1918-10-21 — Page 2

THEATRE

ROYAL.

"OUR DAY"

PERFORMANCES

OF

THE HUNGKONG" DAILY PRESS. MONDAY, OCTOBER 21ST. 1918.

"THE BARTON MYSTERY"

A spoofic fantasy In 4 parts by Walter Hackett

ON

THURSDAY, 7th November

AND

SATURDAY, 9th November

12

AT 8.15 F.M.

There will be no private booking or sale of advance tickets, so that it will rest entirely with the public to secure good seats.

For the FIRST NIGHT prices will be as follows

Centre Block, Dress Circle

Remaining

Stalls

Pit and Gallery

נו

1

and for the SECOND NIGHT---

Dress Circle

Stalls

Pit and Gallery

$10.

Soldiers and Sailors in unform half-prices on "Second Night.

BOOKING OPENS AT MOUTRIE'S

on Tuesday, October 22nd, at 9 a..

JUST A

[2544

MOMENT

Every minute costs the RED CROSS £8.00 and to meet this enormous expenditure a special appeal is made all over the world on

"OUR DAY."

You can be responsible for the whole of the Red Cross expenditure for one minute or half a minute.

DON'T

FORGET

there are 525,800 minutes in a year-make yourself". responsible for one of them.

£400.0

1360. D

THINK!

If

4320

B

ZARN

'00'83

YOUR MINUTE

£200.0

One hour represents a cost of One week

One year

£80.0 0.

10120, 6 0.

£180.0.0 £80,640.0.0 £4,204,800.0.0.

Send Your Minute" of £8.0.0. to Lady May's Rose Fund. Government House..

[2545

LANE, CRAWFORD & CO.

LA

MINERVA CIGARS

have that purity and fragrance that appeal to all smokers, Established in the year 1883, and with all the experience and wisdom gained in the manufacture of Cigars for over thirty years' it is not to be wondered at that these cigars, are so popular. They are manufactured from the roost carefully selected leaf grown in the fields of Isabela province in the valley of Cagayan.

IN GREAT ASSORTMENT. INCLUDING THE

FOLLOWING:-

Fancy Tales, Imperiales,

Monarcas,

Perfectos,

Ministros,

Estrellas,

Reina Maria, Epicures,

Panetelas,

Army and Navy, Lords of England.

SOLE AGENTE FOR

HONGKONG & SOUTH CHINA, LANE, CRAWFORD & CO.

THE ILL-FATED YOUNG TSAREVITCA.

A SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.

Alexis

[BY DB & J. DILLON.1.

I have a very vivid recollection of little at Boval during the historic meeting between Edward VII. sad Nicholas II. One day I was walk ing in the midst of the members of the Imperial family, who were wending their way towards some stone stairs that led down to the water, where the Taar's pinnace was waiting to

take them to his yacht. The children, who were simply clad, and whose man ners "wers natural and pleasing might have been taken for the members of an

English country family. I was walking just behind the Heir Apparent, when all at once he stopped short before reaching the stairs, and, going to the very edge of the sea wall, he looked down st the pinnace, which was some five or six feet beneath him, and made ready to jump into it from where he stood, when his father, overtaking him in the nick of time, caught him by the shoulder, and; half-angrily, balf-beseechingly, naked him how he could be to foolish as to think of taking such a leap. The monarch still expostulating, the pair descended the stairs hard by, from the last step of which the forward child again tried to spring in lieu of stopping. For a brief spell little Alexis's late was a symphony of sound and colour. His transient wishes were divined nad gratified before they could be expressed, for the Imperial palace, unlike the homes of most children, Iacked a will of its own, fixed and un- bending, to meet and thwart the un-

