The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1889-02-04
FACTS HARDLY UPHOLD THE THEORY.
Mysteries to which RudoIph's Death
Has Called Attention.
RevIving Old Stories Rejecting on
the German Chancellor.
r he News of the Day In the National
Capital.

WASHINGTON, Feb. 2.-"Seldom has a
more startling coincidence been witnessed"
said an experienced diplomatist today, "than
the almost simultaneous announcement of
the death Of the Austrian heir-apparent and
the publication in the London Contemporary
Review of the remarkable and manifestly
inspired indictment of the Bismarck Dy-
nasty Crown Prince Rudolph's sudden de-
mise in the very heyday of his youth and
manly vigor appears to be shrouded in mys-
terry. The most conflicting accounts are
given Of the manner In which he met his
death, and it Is probable that the world at
large will never be allowed to know the true
story of the tragedy. The latter is but an
other of those dark episodes that have oc-
CURED during the past two decades, and
which have invariably resulted in the death
of great personages who had incurred the
personal enmity of Prince Bismarck, and
whom the Iron Chancellor chose to regard as
menace to his country and to his own
family. No one, not even the most intimate
habitues OF the little house at Vile d'Avrav,
has ever been able to unravel the mystery
which surrounded the death Of Gam
beta, the only man In France be-
caused the Chancellor an uneasy moment
since 1s7l.-Chanzy's sudden decease at Cha
Ions, within a few weeks of that of the pop
ular Tribune. was equally inexplicable and
attended by many suspicious circumstances.
by Chauvinist Frenchmen in connection
herewith The famous Russian General
Skobeleff, who, as friend of Gambetta and
Of Chanzy. had become the bette noire of the
German Chancellor, met with an equally un
expected and mysterious end, which not
his in orah hla M Hitraua
who was with him until within couple
of hours Of his death, has been able to ex-
plain. Who, to this day, has succeeded In
tearing aside the veil which enshrOuds the
last moments of the late King Louis Of Ba-
varia? his corpse aud that of his attendant
physician showed traces of the fact that a
terrible hand-to- hand struggle for life had
taken place on the shore of the Staremberg
Lake But who were the assailiants?
'And now, last of all, we have the death
most intellectual and liberal princes who
have ever figured as heirs-apparent to great
imperial crowns. The theory Of suicide will
obtain but little credence among those who
enjoyed the personal acquaintance of the
None of his friends will ever be brought to
believe that the terrible wound which caused
his death was inflicted by his own hand.
However, as traditional Court etiquette de-
mands that the body shall lie in state in the
great olciaushlrcno III luii view oI the puoilc
and as it is necessary to give some more or
less plausible explanation for the
gaping gun-shot wound which had
shattered the whole of the right side of
the face and skull, tearing away the ear and
scattering the brains, the theory of suicide
will probably accepted as the ''official"
cause of death whicn every one attributes to
a far more mysterious and sanguinary tragedy
1t may be remembered that in the case of
Gambetta the latter was officially declared to
have inflicted on himself the wound which
his friends at the time knew had been in
fiicted by some other hand, while every true
Bavarian to this very day scouts the idea
that the late King Ludwig's dead was due
TO felo de Sc. Suicide is so convenient
theory"