Northern Weekly Gazette. — 1908-02-22 (Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland, England)

THE PERIL OF KINGS.  "Dom Carlos met with an accident incidental to his profession." In these frankly brutal words a Socialist member of the French Chamber of Deputies summed up the terrible tragedy that occurred in the streets of Lisbon. The cruelty of the phrase need not blind us to the grim truth which it enunciates. It is the part of every European Ruler, whether hereditary or elective, whether "By the Grace of God," or "By the voice of the people," to face not only duty, but hour by hour, and minute by minute, the risk of assassination. It is this sinister fact which in the course of the last twenty years has quadrupled the police force of the Continent and raised the unplca.sant business of spying to the dignity of a profession. In only one country in the world can the Monarch walk abroad among his own people without fear and without precautions. The country is England. The genius of the English race has so nicely balanced our Constitution with fictions that the head of the State is never subject to the dangers which result from the vagaries of popular opinion. No one would seek the life of the Bing of England because of the passing of some law which was repressive.  The maxim that "The King can do no wrong is literally true within the confines of the British Empire. To express our national indignation Britons murder no one, least of all their King. They simply open the floodgates of their wrath upon the devoted head of the Prime Minister, and turn him and the party of which he is the leadei out of office. But on the Continent it is very differ eat.  There the ruler is officially responsible, at any rate in the eyes of his people, for the acts of his Government. If the Govenament acts unwisely he becomes unpopular; if it acts oppressively he is fortunate if he escapes from the throne with his life. And, in every country, there are malcontents who find fault with the Government, and ascribe their own misfortunes to the social system under which they live. To such persons the ruler is the man regarded as responsible, and they will stoop to any methods of intrigue and crime to revenge themselves on his head.  Even in a country where law and order prevail, and justice is dispensed with a firm and moderate hand, the Ruler is not safe. There are always the Anarchists—bitter, fanatical opponents of every known social system which man has evolved. They are ever at work, secretly seeking with dagger and bomb to take the lives of the representatives of the Continental States.  Against them subterranean forces, which strike swiftly and unexpectedly, the Ruler interposes, be. tween himself and a terrible death, sometimes the loyalty of an army, sometimes merely the efficiency of a police force. But he knows that it is impossible In a large body of men to count upon the loyalty of every one of its members. One man may be a traitor, and hie treasonable diaffection opens a gap in the protective system with which the ruler has surrounded himself, through which the stealthy dagger may glide, or the brutal, mangling bomb be thrown.  The Monarchs must know what they have to face. Pl4Olll their earliest youth they are trained for their profession, and taught to realise the penalty of greatness. The wonder is, not that so many rulers have met their deaths by assassination during the last thirty Years, but that the list of Royal tragedies is not longer.  LI-ally the Monarch must face these unparalleled dangers with a smiling face and a calm and collected manner. If he feels terror he must never show it, for the rules of his profession forbid it, and it is inevitable that the Monarch who appears frightened in public will become an object of Popular ridicule. There is a story of a certain. European Monarch whose life had been attempted time after time, and on whose nerves the cruel ordeal under which he had hourly to live had unmistakably told. He was driving down one of the greets of his capital when  By