Arizona republican., 1899-12-29
FOREIGN NOTES
 AND COMMENT

Some time ago I published para graph in these letters to the effect that i Prince Luigi of Italy. the explorer, and nephew of King Humbert. had reached Cape Flora on his expedition to the north pole, upon which he hopes to plant the Italian flag. If I call atten- tion to the fact it is because the cable dispatches from Europe recently an- l nounced his arrival at that point. likewise related how his ship, the Polar Star, had narrowly escaped annihila- tion by a huge iceberg, while at anchor off Cape Flora, and added that the let ters from thence contained several flowers found in those arctic regions. and which have proved to be identical with the flowers of the same kind that grow in some of the most elevated re- gions of the Italian Alps.
 Private letters from Italy now enable me to give still later news from the young prince, from whom correspond ence has been received bearing the date of the middle of August, and announc- ing that at that time he had reached the S1st degree of northern latitude. The tactics pursued by the prince are 1 channel in the ice and to proceed as far as possible in a northerly direction. When the channel is found to be blocked by newly formed ice, he steams backward for a sufficient distance to enable the vessel to obtain a good start, and then ordering full steam ahead, drives his ship against the ice with such velocity that the brow rises above the level of the ice and breaks it in with it's weight. The letters re- ceived by the princes royal relatives likewise state that it is only the robust construction of the good ship Polar Star that has prevented it from being ere this crushed by the ice foes, which, on some occasions, have assailed it from every side "as though driven against it by some internal force"
 No prince of the blood has ever yet been SO far north: in fact, no scion of royalty has ever set forth on so hazard ous an expedition, and that is why it appears to me that more than ordinary interest attaches to the undertaking of this enterprising member of the ancient and ilIustrious family of Savoy. If a few weeks hence the cable dispatches from Europe announce that the prince has reached the S1st degree of northern latitude. I beg my readers to recall the fact that they have already received the news thereof in these letters.
 
 The state legislature of Coburg has just been the scene of a somewhat painful discussion upon a subject which I have already once before all luded to in these columns. At the time of the sudden departure of the duchess of Coburg for Russia l described the very strained relations which had ex isted between herself and her British relatives since the tragic and self in flicted death of her only son. She had bitterly resented at the time the ab sence of sympathy. manifested official ly as well as privately, by her mother in-law, Queen Victoria, and by her other English kinfolk, failing to realize that it was not to be expected that the aged English sovereign should manifest the same degree of grief as she of her favorite grandson, the bIameless young duke of Clarence, for q prince such as as Alfred of Coburg, whose suicide was the climax of number of sad scan