The San Francisco Call. Newspaper, June 19, 1898, Page 23

THE SAN FRANCISCO CALL, SUNDAY, JUNE 19, 1898. 000000000 00000000 ONDON — Special Dis- patch to the Sunday Call.—A special dispatch from Vienna says the creditors of Princess Louise of Saxe-Coburg (wife of Prince Philip), who is ac- cused of forging the signa- ture of Crown Princess Ste- phanietothe extent of 2,000,- 000 florins, are bringing ac- tion against her in an at- tempt to recover the money. The Vienna correspondent of the London Daily Chron- icle telegraphed to his paper on May 10 as follows: “Princess Louise of Saxe- Coburg was conveyed to a private asylum last night. The Princess, who is a daugh- ter of King Leopold of Bel- gium, had clandestinely passed the last few weeks with Lieutenant von Matta- choch-Keglevitch, her lover, at his castle near Agram, Cro- atia. In the meantime her debts grew to millions of flor- ins, and bills bearing the al- leged forged signature of the Archduchess Stephanie came into circulation.” 0000000000000 0000 RINCESS LOUISE of Saxe-Co- burg, wife of Prince Philip, has been accused of forging her sis- ter's name to notes aggregating has been sued of thousands of florins by xasperated creditors, and 0000000000000 0O0000CCN000000000000000 000000000000000000O00000000000000DQ 2,000,000 florins, for hundred dec ived and s °n committed to an insane asy- m by her dumfounded royal relatives till the.tangled threads of all sorts of regarding her can be E ightened out after a fashion. This daughter of King Leopold of jelgium has been going a pace of late ars that has even startled the wildest s of the courts of Europe. pected that she would end rious career in a blaze of no one dreamed that an in- ylum would shelter her at the chroniclers of European gos- als Th e excuse to the public for scent escapades. p Princess! Poor Louise! all her follies, all her iknesses were no doubt forced upon heredity. The viciousness, call it what you will, were in her blood, and her en- nent, the passing events of her life, served but to incubate it. Intrigues flirtations were the very air she From early girlhood she has kept so- ty quivering as from an earthquake shock. Low-browed and heavy of feature, with a form whose voluptuous curves suggested the feline in every sinuous movement, she had yet a grace of ' man- ner which was undoubtedly the out- mades Poor because THE ELQPEMEN]; growth of assoclation with the Viennese women, who are pre-eminently versed in those arts which attract and hold the opposite sex. Passionate and ob- stinate, hers was a nature requiring a master hand for guidance; an iron hand, but clothed in velvet. Such a hand her husband, the Prince, did not possess. He was twice her age, noted for his capacity for liquor, and uncouth in personal appearance as well as in mentality. The records of prudence in his family were no better than those in hers, and so the couple were most charmingly assorted. There were no illusions to be dispelled on either side, and still there was no positive dislike. She was but seventeen when the mar- riage took place and was at once traus- planted from Berlin to that most cor- rupt of capitals, Vienna, where the Prince was stationed as field marshal in the Austrian army. Installed in a palace and left to her own devices, unprotected save by that divinity that doth hedge a king and \THE HUSBAND PRINCE PHILIP. o (C \\/J ) i THE DULEL-. supposedly the members of his im- mediate family, it is small wondsr that insanity, to use the polite expression newly coined for her especial benefit, found her out. Society in Vienna is the most fastidi- ous in all Europe. At the same time it is said to be the most corrupt. Per- . = PROTRER haps with the exception of Naples it will bear less than any other Con- tinental city the searching ray of the Diogenesean lantern. The women are more than charming and worse than pretty. They ps a manner in- describably car together with well cultivated, beautifully modulated voices. They charm the eye, the ear, the senses. They are trained to it; it is their life, their business. They are ab- solutely unexcelled in the practice of all womanly graces. In this world of fashionable intrigue the Belgian girl was left to play her hand alone and it was virtual solitaire for a while. Then tiring of the seclusion she thrust her head beyond the hedge. An Aus- trian Prince, whom she had met at Carlsbad and whose infatuation rippled the current of life there, sought her hiding place and seeking found her. His blood was royal and his purse was heavy. Some of the most regular frequenters of the race track