The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-28
SCRAP BOOK FOR TO-DAY

aged monarch of the Serbs now hopes l to further rehabilitate his tarnished reputation by writing a,yvolume~of me rnofrs in which he will present to the world his version of the tragedy of a decade ago which placed him on his blood-spattered throne. It was in June, just ten years ago, that King AL | exander, last of the Obrenovttches. and his Queen, Draga, were murdered in the royal palace at Belgrade AL though Peter has shown himself a wise and vaIorous ruler, the circum- 1 stances under which he came to the throne have made him an alien in most of the royal courts of Europe. Inconcetvab1y f1endish and barbaric as was the assassination of the insane | Alexander and wife, twenty years his senior, whom he had raised to his 1 throne, the crime was not without ex- tenuating features. Alexander, with a madman's lust for blood that was l constantly fired by Queen Draga, reck- 1ess1y ordered wholesale arrests and executions. The last straw was placed on the backs of the suffering Serbs l when Draga's brother, engaged in an ! unspeakabIe traffic, was named heir to the throne. Serv1a had long been rent between two dynasties, the Obre- novitches and the Karageorgevitches Alexander was a scion of the former family, while Peter, the present king, was then an exile in Geneva The l leading statesman and army officers of Servia joined in a conspiracy that ! had regicide for it's object, and sent a committee to Geneva to see Prince Karageorgevitc and offer him the 1 throne, should 1t become vacant Peter accepted. Then followed the l mad night in the palace, when Alex ander and Draga were cut to pieces, and their bodies thrown into thel courtyard Two of Draga's brothers and the Kings principal ministers were also slaughtered, and a whole dynasty was wiped out On the fol- lowing morning, while the dogs of the 1 street sniffed at the bodies of the King ruler of Servia. It has lately been reported that King Peter's health has broken down as a result of the anxieties and' exer- 1 tions of the war, and that he desires to abdicate, but this has since been
 denied. Peter was married thirty years ago to Princess zorka of Mon | tenegro, who died in 1890. He has | two sons and daughter. The eldest George. renounced his rights to the probably be succeeded by his second
 son, who bears the ill-fated name of | Alexander. Peters daughter, Helen,
 married Grand Duke Ivan of Russia | "a marriage that was highly welcome l to the advisers of the Czar. King ESLSr IS Q0SCend6d AdTS50OTS0- vitch a peasant, who led an insurrec- ton against Turkey in 1904, and was prince of Servia until 8 century ago, when he was overthrown by the Obre- novitches.
 The ten years reign of Peter hasI been a comparatively prosperous pe- riod for the Serbs, and they attribute their prosperity, as well as their vic tories in war, to the old monarch. Pe- ter was trained as a soldider, and served gallantly in the French army during the F'ranco-Prussian war. Ael Geneva. he lived a retired, quiet, stu dious life, that was absolutely free | from scandal. In this respect he is a vast improvement over the Obreno- vitches,' for King Milan, predecessor
 and father of the murdered Alexander
 was a coward in battle and a hbertine in peace, who filled his palace with 1 women from the street
 To-day may be said to be the eleventh birthday of the Panama Ca nal, for it was on June 2S, 1902, that the Isthmian Canal Act was approved. | This measure authorized the President of the United States to accept the of- fer of the French Panama Canal Com pany to sell it's abandoned works on the Isthmus. together with all it's
 rights and titles to lands and harbor
 privileges. for 40,0OO,o00. Col. Geo.
 
 ditch between Atlantic and Pacific to the point of completion. will cele- I brate his ffty-1fth birthday to-mor- row. Now that the canal is almost ready to fulfill it's mission, a thousand ques- tions concerning its management and it's possible benefits have come up for discussion. While Atlantic coast cit ies have manifested little interest in
 the great project, the Pacific ports l from San Diego to British Colun bia and Alaska are in a fever of anttcfpa- ton and preparation, and to a, lesser 1 degree the same is true of the cities along the Gulf of Mexico. In the opinion of majority of ex- perts, the West, and especially western Canada, will benefit most from the ca nal It is predicted that a large pro portion of the vast wheat exports of the western Provinces will be shipped by way of Panama, and the Canadian railroads have made elaborate prepa- | rations to handle business over the new route. Timber and mineral ship ments, too, will go by Panama, at a great saving in cost and time of trans portation. Owing to the heat prevail 1 ing in the Panama district, 1t is a11eg- l ed by some investigators that ship | ments of citrus fruits from California to the East and to Europe by way of ] the ditch will be improbable.
 That the canal will be useless, as at present constructed, within fifteen or 1 twenty years, is the prediction of Phil ippe Bunau-Vari11a, who was pronfn- ent in the French company, set forth | in a. book just published under the | title of Panama: Its Creation, De- 1 struction, and Resurrection" The 1 lock system, he declares, will have to be abandoned within two decades, and |. the project transformed at great ex- 1 pense into a sea-1evel canal He se- ] verely criticises Col Goethals and the l other engineers for failing to provide l for a transformation that could be | accomplished without interrupting navigation. The lock system will fail,
 says Bunau-Varilla, for these reasons: First, because the difference be-
 l tween the dimensions of the largest l shins now building and the locks is