From his first birthday down to the fall of the dynasty Alexia was the contre of the Court and the hub of the Tsardom The private life of his mother and, to a large extent, the home policy of his father took their respective orientation from the child's current requirements and future career. The Tsaritsa's fervent desire was to keep him ever with her, to sperintend his education, to watch over his physical health and see that no harm befell him, wile the That was re- solved to resist avery force that threaten ed to whittle down his prerogatives in favour of enemies of autocracy, or to diminish the extent of his empire in favour of its open "adversaries. Ho felt it to be his duty to hand down both on-

diminished to his son. For the attain- ment of these aims the Empress religious ly allied herself with Rasputin, while the Emperor chose as his political lieute like Durnovo, Schwanchach, Akimoff, nants leaders of the reactionary party and when they died, their less gifted political friends. The two-fold upshot was, on the one hand, the ruinous Court scandal that centred round Rasputin, and, on the other, the succession of narrow- winded Ministors who exasperated the people, sat on the political safety valve, drove agitation down to subterranean depths, aggravated the espionage, and undermined the very. ground-work of the régime, Hostilities with Japan, even after peace. negotiations had progressed at Portsmouth (U.3.A.), and only the ownership of half of the island of Sakhalien was in dispute, were about to be resumed on the ground that all the territorial possessions which Nicholas II. had received from his fore- bears must to banded down to Alexis intact, and therefore the island of Sak balien, together with the rest

system

of

PARASITES ABROAD.

THE DOOM OF THE GERMAN

BARON.

A correspondent writes to the England has long been the haven of refuge for the shipwrecked of all nations; in the years before, the war she had be

the members of the Imperial family at loggerheads with each other, for several of the Grand Dukes, including Nikolai Nikolayovitch, wore bitter enemies of the Court soothsayer on general grounds of dignity and seemliness. Thus the "pre phes" gradually came to symbolise the crimes, real and imaginary, of the Court and bureaucracy, and all the drawbacks come the happy hunting "ground of the of the regime. His licentiousness, cloak. parasites. The war has exposed no social ed with "religion" and bracketed with ulcer mors malignant than the ram- the like practices of a numerons sect in pant petting and spoiling of the titular Gorman nobility in English-speaking the Tsardom, was known to the people countries in the days of peace. Has not and was never seriously denied by Ras the German Crown Prince before and putin Himself. Nor was it a secret that the

Court furnished 榧 number ..of "sisters" to his “spiritual community

even since the war boasted of his many friends in England and of his conviction

that Losy would stali ne his after all-was

But what many affected to disbelieve, over!

although equally true, was that from these excesses the Tsaritsa herself stood far and steadfastly aloof, and that motherly love, affection for her husband, and religious madness wore the points on which her ill-considered actions hing ad.

TARON, RENOUNCED.

concessions to the reasonable demands of

German

Ho is my Prince' was the jealous member of our diplomatic service, who boast some years ago of the wite of a had made the acquaintanos of

Tho Princely ponentity, in Switzerland. extent to which we pampered German counts, barons, and princes can only be realized after special study. To be ap pointed to the German Embassy. 14 London was the beginning and end of an ambition, openly encouraged by the. A like twist in his mental mechanian Emperor, tase of marrying an English and equally trivial aims in his home and woman with money, Thorn was a flag: rant case in which 2 German baron foreign policy wrecked the fortunes and gained the affections of a "rich London the life of Alexandra Feodorovna's tradesman's daughter; the girl's father faithful husband, who, devoid of a trace

was ostentatiously received by the En- of kingcraft, deluded himself into the Assessoren

An unatricial cohort of young peror.

and Referendare," belief that he was the potent personality" noble and truculent corps students. chosen by the Eternal to give light and would spend their holiday in London bringing a sheaf of family introductions Even leading to the bulk of human kind. It with the same object in view. was for the babyish Alexis, half dis. Rhodes's generous provision for Germa

was by bis scholars, the nomination of whom he left to the German Emperor, who selected the qualified though he now

the mysterious malady, that the Taar refused, candidates from same aggressive The series of sordid transactions with with petulant obstinacy, to make any class of students, was also a sinister in- which the names of Rasputin and the

