empress. There would have been trouble, no doubt, had the matter been known at the India Office, but the man who discharged the undertaking afforded an example of courage and solid worth in trying conditions which merit a place in the story of commercial integrity and disregard of personal danger. For less exciting enterprises have served to make popular novels before now and gain the V.C.