in Vienna are women. One sees them constantly on the course, book in hand, wherever the betting is heaviest; women of rank, members even of royal households. And here, day after day the Princess Louise was to be seen, seated in the Austrian Prince’s box. Next an attache of the Belgian embassy and then a French Marquise followed in her train. A boy and girl were born to her and then the turning point in her life was reached. A little sister of hers whom she had 23 left in short skirts in Brussels became the wife of the Austrian Crown Prini and the prospective Empress of the realm. From that moment the mael- strom of fastidious Viennese social lifa beheld the Princess in its vortex. The potent atmosphere which sur« rounds a throne now threw its haze over her defects, and to those who hitherto had looked upon her as com- monplace she now became the candle around which the noble young moths fluttered and worshiped. Viennese society is not puritanical, to put it mildly—provided the convention= al mask is worn. There may be a few sewing societies and the accompanying gossip, but that is all. About those of royal blood, however, there is a hedge of etiquette. Over this hedge a young nobleman clambered to pay his devoirs to the effulgent Belgian Princess. A rebuke from the princely husband sent him back ingloriously. This experience’ disgusted the Prine cess, but it taught her a lesson. As a consequence she looked nearer home and found her moth in the pere son of Lieutenant Geza von Matta< choch, her husband's adjutant. And now comes the question of ine sanity. A free rein, a complaisant hus« band, for it was a full year before the Prince gave voice, and that was when che melodramatically éoped with her husband’s adjutant. What mad im- pulse had been implanted in her that caused her to take Geza von Matta- choch by the hand and run away? Perhaps it was heredity. Her father’s sister, Charlotte or Mexico, was clouded mentally and was also secluded. But poor Charlotte had cause. She had seen her empire vanish, her husband shot in Mexico. These troubles were enough to unseat her reason. Many have losti it for less. Victor Hugo says “Woman is a per« fected devil,” and perhaps it was pure devilishness on Louise’s part. Perhaps it was the Satanic proclivities of her: husband. ¥t may have been a little of! both or meither. It is a psychological enigma at best, and it is sufficient to say that Geza, and Louise left Vienna and threw cona{ ventions to the bow-wows. She had been gone some time before| the social bomb exploded, and it was not until then that what everybody| knew reached the husband’s ears. He did not congratulate himself for] his escape and thank his adjutant, but; promptly challenged him to a®duel.! Geza added injury to insult by wound-! ing him. In the light of this duel the Prince’st honor was satisfied—from a European, standpoint. But the duel called public attention to the elopement, which had! not been generally known. The Prin- cess had taken a villa at Nice, wherea she was chaperoned by her daughter Dora, the betrothed of Duke Gunther, brother of the Empress of Germany. ‘While at Nice Von Mattachoch called daily on the Princess, but no scandal ensued. After the duel the second elopement, the elopement proper, occurred. They: left Nice together, leaving a horde of disgruntled and unpaid tradesmen be- hind them, and fled to a castle in Croa~ tia, owned by the lieutenant. The scandal then became so malodor- ous that the.royal family was com- pelled to take notice of it. A council of war was held and the Princess was quietly but very vigorously removed to an insane asylum. Such is the history of the affair. Un- savory as it is it has served to estab- lish a record, so to speak. For this ‘duel is the first on record to occur be- tween royalty and a commoner. Louise is not the only i'rincess who has left a stain upon the royal purple, but she is the first person, royal or otherwise, to be confined to an asylum for such a cause. & > 3 > ®e e i--(v@@@@@®@®®®®®®@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ WICKEDEST CITY 1N ThIE It is called Artena and is located in the Volscian Moun- tains, some forty miles from Rome. nowned students of criminology, armed with Government com- missions, have gone there to study the inhabitants. will write a book on the result of his investigations. WORLD Lombroso and other re- Lombroso POPOPPOPOOOOSOPOS® & ©000000000000000004000000000., 06606 OME, June 16, 1898.