fluence. Court are associated had the well-being the Russian thinking and articulate easy-going acceptance of German" titles The social possibilities offered by our reasoning whims of its babyish inmate physical and spiritual, of Alexis for their classes for political and social reform at their face value encouraged their In Nicholas's household the children were mainspring. No evidence has as yet been Having, in a moment of weakness and holders to make regular razziale on our allowed a much greater degree of freedom adduced for any more blameworthy that is usual in ordinary families. Cor motive. The Tsaritsa's beloved child was weariness Fielded to "Witte and the shores. The young German baran who rection was eliminated from the educa- the human link that connected the in- Grand Duke Nikolai Nikolayevitch, had got into trouble at the university tion then it had to consist airly of clean boing who claimed and received remainder of his life in making amenda hunting in Devonshire, marry an English tional methods, except by word of mouth, sanely affectionate mother with the un-crested the Dumb and divested himself or over his examination, for the Army of his autocratic powers, he spent the would come to England and take to suasion and gentle exhortation. Hsome of the traditional. privileges of

for this lamentable step, as he was Literally existed for him, made themselves as a prophet fuck played a part as large those prerogatives bit by bit, under only by rare exception a wealthy man, parents were constantly with him; they saintship. In Rasputin's amazing career brought to term it, by pilfering back girl, and play quite a social gure among the unsophisticated." The German count, his assistant nurses and menials, and A canning, and several of his guesses at

various pretexts and with the help of would transfer his Penates to Leicester- when stern circumstance compelled them the future were literally fulfilled by. to separate themselves from him mo

Death-hire, together with horses, dogs, and events. In this respect he was more specially selected Ministers

Elsewhere, another would mentarily, he remained still uppermost favoured than Father John of Cron-caprice, and other causes having deprived stable boys. in their thoughts, and their thoughts stadt, who in my hearing at Yalto, in the him of the counsel and assistance of men become, master of hounds, a patron of shaped themselves on their lips almost Crimea, pablicly foretold the recovery of of insight and determination, like Witte, charity, governor of Ecspitals, high automatically at unseasonable times. It Alexander, III, and then blamed his Durnovo, Akimoff, he had recourse to the was thus that the happy father, still the bearer lack of faith for the monarch's dregs of the political world, whose folly sheriff, and M.P.for a slum constitu- absolute master of 170,000,000 people and death, which came to pass about ten days drove all Russia into the opposition camp ruler of one-sixth of the globe, dropped later. Rasputin actually ventured to strangely irrelevant remarks about the contradict the deliberate judgment of the great weight of the baby boy in the luminaries of the Europena medical middle of a conversation with Admiral world and to promise what they hart de Roshdjestvensky, who was then setting elared impossible. And the Tsaritsa, cut to overtake destiny in the remote who with unreasoning submissiveness put Pacific. During the most terrible. crisis implicit trust in his words and carried through which the Tsardom had ever get out his instructions with scrupulous passed the monarch to whom the may exactitude, saw her faith rewarded and Fity of human kind still looked up with his assurances come true. hope and his own subjects with awe was won! to steal away from affairs of State and spend hours in the nursery, lovingly superintending the bathing or the toilet.. of his boy, or deadling him fondly in his

arms.

CHILDISE" TRAITS.

moral fibre of this little rince.

LONO ILLNESS,

and isolated the Tsar and his courtiers,

Over and over again the danger was pointed to him, but no warnings moved him, no symptoms alarmed him.

MYSTERY OF THE END.

ency.

A SERIOUS BLUNDER. *Yet while good-natured hostesses in

England were entertaining the counts and the barons and encouraging their matrimonial advances to their daughters, Only after having been forced to re sometimes without due inquiry into their nounce the throne in favour of his darl- antecedents, in New York, a well-to-do ing son would be seem to have partly restaurant keeper was specializing in realised what this tremendous change in German ex-officer, barons to recruit his He then foresaw the painful staff of walters, and a vastrel member volved, separation between himself and the beings of Pomeranian Janker family was with whom he had lived so long in union washing dishes in an American hotel, not and love, and he may have recalled to having yet become a full-fledged waiter. Alexis, whose buoyancy and love of

mind the tears and prayers of the little violent exercite were out of all propor- Persian prince who, compelled by Russia of this petty nobility. We paid defer- Frankly, we misunderstood the status: tion to his physical powers as limited by and Britain a few years before to ascendence to the baron, not only from inherent a strange malady, jumped from a height the throse in lieu of his father whom they snobbery, but from a misconception of one day in order to vie with some sailors banished, refused to accept the crown, the position of the titular nobility i who were amusing themselves in that asked to be allowed to go into exile with Germany itself, when, divorced from Hardly ever did pain untune the meloway, and the shock caused the blood to

his parent, and yielded only to force military or other, official status, albeit dious voice or contradiction banden tae burst one of the overstrained vessels. The On reflection Nicholas IL renounced the the German Emperor, by his proclama

