31 AUGUST 1872, Page 3

Prince Milaw Obrenovic on Thursday week assumed the " throne

" of Servia. He is a lad of seventeen, and his very name is scarcely known in Europe ; but he is the fourth of his house who has reigned in Servia as a sovereign, though in one sense dependent, Prince. He is popular with his people, a million and a half of peasant agriculturists whom his grandfather helped to free, and he will be safe enough upon his throne if he is not oppressed by the great Powers. To many observers Servia occupies nearly the position in Turkey which Prussia once held in Germany, the Obrenovic family maintaining a strong, but strictly national army, keeping up strict discipline, and looking very steadily to their own aggrandisement. Whether they have the fortune of the Hohen- zollerns remains to be seen, but they have a difficulty to over- come which has not troubled the Berlin House. They are liable to be assassinated.