Brother of the Half-Brother

Yellow-garmented Buddhist priests chanted prayers, thumbed beads, whirred carven prayer wheels. They and all Siam, especially Royal Bangkok, mourned the death of a young medical interne at the American Mission Hospital. No ordinary student he, but a superlatively intelligent one, for he came from a superlatively intelligent house and was none other than Somdet Chao Fa (Prince) Mahidol Adulyadej, brother of His Majesty the King of Siam, heir presumptive to the throne of Siam, Harvard graduate, onetime M. I. T. student.

Despite the death of the heir presumptive and the fact that the present King Prajadhipok is without a son as was his older brother King Rama VI, the Siamese throne will not lack for a successor. The late benevolent and fruitful King Rama V of Siam, father of these three, stocked Siam with royalty to come. He is generally credited with 370 children: 236 girls, 134 boys. Of these, ten beside the present King and the Prince who died last week are in succession to the throne.

King, Queen and Princes paused to mourn last week, but not for long. They are workers. Smiling, keen little King Prajadhipok puts all his brothers to work. Between them they divide up nearly all government offices. The prince whose small body was last week anointed for the grave had most efficiently conducted the Siamese Ministry of Health before he took up medical studies. Only recently the king on a visit to princes in northern rural Siam had admonished his relatives as follows:

"In my own family the princes who have no capacity and no ability have nothing to do with the government service. I, therefore, take the opportunity of advising that you who are fortunate to be in this honorable family should in the future try to better yourselves by special qualifications."

And they obeyed, aware that Brother Prajadhipok is, officially, King of Siam, of the North and of the South, and of all the Dependencies, of the Laotians, of the Malays, of the Karens, Descendant of the Great God Buddha, Supreme Arbiter of the Ebb and Flow of the Tide, Brother of the Moon, Half-brother of the Sun, Possessor of the Four and Twenty Golden Umbrellas.