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Show IS A RADICAL IN POLITICS. Prime Minister Knudsen of Norway Declines Decoration by King Edward. Norway's prime minister, M. Knudsen, Knud-sen, has created what may be described de-scribed as a European sensation by declining to accept the grand cross of the Victorian Order conferred upon him by King Edward on the occasion of his recent visit to the court of Chris-tiania. Chris-tiania. For a prime minister to refuse an honor of this nature from a foreign sovereign paying a state visit to his own ruler is absolutely without precedent prece-dent in the annals of diplomacy. True, sometimes officials of minor rank have declined such distinctions on occasions of this kind, because the grade of the order bestowed upon them was not sufficiently high to accord with their vicao VL lllfll UWI1 1IMJIUJ IclIICt?. HUl Mil such reasons prompted the Norwegian prime minister. If he declined the honor offered to him by King Edward it was. as he explained it, because his radical principles prevented him from accepting any order of knighthood. Not the slightest bit of ribbon or insignia in-signia of any order is ever to be seen on the plain black evening dress which constitutes his official costume at all state and court functions, and in the monarchical countries of continental Europe, where virtually every public man is decorated with one or more orders, or-ders, the appearance thus presented by Premier Knudsen is very marked. Knudsen is an cxtremoly capable statesman, and his advanced radicalism in politics docs not prevent his being, in addition to a trusted constitutional adviser, also a very warm persona! friend of his king and queen, who both honor him for his strength of character. charac-ter. Edward VII was not in the least offended by Knudsen's refustl to accept the Victorian Order, and sent him in the place thereof a handsomely framed portrait, with an extremely compli-1 mentary autograph inscription. rrmce is KeTorming. Prince Frederick Henry of rrussiu. ! eldest son of the late Prince Albert of Prussia, regent of Brunswick, and who i was deprived not long ago by the ! kaiser of his command in the German army, owing to the unsavory scandals in which he had become involved, is evidently turning over a new leaf. For his conversion to the Roman Catholic Cath-olic church is announced, following, it is said, a preparation of several weeks for this change of creed. The emperor will have learned with mingled feelings of his kinsman's action. For, while, on the one hand, he will resent the prince's abandonment of that Lutheran church with which the fortunes of the reigning . house of Prussia are so strongly iden tified, he will, on the other hand, feel relieved by the establishment of any new and efficacious check upon (he tendency of Frederick Henry to disgrace dis-grace his family. Converts are always particularly zealous in religious matters, mat-ters, and it may be that the prince's admission to the Roman Catholic-church Catholic-church means the inauguration of u new and more honorable life. The prince is enormously rich, having inherited not only a third of the colossal col-ossal fortune of his immensely rich father, but also some further millions of dollars through the recent death of his grandfather, the old duke of Saxe-Altenberg. Saxe-Altenberg. He must not be confounded confound-ed with his second brother. Prince Joachim Albert, who lias not only been dropped from the Prussian army, but virtually banished from Prussia on account ac-count of his determination to wed the somewhat notorious Baroness Lieben-berg. Lieben-berg. The prince's father, the late regent re-gent of Brunswick, was a Lutheran of the most bigoted type, and the idea of his first-born becoming a convert to the Catholic church is enough to make him turn in his grave. Other Converts to Catholicism. The conversions of members of the reigning house of Prussia to Roman Catholicism have been few and far be- 1 tween. The only instances, indeed, that I can recall are those of King Otto's mother. Princess Marie of Prussia, who became a convert to Catholicism after her marriage to King Maximilian II of Bavaria, and Princess Anna of Prussia, the widow of the late Land- , grave Frederick of Hesse, and who be came a convert to Roman Catholicism in 1901. The Landgrave's second son. Frederick Charles, is married to the kaiser's sister Margaret, owner of the late Empress Frederick's chateau of Friedrichshof, near Homburg. It used to be asserted that the late Princess Frederick Charles. mother of the duchess of Connaught. and wife of the German commander, to whoni Bazaine surrendered Metz In 1870. had joined the Catholic church, and similar stories were current about Empress Augusta. But nothing was ever definitely known about the matter, and the fact remains that they were attended on their deathbed by Lutheran clergymen and were buried according to Lutheran rites. St. Louis Globe-Democrat. |