How the Royalty of the World is Guarded by the Police.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXVII, Issue VII, 17 August 1901, Page 314

How the Royalty of the World is Guarded by the Police.

European royalty may pick ami choose society to a certain extent, but the private police, like the poor, rulers have alwavs with them.

Some sovereigns object strenuously to the surveillance. A few manage to escape it. Leopold 11. of Belgium occasionally accomplishes that feat by making his movements so sudden and unexpected that his vigilant protectors do not know he going until he has gone.

He frequently scurries off to his shooting-box in the Ardennes quite alone, and often drives through his capital in a closed carriage unattend-

ed; but his police are conscientious when they have the chance. At all publie appearances he is guarded by a large squad of plain-clothes men; at night an armed and trusty valet locks the monarch in his room and sleeps in the ante-room, whose door is also locked and guarded. The royal family of Denmark sets aside private police, as it disregards many other irksome royal traditions, and. save on unusual occasions, goes about unattended and simply. But the members of the family who have become sovereigns of otherd countries do not live so humbly. The Dowager Czarina, wtho was a Princess of Denmark, stepped into an atmosphere of private police. The Czar of Russia is guarded more strictly

than any other monarch of Europe save Abdul Hamid, the Sultan.

Nicholas 11. chafes against the attendance but recognises the necessity, and wherever he moves he is surrounded by -secret guards as well as openlyauthorised attendants. If he walks in the forest at Peterhof he cannot flatter himself that he is alone, for posted behind trees, leaning over bridges, studying fountains, are inconspicuous men, absorbingly interested in the landscape. When he travels or rides or drives the same precautions are observed. In his palace his every movement is watched; his steps followed. The story is told that on his last visit to Queen Victoria at Balmoral the Czar mistook the path in the forest and was obliged to ask his way

from a peasant wihom he met. The man answered him in Russian. He was one the Czar's own private detectives.

William of Germany until recently was the only living ruler in Europe upon whose life no attempt had oeen made. 111-natured critics say that he didn't enjoy the distinction—that, in fact, he deeply resented it, and that the recent assault was balm to his soul. Dramatic danger a sensational monarch may endure, but to be ignored !

In spite of his apparent immunity, the German Emperor has always been surrounded by elaborate precautions. His private police service is large and efficient, and his famous six-foot bodyguard. looking tremendously speetacu-

lar in their eighteenth century hats and coats, are always in evidence in the royal antechamber. When the Emperor travels he causes almost as much of a stir as the Czar. Every mile of the railroad, every bridge, tunnel, and rail is examined. Special guards are stationed along the route and the train is well guarded. It is only fair to say that the Emperor himself seems altogether fearless, and makes so many sudden moves without reference to safeguards, that his secret police are chronically out of breath.

The English King has a bodyguard corresponding to the German bodyguard; but the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and the A eomen of the Guard do not work for their salaries as their German prototypes do. They are for ornamental purposes only, and never are in duty 7 except at State functions. The real work of looking after English royalty is in the hands of Superintendent Fraser and his private police. The late Queen was always guarded in public, but less apprehension was felt about her than about the Prince of Wales, whose democratic fashion of appearing here, there, and everywhere, made him an easy mark for attack and kept his police attendants busy 7 . Superintendent Winkler, who had special charge of the Prince s person, was not allowed' to accompany him to Homburg last year, and insists if that exception had not been made Sipido’s attack would never have come off.

The Duke of York has his own private police, much to his disgust, and his children are constantly guarded, even in their play, by detectives. Humbert of Italy was one of the monarchs who most cordially detested the necessity of police attendance and avoided it whenever that was possible. He insisted upon driving about even the most squalid parts of Rome and Naples in an open carriage with only one attendant and would not listen to the constant protests against his reckless exposure of his life. His police service was carefully organised and guarded him in spite of his objections. Whenever one met the handsome

King driving in his dashing fashion one was sure to meet at a discreet distance behind the royal carriage an inconspicuous cab in hot pursuit, and in the cab was the keen, dark face of the head of the secret police. In the palace the King had a special guard, a gigantic Piedmontese, mho slept at his door and was always near him.

The present King of Italy is much more strictly guarded than Humbert was, but the Dowager Queen Margherita goes wherever she dhooses in carriage or on foot, and scorns all idea of surveillance.

The Empress Elizabeth of Austria was as democratic in her actions as Queen Margherita and always objected to public attendance, which was. nevertheless, imposed. The Austrian Emperor, whose life has not been attacked since he was 19, is carefully guarded, and the late Empress was always intensely 7 anxious in regard to his safety, though absolutely unconcerned about herself.

The personal defence of the royal family of Spain is intrusted to a bodyguard of men from Espinosa, this town having enjoyed the honour for hundreds of years. These men of Espinosa accompany the members of the royal family. One of them sleeps at the door of each royal bedchamber and the rest of the guard in noiseless slippers pace the halls of the palace. But the hardest worked police in the world is the private force of the Sultan, Abdul Hamid. A Frenchman. M. Bonnin, is at the head of the service. and, if ever a policeman earned his wages, he does. The Sultan has a firm and fixed belief that he is to die a violent death; and this cheerful certainty he contemplates with anything but Oriental calm. He refuses to move without a small army to protect him. When he goes to the Great Mosque 30.000 soldiers are turned But to guard the route, and a troop of picked men surrounds the carriage 'closely. In his |>alace he Ills fifty bedrooms, all with iron door* and complicated locks, and he circulates around them like an Arabian Nights’ monarch of guilty conscience.