Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1886-03-08
misfellare0ns.
Airline Minister'S Harem.
An Ex.GovERNEss OF SIAMEsE PRINCE
EXPOSES THE COURT.

Mrs. Leon Owens, who was the govern
ess of the young Princess of Siam, pub
lished a sketch of the Prime Minister OF
that country as follows: HE was the
actual ruler of that semi-barbarous realm
and the prime contriver Of its arbitrary
policy. Black, but comedy. robust and
VIGOROUS. neck short and thick, nose large
and nostrils wide, eyes inquisitive and
penetrating; his was the MASSIVE BRAIN
proper to an intellect deliberate and sys-
tematic. Well founded in the best idloms
of his native tongue; he expressed strong
and discriminative thought in words at
once accurate and abundant. His only
vanity was his English" She also
sketches his harem.
I'VE discover in the center OF the hall
long line of girls with skins of olive,
creatures who. in years and physical pro-
portions, are vet but children, some 20 in
number, with transparent draperies, with
golden girdles, their arms and bosoms
wholly nude and covered with barbaric
ornaments of gold. Their only garment,
the lower skirt, floating in light folds
about their limbs, is one of very costly
material bordered heavily with gold.
On the ends of their fingers they wear
long nails Of gold, tapering sharpening,
like the claws of bird" She describes
dance in this harem while the Prime
Minister sits stony and grim, his hugh
hands resting on his knees in statuesque
repose. His department to his female
slaves was studiously ungracious and
mean.
Most of the women who composed the
harem of the King, who died in 1878,
were of gentle blood, the fairest of the
daughters of the Siamese mobiles and
princes of the adjacent tributary states
the queen consert was his own half-sis-
ter. Beside many choice Chinese and
Indian girls purchased annually for the
royal harem by agents from Bangkok and
Bengal. enormous sums were offered year
after year at Bangkok and Singapore for
an English woman of beauty and good
parentage to crown the sensual collection.
French women offered themselves for the
harem, but the king would not accept
them. Although religious ceremonies
were held at this court, Mrs. Leon Owens
says:
1.-The king of Siam was more syste-
maticallv educated, and a more capacious
devourer of books and news than perhaps
any man of equal rank in his time. Ir
Unborn integrity and steadfast principle
he had no faith whatever. He sincerely
believed that every man strove to com
pass his own ends, and when sometime
ventured to disabuse his mind of his darl
ing scorn for motive and responsibility
had the modification to discover that hat
helped him to an argument against my
self. 1t was simply my pecuniary interes
to do So Money, money, money. Tha
could procure anything. The love o
children was the constant and hearty vir
tue of this forlorn despot. They appealed
to aim by their beauty and their trustful
ness, they refreshed him with the boil
innocence of their ways. At 8 o'clock h
retired to bis private apartments, whenc
issued Immediately peculiar domestic bul
letins, in which were named the womel
whose presence he particularly desired il
addition to those whose turn it was t
wait that night. His spies penetrate int
every family of wealth and influence
Every citizen suspects and fears Away
his neighbor, sometimes his wife,"