Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 81, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 April 1913 — MEN DOOMED BY FATE [ARTICLE]

MEN DOOMED BY FATE

Spanish Prime Minister Foretold His Own Death. Wonderful Prognostications of Mahmoud, an Egyptian Astrologer, Were Verified, When Bourtos Pasha Was Slain. London.—“l know that I am condemned to death, because I possess positive Information that two anarchists have taken an oath to kill me. I know, further, that the anarchist who is to take my life is a man who was banished from Buenos Aires, and that he went thence to Paris and Biarritz, after which the police lost trace of him.” So spoke the late Senor Canalejas, the Spanish prime minister, on Nov. 8, 1912, in a conversation with an intimate friend, and four days later he was shot dead by an assassin while looking in at the window of a book shop. It must be a terrible strain on nerves and pluck to feel, as so many have done, that the sword hangs over their bead, suspended, as it were, by a single hair. But such has been the fate of more than one public man during the past few years, and of scores in earlier days. In February, 1910, Sheik Mahmoud, a well known Egyptian astrologer, went to Boutros Pasha, prime minister of Egypt, and told him that he foresaw his death at the* bands of an assassin. Boutros believed the prophecy and, as every one knows, was foully murdered a few months later. It is worth mentioning that Mahmoud put in print a prediction of the death of King Edward three months before it occurred. He said that it would come to pass in May. By the way, he also foretold in 1910 that King George of Greece would annex three Turkish cities. This also has come true. While on the subject of Turkey and the east, we may say that the late

King Alexander of Servia fully believed that he would meet with a violent death. Years earlier, in -fact, when 'King Milan, Alexander’s father, was on the throne, a Servian peasant predicted that Milan’s reign would be one of many misfortunes, that he would wage an unsuccessful war, that he would marry, have one son and then be divorced. He ended by prophesying a violent death for the son. Alexander, realizing how true the rest of the predictions had been, frequently spoke to his Intimates of his coming end, but he could hardly have, expected that it would have been attended by suJh horrors as were actually the case. Of all modern stories of doom, none is so terrible as that of the Austrian noble family of Vetzera. The name will be familiar to all readers, because of the Baroness Marie Vetzera, for love of whom the Crown Prince Rudolf killed himself. Every member of that family was beautiful and gifted, yet for generations ill-fate dogged them and none died a natural death. Marie, it is believed, poisoned herself with strychnine, her brother, a fine young officer, was burnt to death in the awful conflagration at the Ring theater; the father, Baron Vetzera, fell dead of sunstroke in a Cairo street. Finally, Jeanne, countess of Bylandt, one of the most beautiful and accomplished women who ever lived, died suddenly in Rome. Polson caused her death, but whether administered intentionally or not none can say.