The San Francisco call., 1897-05-30

and prohta bic market for Belgian manu-
factures.
At the present time there is no court in
Europe where the rules for mourning are
so onerous as that of Russia, and when
either an Emperor or Empress there dies
all Muscovite officials AM dignities above
a certain rank are compelled not only 10
array themselves and their families in
habiliments of woe, but also to cloths their
servants in deep m burning, to have their
carriages upholstered in black and to have
the coats of arms, crests and monograms
removed from the panels of their equi-
pages, while one of the salons of the resi-
dence must be draped completely in black
CLOTH with the furniture upholstered in
black. Moreover, all the gold and silver
embroideries on the uniform of the off,
GERS and Off ials has to be carefully COW
cred with Grape. This is terrible ex-
pense, since the slightest drop OF rain or
snow has the effect of taking the dye out
Of the Grape and damaging the en- broidery
beyond repair. Many of these uniforms
cost as much as $500. and ordinarily the
pay attached to the offices of those enti-
tied to wear them is not so big as to admit
OF their spelling many of such uniforms.
Until . few years ago it was rule at
the courts of Europe that no mourning
should be donned by royalty, or should
be officially decreed for wear at court,
save in the cases OF the deaths of full
fedged Princes and Princesses of the
blood. 1t did not matter if a sove reign
or . royal parsonage had some morgan
attic relation, either in the shape of wife
n nf a nd infi 70
friend of meraly NOBLE or plebe ian rank,
whose departure for another world con-
stituted nothing less than bereavement,
and an irrsparable loss. They were not
supposed to assume mourning in such in
stances as these, no matter how heart
broken they might be. Queen Victoria,
however, may be said to have inaugurated
now era i'll this particular. For she took
tho unprecedented step of decreeing official
mourning for Princess Julia of Batten-
berg, the plebeian born and morganatic
wife, or rather wido " of Prince Alexander
of Hesse, lady who on the Con ntinent
was not even considered as "hoffechig,"
that is to say qualified for presentation at
court. Queen Victoria's action gave rise
to no end of discussion. For in decreeing
court mourning for the Princess Batten-
berg, she practically com PEELED all the
foreign AMBASSADORS and ENJOYS accred-
tied to her court to pay tho same tribute
of respect to the dead lady. and there
were many OF the Continental sovereiens,
notably Emperor William OF Germany,
King Christian of Denmark and Emperor
Francis Joseph of Austria, who did not at
all relish the idea of their EN- ba.sadors
putting themselves into mourning for so
Insignificant a person as the morganatic
relict of mere Serene Highness such as
Prince Alexander of Hesse. indeed,
vast deal of very acrimonious diplomatic
correspondence ensued In consequence
thereof between the Foreign Offices of
Vienna, Berlin and Copenhagen, and that
of Great Britain.
IA conclusion let me state there is one
point of analogy between the courts of the
Orient and those of the civilized Occident
in connection with the death of royal per-
sonages. It is the sort of grim comedy
which provides that a royal parsonage
shall be regarded as alive until the obse-
quies are actually celebrated. As far as
Europe is concerned it is an etiquette
which belongs to by-gone age and which
should find no place in our present en-
lightened era, since it savors of something
akin to mockery and cannot but be most
painful to those near and dear relatives
who have bean bereavsd. Thus just before