The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-04-08
BELGIANS ARE CELEBRATING
 KINGS BIRTHDAY TODAY,


 When old King Leopold was called to his long rest, such mourning as was manifested by the Belgian people was of perfunctory sort, and those who felt that the etiquette of the oc- casion demanded tears were careful to provide themselves with onions. However, one should always speak we'll of the deceased, and so shall only remark, in passing, that Leopold was a dissolute and licentious old slob, and let it go at that. Even SO, he was not so black as he was paint. ed by certain press agents of syndi- cate of capitalists who thought, by arousing the wrath of the civilized world, to gobble up the Belgian Con- go for a song Natives minus arms, legs and other useful members were pictured in the public prints of Eu- rope and America as horrible exam pies of what atrocities were commit ted on the poor blacks of Leopold's s African dominion The implication was that the cruel Belgian soldiers went out each morning and indulged in a little sword practice on the na- tives by way of light exercise to cre- ate an appetite for breakfast. Disin- terested travellers have since declared that the photographs exhibited as proofs of Leopold's atrocities were in reality those of natives who had been mained by lions. The Congo is full of natives who have had sad experi- .ences with the king of beasts. so this explanation has the marks of verisim> iltude.
 the Belgians had hopes of better things from his successor, and they have not been disappointed. Today there was a holiday accompanied by real rejoicing in the little king dom sandwiched in between France and Holland, for Albert I will cele- brate his thirty-seventh birthday. The atmosphere of the Brussels court has changed greatly since Leopold oc- cupied the palace and scandalized the nation by his love affairs and his marriage with the ex-wife of gard> ner.
 King Albert was born April s, 1875, q son of the late Prince Philip, Count of Flanders, who was a brother of Leopold. When he was a youngster it was hardly, expected that he would live to reach nanhood's estate, and there were three lives between him and the throne It was not until he was sixteen that he began to develop into the strong, soldierly six-footer he HOW IS. SuTVlVlnS HIS COuSlN, the Crown Prince, his father and his eld- CT brother, he became heir presump- tive to the Belgian throne, and in 1900 married Princess Elizabeth of Ba- varia The legality of this alliance has been attacked on the ground that Albert failed to ask permission of Parliament, in accordance with tho Belgian law The Kings oldest son, Crown Prince Leopold, is now ten years old, and a handsome and bright boy.
 Although he is personally very pop ular with his subjects, who would have welcomed almost any body after their long experience of Leopold, King Albert has found himself assail- ed by two considerable parties. One faction, upholding the legality of the marriage of Leopold and the janitor's daughter to whom he gave the title of Baroness Vaughan, declares the son of that woman to be the rightful ruler of Belgium. On the other side are the Socialists, now on the verge of control of the Belgian Parliament, who demand the abolition of the mon- archy and the institution of a re- public. In Belgium the powerful So- cialist party is all but supreme, and Albert's throne is already totteripg before their assaults.