The aegis & intelligencer. [volume] (Bel Air, Md.) 1864-1923, 1864-03-18
Wealth Of the Duke Of Brunswick.

leessity man hes under to- pursne seine
avocation is TO- be- found than the Duke Of
Brunswick ofera 10 ! his person. He is
moro THAI wealthy.I1 His revenues are
those. ofita State rather, than thoses of a
mans You know be- for some years
the sovereign of the Duehy of brunswick.
He was forced to abdicate after the French
Revelation Of 1880, whose waves extend
ed even across the Rhine He did not
leave Without taking great treasures away
with him6tthe people gave their consent,
for theysthought that to be rid of him at
any price was to be rid of hin cheap
Ills whole life there was scandalous. He
was greedy of. gold. He was ENORMOUSLY
deceiycrof women. He spent the FIRST
yearsSf hisiexile's life in gipseyipg over
Europe, pitching Of preference bis tent
there where cellar and larder and kitchen
were best, and feminine morals laxest-
He soon grew tired of this life, feeling
the fullness Of safety. His hours seemed
weighed down With lead. Each day was
% century His tastes were altogether
urban, therefore be could not amuse him
self with agriculture, or with horses or
with hounds Continental people have no
taste of country life. Rural sights are
tame, rural sounds monotonous to them,
except at opera comique, where, amid
painted canvass trees, Nemorin and Es-
telle sing the amorous ditties of Mons.
Florian. But do something he must, or
die of sheer fatigue of doing nothing
So this duke of royal and imperial blood,
whose family genealogy goes beyond the
Crusades, whose ancestors stand as giant
figures in the earliest dawn of modern Eu-
rope, this lord of millions Of dollars turned
diamond merchant! He visited the
great diamond marts of Europe, he search
ed all their shops, he studied the history
of the diamond, and the history Of every
diamond of reputation; be for long time
contemplated making voyage to Brazil
to visit the diamond mines in fine, he
labored as assiduously as if he had been
born of Israel. He came to be the great
authority in diamonds, whose decision all
Jewry bowed to. G.Ie al,
He then began to collect diamonds, not
for sale-7-thongh he is not .averse from
traffic in them--but for amusement. The
diamond merchant became pluralist, by
suporadding to this Office the calling Of a
Waterman. Half his life was spent in
collecting diamonds, the other half in pro-
tecting them from thieves. He exerted
ingenuity in building his house sufficient
to have solved the most arduous problem
Of mathematics applied to mechanics
He endued stone and mortar and iron
with something like sensibility and intel
ligence, so sensitive did he make them to
any the least violent approach.
His house was as full of mysteries as
the famed palace of the Sicilian tyrant,
Dionysius. An hundred eyes, which nei-
ther gold could corrupt nor lead intimi-
date, kept watch over his treasures. An
hundred telltale bells were by day aud
night ready to inform on any mental who
might SO much as look at the dragons. Let
all school-boys marvel at the dragons which
guarded Hesperides-Bunson's elements
are much more efficient watchmen !! His
bed-chamber was not only burglar, it was
bomb-proof. The windows were Of iron.
The shutters were thick as the sides of
the armor-plated Warrior. The beams
and rafters were of iron. The floor itself
was but a thin wooden "skin' to solid
plates Of iron. The walls were Of iron,
and in one of them an immense iron chest
was placed, where the diamonds were kept.
There were arch secrets about every lock
mysterious passwords which must be
known, and known exactly, neithera let
ter more nor letter less, before the key
could gain admittance Or the bolt be taught
obedience. The room had as many nerves
as lady subject to the vapors-imper-
ceptible iron wires hidden under the car
pet, or in the bell ropes or behind the eur
tains, which upon the entrance of unin-
yited feet, would thrill with the electric
fluid, until the whole house was aroused
and the impudent fellow was extruded.
The master himself wore an iron collar
around his neck, to which was riyeted and
dcuble-riveted an iron chain stoutly bolted
to thick bar of the iron chest--which
collar and chain he wore everywhere he
went !; to the Tuilleries and to the Grand
Opera, to the bower of beauty and to the
balls of fashionable society; and which
chain possessed the power Of contracting
with every hour after dark he passed from
home, until during the hours after mid
night it would be so short he could not
but return home ---for were the master alb
sent what security was there that the SER
wants would heed the warnings Of bells
and battery? -4
One night he did not heed the contrac-
tion of the chain; he was in beauty's
boudoir; one--two-three.,-o' clock we're
struck by the clock. He seized his hat
hastily; he leaped into his brougham--go
fast, driver Too late, my Lord Dukeil
The diamonds are scattered over the floor.
The safe yawns wide with astonishment.
But the. newspapers bave told you the
story of the robbery, and how Shaw was
arrested at Boulogne with all the dia-
monds in his pocket, and how some women
haI L. G. - Il. L