—Armed with | which is not reckoned among the gen- a government commission, Ces- Lombroso and other re- nowned students of criminology have turned their attention to the little city of Artena, in the Volscian Mountains, some forty miles, as the crow flies, from the capital. Lombroso will write a book on Artena. This town of 4000 inhabitants lives in history as the southern hatching- oven of evil-doers and felons. As long as four and a half centuries ago Cor- rado Celto said to its citizens: “No possible punishments can deter them from heaping up crime upon crime, for their perversity of mind is more fertile in inventing new offenses than the imagination of judges is in new punishmen And at the period men- tioned new-fangled ideas for executing and torturing criminals were almost as plentiful as such relating to bicycles are to-day. Either. for patriotic or geographical ms, or both, Artena has never fig- re ured in the criminological literature of the present period, which has branded other places in Italy as homes of the born delinquent; but now an overhaul- ing of records, ancient and contem- porary, by the well known authorities on medical jurisprudence is promised and we will soon know all about this romantic spot, where assassins grow wild, whene fair browed mothers edu- cate their children in the noble art of cutting throats and where revenge is the prayer on the lips of young and old. Meanwhile your correspondent has done a little investigating on his own hook. To begin with he ascertained that while the crop of murders—and this does not include homicides or mere manslaughter—in the whole of Ttaly is on a ratio of thirty to every other kind of ten thousand deaths in the kingdom, nearly 2 per cent of the men, women and children buried in the mountain cemeteries of Artena year by year die by violence. And let the reader remember here that the Jtallan national murder crop is the largest in the civilized world, being four and a half times larger, for in- stance, than that of Great Britajin, tlest countries. When I asked at the railway station here for a ticket for Artena, I was told that no such place was on the route, and the map corroborated that state- ment. However, I insisted that this town had been a reality somewhere in the southeast of Rome between the western main chain of the Apennines and the Alban mountains, for five or slx centuries or even more. Then a council of officials was called and one of them, who had formerly been in the service of the Papal Government, re- membered that Artena was a new name for the old robber stronghold of Montefortino, where a tribe of the an- clent Volsclans, who gave the Roman republic so much trouble, is still flour- ishing. “Artena,” he continued, “has no rail- way station, for we could probably not | find a station master who would trust himself in that neighborhood. The nearest station is Volmontone, on the Rome-Naples line, via Delletri.” I found the town, which I reached on mule back, one of the most pictur- esquely situated in the kingdom. Ar- tena crowns the summit of a mountain 1200 feet high. Half way up stands a mighty castle, built like a fortress of the Middle Ages, with .a moat and towers galore. It belongs to the Borg- hese, but no member of that princely family has set foot in it since shirts of chain mail and steel bonnets went out of fashion. In fact they ceased taking personal interest in their property since their neighbors above acquired their first blunderbuss. The town consists of a single street crawling up the mountain in zig-zag fashion. The houses are low and nar- row in depth; behind the small back yards the rocks descend abruptly, as if hewn off by a mighty rush of waters. From the summit an enchanting out- look can be had iInto the Roman Campagna, the Alban and Sabine mountains. The 4000 citizens of this town are, ac- cording to the Mayor's statements, among the best situated in Italy as far as means and opportunities for making a steady and comfortable living are concerned, even the poorest of them owning enough rich land in the valley to yield all they need, while the better- to-do families are among the heavy wheat sellers and speculators of the exist in Artena was further demon- strated to me by the surpassing fact that during my visit there not a single beggar approached me; not even the children asked for centesimos. Under these circumstances, to which may be added a particularly mild cli- | mate, one should imagine that the Ar- tenians were a happy-go-lucky lot, a little lazy perhaps, but certainly un- willing to habitually walk the path of the transgressor. Such a surmise would completely coincide with the writings of the Lombrosos, Morrisons, Ferris and others, who insist