Surprises

Bullets were fired last week at:

King Zog of Albania, in Vienna whither he had gone, he had announced, to get himself denicotinized. He was warily emerging from Vienna's opera house (Pagliacci). On his arm was a proud dancing girl, a blonde, called "Baroness" Francisco von Janko, who later explained: "The King has forbidden me to talk about our friendship. But I can say he has been extraordinarily kind to me. He is wonderful, and a great cavalier. . . ." As they reached the theatre's main exit two lurking Albanian youths popped nine pistol shots at the King. They killed King Zog's adjutant Mayor Lash Topolai and dangerously wounded his court chamberlain Ekrem Libohova. King & "Baroness" were unharmed, having dodged back into the opera house.*

Dr. Wilhelm Kuelz, former German Minister of Interior, in the main lobby of the Reichstag. He grappled, disarmed the lunatic.

A hatchet last week split the skull of:

Croatian Patriot & Savant Milan Sufflay as he walked down a street in Zagreb, Jugoslavia. He died in 48 hours.

Mud halted for some time last week "the British Speed King," Capt. Sir (knighted by George V last week) Malcolm Campbell. Impatiently Sir Malcolm paced the deck of "Britain's fastest ship," the Mauretania, until tugs tugged her off British mud flats, permitted her to reach Southampton.

Blood, according to despatches from Sofia, has flowed so freely in the Macedonian mountains for the past three years that last week a feud between the Protogueroffists and the Michailoffists was happily called off--the Protogueroffists being "virtually extinct" and their few survivors disposed to keep the peace pact.

Kisses were showered by Prime Minister Benito Mussolini in a pouring rain upon both cheeks of Air Minister Italo Balbo, as much a hero to Rome last week on his return from flying the South Atlantic as was Sir Malcolm Campbell in London.

*Not an hereditary monarch but a President who made himself King, Zog I is not, like almost all hereditary royalties, more afraid to run than to stand.

Authentic royalties are trained up to be most afraid of jeopardizing the Throne by a public act which the people will call "cowardly." The fearless-flying Prince of Wales is a case in point. Another: Crown Prince Umberto of Italy who stood like a statue after the shot fired at him in Belgium (TIME, Nov. 4, 1929).

Similarly most kings make it a policy to pardon men for attempting their lives, when they would never think of pardoning them for attempting citizens' lives. The monarch hopes he will be thought "magnanimous," dare not be thought "vengeful."

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