He was illness that followed was long and dan-throne of Russia not only for himself, tion of surface values, has done his best, patiently waited on by crowned neaus gerous, and the boy was crippled while but also for his "aon-an act which, to obscure this fundamental fact. Years and ostentatiously benoured by tae it lasted. He had to lie in bed for a lung eminent lawyers hold, exceeded. bis ago Paul de Lagarde, a keen observer of tatanic soldiers standing sentry at the period and then to be carried in arms.

powera But the reparation came not politics and society, declared that, bar- doora The military salutes of these were His parents were inconsolable, for it withstanding, and in a form more pain ring the reigning princely families, the source of intense delight to the child, looked as though their cherished hopeful than the Tsar had imagined. The nobility, as such, counted for very little hose innocent vanity they fostered. were doomed to definite disappointment boy was wrested from his father and in German life, and that little only in Discovering that his mere passing out or The high priests of medicine having mother, humiliated and maltreated wan-

a social sense; in higher domains not at in at the palace portals suheed to make diagnosed the cause of the symptoms Pre only and atrociously, as is the manner all. Nietzsche is even more explicit in ine great guardsaen there go througa seribed a list of measures for the allevia of the Bolsheviks, who in countless other saying that the German nobility is an- all the movements of a military salute, ne tion of its effects, the most indispensable cases tortured their victims to death with tirely absent from the records of German was wont to yield frequently to the being his removal to a milder climate, every refinement of cruelty.

civilization. A hundred years ago Frei- temptation, would cunningly contrive to where constant medical care would be

herr von Stein-seriously proposed to slip away from his attendants, and then, available. In Russia and at Court, they straightening his little body, raising his explained, there was little hope of his The Graad Juke Alexis succumbed abolish the small titular nobility root head, and aping the carriage and gait ever throwing off the exhausting effects to exposure," runs the official announce and branch, as a caste unsuited to the of veteran generals, he would cast of the attack This judgment came like ment they made. The imagination re spirit of the times.

Some time ago a distinguished English sweet-stern glance at the soldiers, walk a death sentence to the Tsaritsa, for it fuses to conjure up a realistic picture past with a graceful attempt at statali entailed a long separation from the child of the boy's end. Why exposure? Was officer complained that it was hard that ness and then return, watching eagerly whom she worshipped or else from the he not in the safe keeping of men who the only German of "high rank" among the while for the expected effect. The husband to whom she was tenderly at- had it in their power to requisition the interned (an impecunious baron, who' little Princo continued his amusement sptached, and the cruel necessity of chocs houses, monasteries, manors, and palaces, was living on his rich English wife's long that the Emperor at last, gave an ing betwech. these two alternatives as well as food of all kinds, for their money) was a great admirer of England, order to the guardsmen that the boy when plunged her into the depths of distress. prisoners and themselves? To keep the with sentiments above suspicion. But a unattended was to be allowed pass It was then that Rasputin came to the delicate child from hardships was for man of that type, without occupation or without military recognition. This was lady's relief, and bade her believe in his them an easy task; but to refrain from in-official position, and not a landed pro one of Alexis's greatest griefs during the God-given assurance that the boy need flicting indignity and physical pain upon prietor, cannot be said to hold high rank first and happy period of his briet exist- not go abroad, but would recover under a helpless being who had once been on a in his own country, Outside the chances ence. Later on he derived vast pleasure her own eye and his at home. It needed high pinnacle proved more than their of the matrimonial market no lucrative from giving orders to soldiers about the a high degree of resolve, or of weakness, gross natures could accomplish. It is profession is open to the German baron palace, feeling that he, too, could in that to turn from the men of science to the humiliating to reflect that it was resorted at home; at most be can become an in way press some of the levers that moved unkempt healer and seer. But Alexandra to in the twentieth century by people who surance tout, or something in a resing huge organisms.

