The Shah’s Visit to Slocum Podger (II). Judy, or the London Serio-Comic Journal. (18 June 1873): 89. Courtesy of the HathiTrust and the Harvard University Library. [First panel] Click on image to enlarge it.
Our coming visitor, the Shah of Persia, is no doubt a great man, but his domestic arrangements appear to be a great bother to him. What on earth induced him to bring three or four wives with him, no one probably can say. Cases are on record where a man has not lived in a state of unalloyed bliss even with one wife; and it is not to be wondered at that things soon began to go wrong with three or four on hand. It appears that during the Shah's stay in Moscow, his favourite wife wished to go to the theatre, but the Shah would not permit it. On the next evening, after His Majesty's second visit to the ballet and to the ball at the hotel of Prince Dolgorockof, it is said that the ladies were loud in their complaints, probably because, being in Europe, they expected to be allowed in some sort to follow European fashions. However, the Shah determined to send them back, and despite their tears and protestations, he adhered to his determination, so that a few hours before His Majesty left Moscow the ladies were sent off by rail to Rissan, en route for Persia. Whether he went to the ballet, and then sent his wives away, or whether he felt compelled to send them away before he dare go, seems not altogether clear; but this little domestic dilference shows that if the dignity involves having many wives, it isn't such a splendid thing to be a Shah after all. Even he is not secure from in-Shah-hordination — see that?
Created 3 March 2022