M. Petkoff, the Prime Minister of Bulgaria, was shot dead
on Monday afternoon in the outskirts of Sofia, shortly after leaving the Sobranye. The assassin had recently been dismissed from the Agricultural Bank, in which he held a minor post, and his action is ascribed to personal grievance rather than political motives. M. Petkoff, who has shared the fate of three of his friends and colleagues—Stamboloff, Beltcheff, and Vulkovitch—was only fifty years of age. As a young man he fought as a volunteer with Stamboloff in the Russo-Turkish War, where he lost an arm. He subsequently did good work as Mayor of Sofia, became President of the Sobranye, and entering Stamboloff's Administration, was with his chief at the time of his assassination and was wounded by the murderers. Returning to office in 1903 as Minister of the Interior, he succeeded General Petroff as Premier last autumn. Trained in the school of Stamboloff, hi. Petkoff was generally admitted to be the strongest and ablest of his successors, and in the present unsettled condition of the Balkans his death is a serious blow to his country.