Feodorovna possessed it, believed Ras" abolished" capital punishment, massa-stable The more sharp-witted of them Affection for his father and mother natin, sud saw her faith justined. The ered their countrymen by the thousand, have long perceived the tendency of the spontaneous and tender, was tempered boy regained his health to the fullest and now claim to be treated as the times, and are little inclined to be over with an unmistakable wilfulness, half extent possible to one afflicted by that founders of a millennium of peace and taken by the deluge which they fool to be inevitable. A young prince has been playful, half-rebellious, which amused malady, and became as strong and hals humanity and general prosperity.

known to attend a commercial academy Father than disquieted the parenta, who is before it first revealed itself. Can In this horrible way the son and heir, in Cologne in order to qualify as a bank contemplated with joy the gradual build it be wondered at that a soul instinct as once fervently desired before his birthülerk. So uncompromising are the de ing up of his soul abode. As might be was here with a burning desire for the

so tenderly cared for in his family, and mands of efficiency, even where high rank anticipated of one reared and taught in spiritually absolute and a mind steeped so anxiously considered in home and is concerned, that semi-royal rank-bas the magical atmosphere of Nicholas in medieval mysticism should look upon foreign politics, the preservation of been insufficient to secure an appoint family, the boy yielded himself readily to Hasputin as a worker of miracles? And whose inheritance was the alpha and meat of simple lieutenant in the German religious and pecudo-religions impres if ever her mind was overcast with the omega of the Government's policy, was Navy. sions, especially during his long speli of shadow of doubt, thir was promptly die undone by dint of the very efforts put The German Americanized Press was illness, when he came into frequent compelled by further concrete proofs of his forth to uphold his rights and preroga keenly alive to the exploitation of our

human Yesterday 170,000,000 tact with Rasputin, and received surcase marvellous powers, which she at any tives.

social softness. One enterprising Ger of racking, pain mainly from practices rate, could not class as natural. Her beings were ready to do his bidding man, newspaper had a neurotie, degene

frequent headaches, for example, would vanish after a few passes, of his hand Today it is hard; perhaps impossible, to rate and a convicted murderer, as its regalar correspondent in London for Find the inheritance of this poor years, simply because he was a barom

Inbelled religious,

One of the last scenes of his boyish wilfulness was enacted in the palace of Taarakoye Belo, whither General Sir Arthur Paget carried the Marshal's baton to Alexis's father. While the General and his adjutant, the Earl of Pembroke, were conversing with the Tsar in the hall the little Grand Duks seized the general's hat, clapped it on the head of one of the marble statues, and laughed land and heartily at the odd effect, so heartily that the elders desisted from their serious deliberations and involun- tarily joined in. The general impression Produced by the boy on these delegates was most favourable.

..ta

child

"

His London colleagues knew all about his antecedents and pestilential activi tica,Yet, once at least he was privileged guest at a great man's table, and sat next to a peer of the realza.

It is to be hoped that the war will put an end to all such foreign parasitism.

over her forehead, and the wildest brain- storms abate at his bidding. The boy, toos who was subject to bleeding of the nose, was always instanteously relieved His little kingdom of a forced grave."

And nothing can give us a truer mensure by the magic touch of Rasputin's hand.

These catablished facts, and other of the degree to which the war has called more sensational; being bruited abroad, our sensibility than the commonplace and spiced with falsehoods, the stareta, ejaculations with which the news of the gradually became a sort of Turk's death of Tear and Trevitch, whose long head for the missiles of all political agony made such piteous appeal to kind If any class of men in the whole world parties who were in opposition to the red and friends, was impassively com retrogressive Governments appointed by the Tanr. By attacking Rasputin, they could deal stunning blows at the Court win approval of the people, and even set

has reason to curso the war and its Im mented upon in England even by persons perial instigator it is the German whose heartiest sympathies would natur parasite nobility, which enjoyed such ally in ordinary times have gone out to a heyday in social Londen, Washington,

and New York, them both Daily Telegraph.