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Show FORMER EMPRESS OF ABYSSINIA BIES LONDON, Feb. 28 (Mail.) Tai-Tou, Tai-Tou, Dowager Empress of Abyssinia, died on February 11, at Addis Abeba. Tho empress who was a Widow for tho fourth time when in 1S83, at tho age of 30, she married Menelik, then simply King of Shoa, was a woman of great force of character. A princess of Tlgre, she was of very fair complexion and had remarkably small hands and feet In her youth ihe was celebrated for her beauty. From the first, as be-camo be-camo a daughter of tho King of Gon-dar, Gon-dar, sho took an active part in tho troublous politics of Abyssinia, and was concerned In all tho civil wars and intrigues which ended in the raising of Menelik to whom sho bore no chil- dren to tho position of Negus-Negus-tl (Emperor) in 18S9. At Adowa, where tho Italians suffered a crushing reverse, re-verse, sho accompanied Menelik to the battle headquarters and put her own hereditary troops in tho field. During Menelik's long illness she practically governed tho country and kept it from internal disorders. On Menelik's death at Christmas, 1913, his grandson Lldj Jeassu, a youth 18, became Emperor, but tho young ruler failed to maintain order, and largely on Tal-Tou's Initiative he was deposed in September, 1916, and his aunt Zeodita, Menelik's older daughter, daugh-ter, was proclaimed empress. |