IMPERIAL ACCOUNTS.

Wanganui Herald, Volume XVII, Issue 5235, 13 December 1883, Page 2

IMPERIAL ACCOUNTS.

A former Empress of Russia, like Queen Adelaide of England, was given to inspecting the "domestic accounts," and she was puzzled by finding among them a "bottle of rum" daily charged to the Naslednik, or heir apparent. Her Imperial Majesty turned over the old "expenses " of the household to discover at what period, her son had commenced this reprobate course of daily rumdrinking, and found, if not to her horror, at least to the inorease of her perplexity, that it dated from the very day of his birth. The " bottle of rum " began with the baby, accompanied the boy, and continued to be charged to the man. He ' was charged withdrinking upwards of thirty dozen of fine old Jamaica yearly! The Imperial mother was anxious to discover if any other of the'Czarovitch babies had exhibited the same alcoholic precocity ; and it appeared that they were all alike ; daily, for upwards of a century back, they stood credited in the household books for that terrible " bottle of rum." The Empress continued her researches with the zeal of an antiquary, and her labors were not unrewarded. She at last reached the original entry. Like all succeeding ones, it was to the effect of " a bottle of rum for the Naslednik ;" but a sort of editorial note on the margin of the same page intimated the wherefore : " On account of a violent toothache a tea-spoonful with sugar to be given, by order of the physician of the Imperial court. " The .tea-spoonful for one day had been charged as a bottle, and the entry once made, it was kept on the books to the profit of the tin- - righteous steward until discovery checked the fraud — a fraud more gigantically amusing than that of the illiterate coachman who set down in his harness-room book, "Twopenn loth of whipcord, 6d." The Empress showed the venerable delinquency to her husband, Paul ; and he, calculating what the temporary toothache of the Imperial baby Alexander had cost him, was affrighted at the - outlay, and declared he would revolutionise the kitchen department and put himself out to board. The threat was "not idly 'made,' and it was soon seriously realised. A gastronomic contractor was found who fanned the whole palace, and did his spiriting admirably. -