The house, and particularly the room where he died, is in the same condition as when he left it. He preferred the rude furniture to the most costly palace of modern times, and he set an example of frugality that has been of no small benefit to his people. They showed us the room where he died, with his cane, his shoes, his fez and other articles, just as they were when his physicians declared that Miloch was no more.
In the same building is the room where his son Michael died in 1868, mortally wounded by the shots of assassins in the park where he was riding. The blood-stains remain upon the floor, the bed and bedding, and also upon the table where he was laid when the physicians examined the wound. The place of the assassination is half a mile or more from the house and is marked by a plain monument.
The story is the old, old tale of princely and kingly murders; an intrigue was set on foot by an aspirant to the throne of Servia, Alexander Karageorgevitch, and was assisted by a scandal which had a woman in the case. Karageorgevitch had ruled in Servia, not once, but twice, and naturally he wanted to be there again. He had many friends in Servia, and up to the time of the assassination his return was not impossible. After the murder of Michael there was a judicial inquiry which declared Karageorgevitch instigator of the assassination, and condemned him to perpetual banishment.
The Prince of Servia at the time I write is Milan Obrenovitch IV., a young man who attained his majority in 1872, and consequently has had little opportunity to make his name famous. He is said to be intelligent, and willing to listen to advice; as his country has a constitution and a Congress—called in Servian Skoupchina—he could not take it far on the road to ruin, supposing he wished to do so. He has made journeys to Paris and Vienna, where he was warmly received, and it was his reception at Vienna that made trouble between Turkey and Austria in 1873, and came near plunging the two nations into war. Turkey wanted to know, you know, why Austria had made so much fuss over the Prince of Servia; Austria said it was none of Turkey’s business; Turkey said it was an unfriendly action; Austria said “you’re another;” Turkey pouted, and Austria actually fished out from the pigeon-holes the passports of the Sultan’s representative at Vienna, and was on the point of sending them to that functionary with a first-class ticket (meals and cabin included, wines extra) to Constantinople, when the affair was smoothed over and war was prevented.
Servia lies between Turkey and Austria, and contains about a thousand geographical square miles. It has a population of about a million and a quarter, and of this population all are Christians, with the exception of less than twenty thousand. The country is agreeably diversified with plain and mountain, and the soil is fertile, though far less productive than it should be. The inhabitants are not very enterprising, and have given little attention to public works; the roads in the interior are not generally good, and up to the present time there are no railways. A change is about to come over Servia’s dream in this respect, as she has determined upon the construction of a line of railway southeasterly from Belgrade to connect with the Turkish railway at the frontier, to form the connecting link between the Austrian and Turkish network of railways. When this is completed there will be a through route from London to Constantinople, and the present long but picturesque line of travel will become unpopular. The practical spirit of the age is playing sad havoc with the poetry of the olden time. There is a story that an old sailor exclaimed as he looked at an ocean steamer, “There’s an end of seamanship.” And he wasn’t so far out of the way. The romance and charm of the sea are knocked on the head by our new-fangled inventions.
Servia adopted a new constitution in 1869, and is now a constitutional, hereditary monarchy. The person of the prince is inviolable, but his ministers are not let off so easily. There are two kinds of legislatures, or skaupchinas, the ordinary and the extraordinary; the former meeting once a year, and the latter summoned under extraordinary circumstances. The members are elected by the people, and the constitution guarantees equality before the law, civil and religious liberty, freedom of the press, and the abolition of confiscation. The religion is principally Greek orthodoxy. Roman Catholics abound, but are not numerous, and there are a few Jews—less than two thousand—who are compelled to live in Belgrade, as the law will not permit them to dwell in the interior. Here is religious liberty with a vengeance! There are a few Mohammedans, but the number is steadily diminishing. Belgrade, at the time of my visit, contained twelve Mohammedans and nineteen mosques, some of the latter in ruins and the rest getting that way—a great deal of bread to a little sack! Giving each mosque a single worshipper there would still be seven mosques like the little lions in the boy’s picture of the prophet Daniel—they wouldn’t get any!
The army contains about five thousand regulars and one hundred thousand militia. The finances are in excellent condition; there is no public debt, and the taxes, light in comparison with those of some European countries, generally bring a revenue in excess of the disbursements. Three cheers for Servia. Hip, hip, hooray!!
All this time I have kept you standing waiting in the Topchidere
Park, while I have been droning along about Servia and her government, for which you don’t care any more than a cat does for existence. Well, let us get out of the park and return to the city, where we will dine comfortably and drink the wine of the country, and the less said about it the better. Wine culture in Servia is in its infancy, and there is no occasion to go into ecstacies about the native products.
While we are at dinner a gentleman tells us of the old style of executions and their contrast with the present. When the Turks ruled here, a man sentenced to execution was thrown down a bank about ten feet high, upon half a dozen spikes that stood upright. If one of the spikes entered a vital part and killed him instantly, or in a few minutes, his friends had reason to thank fortune. Sometimes a victim would be caught in the fleshy part of the arm or leg, and in this case he might be days in dying. No food nor drink could be given to him, but he must lie there and perish of hunger and thirst and the inflammation of the wound caused by the pitiless iron. My informant said that less than ten years ago a victim of the law lay thus for five days before death came to his relief, and for the first forty-eight hours his screams were so loud that they could be heard, especially in the stillness of the night, half over the city of Belgrade.