Jasper County Democrat, Volume 2, Number 23, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 September 1899 — AN AFFLICTED PRINCE. [ARTICLE]

AN AFFLICTED PRINCE.

Grandson of Queen Victoria the Victim of Kpilepay. To the great sorrow of Queen Victoria and of all the royal family of England, the young Duke of Albany has inherited the pronounced tendency of epilepsy from his fathe-, whose entire life, so prematurely ended, it served to blight. It had been hoped that the young prince, who has recently been a schoolmate at Eton of young Astor and of other American lads being educated at the 600-year-old college, had escaped the affliction. But during the past few months he has developed unmistakable signs of the malady, and recently‘had his first fit, which was of such an alarming character that he was at once removed by orders of the doctors to his mother’s home at Claremont a full week before the end of the term. Nor Is it likely that he will return to Eton. The affair Is all the more sad as the boy is bright, merry aud popular, with a very keen sense of humor. In fact, mentally he bids fair to resemble his father, who. in spite of his phenomenally delicate health, was the most intellectually brilliant and far and away the most accomplished of all the sons of Queen Victoria. It may be remembered that the late Duke of Albany met with his death in a particularly shocking fashion, having first lacerated himself with a pair of sharp-pointed scissors and then rolled downstairs while in the throes of a most violent fit. It is to be hoped that his son. the young duke, may be preserved from an analogous fate. But unfortunately, epilepsy is one of those ailqxents for which there is little or no cure, and all the hopes which had been entertained with regard to the military career of the royal lad will necessarily have to be abandoned.