that the majority of criminals are bred under anomalous social conditions. More- over, it would concur with the latest year book of the New York State Re- formatory, which says that 53 per cent s in New York came from homes which were positively bad, that is, where want and abject poverty reigned, besides crime; while only 7% per cent came from homes that were positively good. So much for pathological theories. As a matter of every day practice crime flourishes in Artena as if the town were one immense bagnio, and its four thousand inhabitants so many graduates from the galleys, set free on a lone island to massacre and rob each other at will. As already stated 2 per cent of all deaths in Artena are the outcome of murder direct; persons dying of wounds received in assaults, or by the action of incendiarism, are not included in the list. Thefts, street robbery, burg- lary and assault with stiletto or re- volver are matters of such ordinary oc- currence in the town and in the valley belonging to the people that to investi- | gate them all, according to the Mayor of the city, the number of police offi- cials and judges would have to be in- creased out of all proportions to the total number of inhabitants. The au- thorities, continued this official, take notice only of the most atrocious of crimes brought to their notice by the press of the capital, or when non-resi- dents suffer. This complacent «fficial is the elev- enth successor of a Mayor mysterious- ly murdered in Artena in the beginning of 1879. All these Mayors were elected for a period of ten years. Three died under the hands of assassins, two of them in broad daylight and on the open market place. The rest recelved such wounds as to cripple them for life and make them leave their post in haste. The incumbent of the of- fice aspires to the distinction of out- living his term, and to that end goes about his business with ears securely plugged and eyes shut. As a piece of general information he told me that “the number of crimes against life and property brought to official cog- nizance in Artena is fifteen times greater, relatively to the number of in- habitants, than in any other place or district of Italy.” Mark the words “official cognizance!” Everything tends to show that almost the entire population of this mountain town is imbued. with: criminal propen- sities. There is no need of leading an Artenaen, who may have strayed from his or her environment, into crime by suggestion. All of them seem to be possessed of an irresistible passion for province. That actual want does not | cruelty—cruelty that wishes its victim to feel the bitterness of death. The men and women of Artena are even wanting in paternal and maternal af- fection. Vengeance is of their daily prayer and in deliberateness of crim- inal purpose they have no equals on the face of Burope, save perhaps in some parts dominated by “the un- speakable Turk.” Since the old name of Montefortino was erased from the map after the fall of Rome and the end of the Papal Gov- ernment in 1870, three entire families, some of the oldest in the city, have been, completely wiped out—grand- parents, parents, brothers and sisters, cousins and nieces, nephews and uncles and aunts—the Scarenzies, the Dabos and the Rulfis. Neighbor throws him- self upon neighbor in the flelds, on the street, or his or her castle, the home. All hov are provided with means of fortifications and many trap- doors. Vietims of hatred or the prizes of robbery are killed, maimed or tor- tured. A house goes up in flames and half a dozen children with it. Who cares? Next day a friend of the mur- dered family shoots down the perpe- trator or perpetrators wherever he find or tracks them. The authorities are powerless, for no citizen of Artena will bear witness against another. “Vengeance is mine,” says the mountain “hero” or “heroine,” and, no matter how convincing the proof furnished, his or her obstinancy of denial is greater. I attended a ses- slon of the assizes at Artena early in the year. The whole town knew that young Ottavi saw his father mur- dered by Jegado. Did he bear out the public prosecutor? Not a word coula that official draw from his sealed lips. His sisters, his mother, who had been likewise direct or indirect witnesses to the deed, were equally silent. When 1 returned to Rome I read in the Tribuna a dispatch saying that Jegado’s house was broken into night before last and that the murderer and his family of three small children were bound to the bed, drenched with kerosene, and slowly roasted to death—‘perpetrators unknown,” of course. Murder