Brighouse & Rastrick Gazette. — 1891-01-24 (Brighouse, West Yorkshire, England)

DEATM OF AN. AMBASSADOR.  A SAD STORY.  The Turkish Anklassador in Vienna, Saadoullah Pasha, died on Sunday morning. On Saturday the Neve Freie Prase aunounced that the deceased diplomatist had attempted to commit .suicide, bu this version met with an emphatic contradiction from the Turkish Embassy. The doctors who attended Saadoullah Pasha certify that he died of paralysis caused by the inhalation of gas. According to the version of suicide the Ambassador, who had been in low spirits for some time, first made an ineffectual attempt to hang himself and then asphyxiated himself by inhaling gas through an india-rubber tube which he had fastened to a gas bracket. That Saadoullah's death was caused by the means just described, saes a Times cerrespandent, is new acknowledged, but it is declared at the Embassy and by the doctors that the Ambassador, having suffered from sleeplessness, and finding no relief in opiates, was induced to try gas from a misapprehension as to its properties. The story that Saadoullah tried to hang himself rests on nothing more than the fact that an ecchymosis was found on his neck, but this is said to have been the scar of an old wound. • Altogether, the doctors assert that while several circumstances point distinctly against the probability of suicide, there is nothing in favour of that version, except the singularity of the deceased's death. It remains true, nevertheless, that Saadoullah Pasha was a very unhappy man. He had the ill-luck to be appointed Secretary to the Sultan Murad, and when Abdul Hamid came to the throne be fell under suspicion, like all the other servants of the deposed monarch. The lowlier of these were scattered right and left by private edicts of banishment, but Murad's confidants, like Mahmoud Pasha and Saadoullah, obtained high posts which obliged them to live abroad. Saadoullah was first sent to Berlin, and in 1883 he was transferred to Vienna. But he could never obtain leave to return to Constantinople and visit his family, who, with the exception of his eldest son; continued to live there. Abaul Hamid has always entertained a fear lest the friends of the insane Murad should plot for the latter's restoration, and, to put the case plainly, Saadoullah's wife and daughters were detained at Constantinople as hostages. Again and again the Ambassador applied for leave to go and see his family or for permission that his wife and children might remove to some place where he could see them, but he only received complimentary letters assuring him that the Sultan set the highest value on his services and had graciously resolved to consider his requests at some future time. Years wore on in this way, and Saadoullah lost all hope. A few days ago he received the news that his daughter was seriously ill, and he made one more imploring appeal for leave to go to Constantinople, if it were only for one day, hut again he was put off with phrases, and this seems to have broken his heart. Whether he died by his own hand or succumbed to accident, his life had become a burden to him when he escaped from it. Saadoullah was a shy. silent man, with a pale face and a nervous, almost convulsive smile. He was able and accomplished, read a great deal, and kept an observant eye on everything that went on around him, hut, suspected himself, he was suspicious of others and never opened his mind. His last appearance in public was at the diplomatic reception given by the Emperor and Empress a few days since. On that occasion he seemed to be in his usual health. He had lately removed to tho Hatzfelt Palace, which stands in a dark, narrow street, and the gloom of it pressed dreadfully on his spirits. His study was adorned with an engraving of Werner's well-known picture of the Berlin Congress, in which Saadoullah himself is portrayed standing at a table with the other Turkish Plenipotentiaries, Mehemed Pasha and Caratheodory Pasha. On the opposite wall hung a proof engraving of the equestrian portrait for which the late Crown. Prince Rudolph sat to the painter Adjukievics, less than a week before his tragical end. Saadoullah spoke a good deal about the water cure of the famous Bavarian clergyman, Father Kneipp, and said that lie had a good mind to go to Wurishofeu and try it on the spot; but in the same breath he declared rather nervously that his only ailment was rheumatism, and, he added with a smile, *fits of the blues" caused by his sunless rooms. Saadoullah came of a great Turkish family, and was a very rich man. His eldest son, Nusrit Bey, was partly educated in Berlin, and is one of the secretaries of the Turkish Embassy.