Evening Republican, Volume 22, Number 176, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 July 1919 — SWISS ARE TIRED OF EXILED KINGS [ARTICLE]

SWISS ARE TIRED OF EXILED KINGS

Poor in Funds and Spirit and Moodily Waiting for Something to Turn Up. TINO’ SPECIALLY OBNOXIOUS Kaiser’s Brother-In-Law Accepts Invitations to Banquets and Then “Cuts” His Hosts—Old Ludwig Saddest of All. Chiasso, Italo-Swiss Frontier. — Switzerland is getting tired of exiled kings. They seemingly cause a rise in food prices, already toned up to breaking point, and give a good deal of trouble in international relations owing to >their craze for political Intrigue. Their faithful friends plot to get them restored to their former thrones. Switzerland is now the favorite resort of dethroned anti crownless monarchs. Many of them, unhappily for Swiss hotelkeepers, are fortuneless as well. Ex-King Constantine of Greece, known to his foes as “Tino." has not been paying his bills with regularity of late. Since Kaiser Wilhelm, his Wrother-ln-law, hastened into Holland, help from Germany fails to come. So,i hard up is “Tino” and his family, who live at the Hotel National, Lucerne, that he has had to borrow from former subjects, notably a courtier named Streit and the once fire-eating Thestokis. The weekly .bill !s 2,400 francs ($480), a modest sum for even an exsovereign, with a following of 60 people, all told. But even this bill (the entire family and entourage are on regular board rates) is paid with great difficulty. • . Had to Cut Him Out Then, “Tino” is no longer the little god of all: those war profiteers who still flock to Switzerland from the excentral empires. They are tired of him. His way of accepting sumptuous banquets and then cutting his hosts and hostesses of yesterday when another dinner-giver had arrived, has finally bored them and invitations are •few and far between. • No longer do his German, Austrian and Greek admirers give balls for him. where lights were turned out at two in the morning, though the party did not break up till several hours later/ The orgies of “red balls” and "pink balls” and even “black balls”' (so-called just because the lights went out before the party broke up. and everybody wore black w hen the lights were on. and all the decorations were black) began to shock the decent health or pleasure-seekers at Saint Moritz. Lugane and other resorts, so that the Swiss police had to intervene, and "Tino” was cut off from these lurid joys for the sake of public decency. To crown all, the exchange is so bad for his dearest friends that they no longer have the money to spend on his amusement. And so he has to walk up and down the shores at Lucerne on foot, for he has not even a motor nowadays. Kaiser's Sister Sees No One. The rest of the family pass their time as best they can. His granddaughters and nieces, for the lack of a carriage or a car, go about on bicycles. People turn round to look at them, not because they are exiled princesses, but. because they happen to be very pretty dnto the bargain, with fair hair and dazzling complexions; and beauty is not among the list of Swiss women’s good qualities. “Tino’s” wife, Sophia. Kaiser Wilhelm’S sister, goes nowhe-e and sees nobody. She is clothed In melancholy silence and takes her place at Ifce •head of the family* table in the public dining room of the hotel with an expression of settled melancholy. They simply can’t afford to dine in their .rooms, because it would cost at least

20 per cent more, and goodness only knows how long they will be able to pay the weekly bill as it now stands. “Tino's” one extravagance nowadays consists of very strong co.cktails. He quite recently asked Germany for a loan of murks, but was curtly refused. Prince Nick and His Monocle. His brother. Prince Nicholas, walks a good deal dn the lake side, with a huge fnonocle in his right eye—his one extravagance. The crown prince’s cousin, known as the duke of Sparta, shares these melancholy walks. Prince Paul, his younger brother, kills time wltlwt pretty little girl from Vienna; but Is his whole income is S2OO a month he cannot paint Lucerne red, and is content to listen to the public band, or to take coffee in a public garden where popular prices prevail. None of the family is popular in the little city, however. The Swiss say they are rough and disagreeable. They certainly all look bored to death. Old King Ludwig. The ex-king of Bavaria has taken a home in Switzerland, too —an old feudal manor, half convent, half fortress—at Zizers, in the cattton of Grlsons, not far from Chur. Ludwig 111, now seventy-four years old, looks the saddest and most depressed of all the dethroned royalties now on Swiss soil. Karl, ex-emperor of Austria-Hungary is almost turbulently gay in comparison with him, and even the “Tino” family look cheerful by his side. The old king is all alone. His son, Ruprecht, who till lately intrigued for the Polish'’throne, is supposed to be somewhere in Germany. He spends most of his time* studying botany in the garden of Ids somber home, with an old Bavarian general, the one and only person of his suite who reads books about hunting to him when he is tired of the garden. The prince of Llppe, who lives not far off, leads much tlie same kind of life. New Arrivals Daily. Every day new refugees of distinction arrive in Switzerland. Tirpitz is at Lausanne, to the disgust of the citizens, who declare they will turn him out. Hindenburg is expected at Locarno, where '’there is a beautiful late and almost an Italian climate. At Clarens, amid mountains, lives the exiled Prince Windisschgraetz, who, gbssip says, has a secret mission—-

that Is, to prevent the union of Au* trta with Germany. Berchtol’d and Andrassy are in Zurich. But lc the list of exiled monarchs, ministers, field marshals and notabilities of yesterday now eating pension food in hotels of various grades and killing time best' they may on incomes which the average New York business man wouldpltjls too long to go over in full. They all have the same characteristics, They are poor, shabby, look bored tq death, older than their years, grouchy and dyspeptic. And they all keep as far away from one another as they can. Some Swiss recently remarked that It would he enough punishmentfor Kaiser Wilhelm to bring him to Switzerland and make him live In close touch with these faljen idols and heroes. They would give him such a bad time of ft, blaming him for their fallen state, that he would clamor to be tried for his sins by the enemies within a week of his arrival among "friends and colleagues.” and honored on both sides of the water. The family of each dead hero will receive letters regularly from one small protege who during its whole lifetime will hold the name of their boy in reverence. The Clarinda citizens have paid $36.50 —10 cents a day—for each child’s support for a year, through the Fatherless Children of France, an American organization with headquarters al 410 South Michigan avenue, Chicago, co-operating with fl similar one in France, of which Marshal Joffre is the head. The organization will see that the adoption of each child is made in the name of and as a memorial to a dead soldier of Clarinda. The town plans to repeat this sum annually for each child until It is capable of caring for ifself. It has been demonstrated that 10 cents a day, to supplement the pension of the same amount which the French government, straining its resources, granted its war orphans at the time of the early disasters, will suffice to keep soul and body together in a little victim of the war and enable it to remain with its mother or other living relative instead of being placed in an institution. From the prayers of such a child the name of tfee brave American soldier who died for France and the world will never be absent.