is avenged by murder In Ar- tena, as was done for centuries past in Montefortino, and whoever testifies against a red-handed scoundrel takes his life in his hands. Hatred, jealousy and petty squabbles lead to new mur- ders, for the citizen of Artena is un- stable, excessively vain, morbidly irritable and loves revenge above all things. After 1870 the new Government re- solved to break up the time honored robber nests, and Montefortino in par- ticular was given a strong judicial ad- ministration; schools were erected and the greatest severity was exercised in cerrying out the laws and enforcing re- spect for them. % As a consequence a few hundred of the inhabitants had to be taken charge of at once and shipped to the county seat, where they were confronted with their judges, a cage having been built for every twelve prisoners. Whole familles were then deported; but crime did not diminish in the least. The new city of Artena soon had as bad a name as_the Montefortino of old. o Just before Pietro Acciarito heaped new criminal renown upon his native city by attemptipg the life ot King |uated at the gdxq of the leaves, | Umberto in April last, a royal official was foully murdered in Artena; and, though many are undoubtedly in t}ze secret of his taking off, it is impossible to gain one particle of evidence assur- ing conviction. It happened ia this way. About a year ago the letter car- rier of the city was deposed and an- other young man sent from Rone to take his place. The wife of the former, a fine-looking woman, went about the city bewailing his misfortune and of- fering proof that her husband had been unlawfuily dimissed. Finally she gave out that she has made a vow to the Holy Virgin to weara biackdress in the Easter procession, which meant certain death to the new letter carrier. Of course, the people of Artena saw the point of this talk, and when the young woman thus appeared on April 18 among three hundred others clad in white, singing and praying in the pro- cession behind the cross, nobody in town doubted that the Government would soon have to send a second post- man to that district. The blasphemous woman not only wore the unconventional dress, but in- stead of the candle and flowers, carried an unlighted torch in her hand, wound with crape. On the following Monday, April 26, the letter carrier was found dead in the road leading from Volmon- tone to the mountain town. He had been shot through the head and a dag- ger stuck in his heart. All the money and valuable letters he carried were one. gTht»re are only surmises as to the murderer or murderers, and these say that the man was shot down by Maria's lover and that she, to make death sure, or following an impulse of cruelty, plunged the knife into him. The Government stands aghast before the problem of what to do with this town full of criminzls. On March 7, 1557, Pope Paul IV issued an edict or- dering the city of Montefortino to be razed to the ground. ~The command was only half carried out. Troops drove the citizens from their strong- holds into the forests and encamped on the victorious ground after many a hot battle. But two years later the new Pontiff, Pilus IV, allowed the citizens to return, and since then no such sum- mary form of reform has been at- tempted; although it is generally con- ceded to be the only one that might be’ of lasting benefit. —_————— Rats, mice and squirrels are continu- ally gnawing at something, but they do not do this out of ‘‘pure mischief,” as people generally imagine. Animals of this class, especially the rats, have teeth Which continue to grow as long as the owner lives. In the human species, the teeth are developed from pulps, which are absorbed and disappear so soon as the second set are full own, but in the case of the much-mal ‘fned rat the pulp supply is perpetual, and is continually se- creting materials which the incisors gain in length. This being the case, the poor creature is obliged to continue his gnawing operation in order to keep his teeth ground down to a proper length. In one of the Canary Islands there is a tree of the laurel family that occe. sionally rains down in the early evening uite a copious shower of waterdrops ‘rom its tufted foliage. The water comes out through innumerable little pores sit- ®©@@@@@®®®©®®®®@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@000900 spirited and determined. PPPPIPPPOPPPOOPOPO®OS HEY didn’t “splice the main brace” the other day on the Nashville when that gallant gun- boat had raced through the sea with every human pulse a-beat and captured the first prize of the war. They won't