The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-05-16
RoANTIc BALKANS.
Uniformed Nations and Crawling
 Peoples.

SSRASSs
 Boston Transcript.
 The files of The London Times for quarter century back will show a larger aggregate space devoted to the Balkan States than to any other foreign nation. Switzerland or Holland, for example. is as populous as any of the Balkan States, and vet to match one five-line dispatch from Berne you will find five columns of coups d'etat ministerial crises. asasssifla- tions, suspended constitutions and polit- ical intrigue from Sofia, Bucharest ana Belgrade. This argues that if State Is tranquil 1t might be happy. tor, as the French put it, "Heureux ceux qui mont pas d'histoire,") d but the world won't hear a great deal about 1t. And yet It Is un- fair to say hat these little principahties are of evil repute. When somewhat primitive and childlike people, unused for five centuries to political organization or any kind. Is given a brand-new made in Germany" constitution, it is not strange if their frolics with the new and delightful toy causes the rect of the world to gaze open-eyed.
 When Anthony Hope wrote "rhe Prfs- oner of Zenda," and George Bernard Shaw wrote Arms and the Man" they set the vogue for several seasons of romantic auachronistic fiction in which mediaeval princes and their mediaeval courtiers, with mediaeval conceptions of love ana war and manners, dwelling in courts or the middle ages pattern, shoot each other with the latest improved Springfield re- volver. send challenges by telegraph and 20 riding on bicycles. Without excep- ton these novelists have fixed their scenes in Southeastern Europe. In the mountains south of the Danube. Tney seem to have felt that if these curious things don't actually happen, yet they might have happened in that lana or pet- ty municipalities. One Is tempted 10 say they Are right. The Anthony Hope scnooi of novelists might have confined them selves to literal history-they would have been just as interesting. What could Dc more dramatic than a young lieutenant of Hussars In the German army getting leave of absence for a few weeks, going to Paris and donning disguise in the ac- cepted D'Artagnan manner, taxing train incognito for Bucharest and suc- cessfully seating himself on the throne 7
 What could be more romantic than the same Kings rapid wooing and winning of Carmen Sylva; or more opera poune than the King of Servia's official declara- ton that the calendar was mistaken when it said he was only seventeen. he was really twenty-One, rex ulAlt, dHn' IlASAS fore. the regents must hand in their res tgnations; or the same Kings forbiddlnB his angry father to cross the fronuer into his own country, or the Kidnapping of the reigning Prince of Bulgaria or the Prince of Montenegro's building forge by the palace and shoeing the nrsl horse himself in order to overcome HIS subjects prejudice and inaugurate the business of farriery in his kingdom. Some ono has said that the thing which makes fife endurable to the young cadets of mo- bla families who hold subaltern commis- sions in the German army is the excit- ing chance that some day they may be ,,Irited bv A committee from the Parlia- ment of a Balkan principaiity. who are looking for some young fellow with a touch of the purple in blood and manner to come and wear a crown. The invita- ton must appeal to young man with any spirit of adventure in him. Dying in bed is as rare with Balkan Kings as with the adventurers of the early West. who made 1t a point of honor to die with their boots on." The last Prince of Mon tenegro, Prince Michael of Servia, and the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, were Tnur- dered; the last Queen of Servia was exiled by her husband, the King, and he in turn was banished by his son.
 The political unrest in the independent Balkan States, the rapid and unstable succession of constitutions, ministries and Kings is the result of many causes; and the chief cause lies not in those States but in their powerful protectors. They are, to a certain extent, the vic