Thursday, December 2, 2010

King Boris gets raise

December 2, 1928

King Boris III of Bulgaria has received a raise.  He is the "lowest salaried monarch in the world," even with a 50 percent increase in his salary, according to the Associated Press.   His new allowance is 6,000,000 leva, or about $43,000 a year.  This is the third increase in ten years for "the popular ruler."
Despite the pay increase,  King Boris is a "relatively poor sovereign."  Zog, the new King of the Albanians, "receives six times more what Boris gets," and the young King Michael "receives ten times the stipend of Boris."
Out of his "modest stipend," the King will have more "than half to charity."  He has already donated two months salary "to earthquake suffers among his subjects," and another two months' pay "to the poor so that the might buy fuel for the winter."
His friends "say he has so little money left for himself" that he cannot even consider getting married, and supporting a family.
King Boris has no personal fortune, apart from a $2,000,000 bequest from his grandmother, Princess Clementine of Orleans.  This bequest was "sequestered under the alien property law in London."   King Boris is hopeful that the allied powers, "following the example of the United States with regard to enemy property seized during the World War," will return to him all of his confiscated possessions.

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