splice the main brace on the Oregon even if all hands should have the strain of that seemingly im- possible thing, an all day’s running fight with a fleet of Spanish cruisers. “Splicing the main brace” is, or rather used to be, serving an “extra” allowance of grog to all hands on a naval vessel after an engagement. This explanation is so old that it will be news to many in these days. If things were as they used to be how naturally it would have happened that when the Nashville had captured her prize and when every heart aboard was aglow with the success that the boatswain and his mates should have piped through the ship the order, “All hands for grog.” At the beginning of any other war in our history “Grog oh!” would have resounded through the ship. But— They've raised his pay five cents a day And stopped his grog forever. One out of the mass of records is a report from the Lord Deputy and Coun- cil of Ireland to Henry VIII in 1545 on the ‘victualling of shipping,” and among the liquor supplies is “Wyne, Sake, 6 tonnes, maketh beverage 18 tonnes; wyne, Gascoyne, 11 tonnes, maketh beverage 16 tonnes.” That is how John Bull watered his sack and Gascony wine for his sailors in those days. A notable event in this history was the invention of ‘“grog” in i740. Ac- cording to a learned article on the sub- Ject published in The United $iervice by Admiral Meade in 1884, the honor is due to Admiral Vernon of the royal navy. In bad weather it was his fashion to wear on deck a grogram cloak from which he acquired among the men the sobriquet of “Old Grog.” About the year mentioned, while in command of the West India station, he originated a new and satisfactory official beverage composed of rum and water, the serv- ing of which began on his flagship, the LAST GROG DRUNK “IN THE NAVY “Splicing the main brace,” as the sailors ecall it, has almost become ancient history among our war vessels; whisky ration was cut off early in the Civil War for reasons fully set forth in the following article. John Bull has his own opinion about serving grog, but the crusade against it is Burford, and thence spread. The bey; | “grog” in the United States navy, the POPPCPOIOPOPPOCOOPOP ©®®®®@@OO@@@@@Q@@@00@0@9@@@9000@0900 erage was dubbed “grog” and the word has lived. A few years later, in 1758, the instruc< tions for the royal navy contained thisy wisdom: Whereas, It is of very pernicious con- sequence to suffer seamen to drink in drams the allowance made to them of any kind of spirituous liquor in lieu of beer, and it having been found by ex- perience that the serving of it mixed with water is very conducive to the pres- ervation of their health, every com- mander is, therefore, strictly charged. never to suffer any kind of = spirituous liquor to be issued by itself to the com- pany of the ship or vessel under his com mand, but to cause the allowance for all, the officers and company to be every day mixed with a due proportion of watem upon deck, in the eresence of the lieuw tenant and two other officers of the watch, who are to be strictly charged to, take care that the men%e not defrauded in their allowance. When our navy began its illustriou career amid the Revolution liquor was! of course as necessary a part of the supplies as sea-biscuit and powder, and! we find Paul Jones, on sailing from Portsmouth in 1777, bewailing among; other shortages “only thirty gallons o rum.” i In 1831 Congress took an advanced* step by providing that all in the navy, who voluntarily relinquished the spirity ration should be paid 6 cents a day.; In 1842 the ration was cut down to one! gill, but the alternative of a half-ping, of wine was added, and the commutaei tion price was fixed at 3 cents. i The first year of the Civil Wam| brought a greatly increased naval force, and increased trouble from strong drink. Moral sentiment had progressed, too. In July, 1862, Congress revolutionized. the American navy by passing the his-' toric law providing: That from and after the first day of September, 1862, the spirit ration in the navy of the United States shall forever cease, and thereafter no distilled spiritu- ous liquors shall be admitted on board of vessels-of-war except as medical stores and upon the order and under the control of the medical officers of such vessels, and to be used only for medical purposes. From and after the first day of Septem- ber next there shall be allowed and paid to eachrrerson in the navy now entitled to the spirit ration 5 cents fer day in com- mutation and lieu thereof, which shall ba in addition to the present pay. And since that day there has been