NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE German Emperor is said to have asked the Russian Emperor to agree to a European conference on the possi- bility of Disarmament, and to have been refused. That may be true or untrue, but a curious incident reveals the tenacity with which the Czar holds his ideas. On Wednes- day the Grand Duke of Hesse married a daughter of the Duke of Coburg (Prince Alfred), who is also a Grand Duchess of Russia, and in actual though distant succession to the Russian Throne. It was, of course, a grand fête-day for Guelphs and Hohenzollerns and Coburgs ; but it was found impossible to allow Prince Ferdinand of Bulgaria to attend the festivities. He is a Coburg, but the Russian Emperor regards him as all the more an usurper in Bulgaria, and to have invited him would have excluded every Russian, the mother of the bride possibly included. The wedding was only a ceremonial, say the Radicals, and they say true, but when a Sovereign in command of a million of soldiers boycotts -a neighbouring Sovereign, the incident is by no means unim- portant. It will, for one thing, wake up the whole pro-Russian party in Bulgaria.
