MAIL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume V, Issue 12, 16 January 1901, Page 2

MAIL NEWS.

CHAMBERLAIN STORIES.

_ London, Nov. 30. The Morning Leader’s latest disclosure that Colonial Secretary Chamberlain is the largest stockholder in the Colombo Commercial Company, which secured all the contracts for erecting huts and hospitals and carrying out the general arrangements in providing for 5000 Boer prisoners at Ceylon, greatly intensifies the unfortunate impression caused by the same paper’s preceding revelations. A demand will undoubtedly be made for a new Parliament Committee of Inquiry into the relations of the Colonial Secretary and the Hon. Austen Chamberlain, now Financial Secretary of the Treasury, with tho companies securing heavy Government contracts. Secretary Joseph Chamberlain treats tha revelations with contempt, but his brothers, not in Parliament, have already given a general retainer to Sir Edward Clarke, the leader of tho English bar, apparently with a view to contemplated libel suits against the newspapers which commented on the Morning Leader’s disclosures. The editor of that paper welcomes tha libel suit, claiming ha printed nothing that tho official company records at Somerset House do not fully substantiate.

v STRANGE MEDICAL CASE. London, Nov. 30. James Thompson, aged thirty-eight years, has been in a trance for over eight months at the ltoyal Infirmary, Newcastle. He merely took to bed, refused nourishment, and was admitted to the infirmary, apparently paralysed. Since then he has been kept alive by liquid nourishment, artificially administered. He never moves, and never displayed tho slightest sign of life except on two occasions, when his eyes, which are open with a perfectly vacant expression, betrayed a faint transient sign of mental consciousness. The case is without precedent in English medical science. The hypothesis of shamming has been disposed of by prolonged tests of every oonceivable kind.

ROUGHS IN LONDON. London, Nov. 30. Organized bands of roughs, chiefly boys, for some time have infested several districts in London. They fight pitched battles, injure and rob unprotected persons, and execute condign vengeance on any of their members suspected of giving information to tho police. Their favorite weapon is a loaded belt, but in many eases they use revolvers. In some parts of the metropolis they have apparently terrorised the police, many of whom have been maimed for life, while several brutal murders have been perpetrated. A demand is now made to increase the police force, arming them with revolvers as well as olubs in certain prescribed areas. WOMEN LAWYERS. Paris, Nov. 30. After ii fierce debate extending over five years the French Senate finally has passed a Bill which long ago passed the Chamber of Deputies—allowing women lawyers to plead in the French courts. The opponents of the “ new woman ” made desperate efforts and splendid saroastio speeches, but the Bill got a small majority. Jeanne Chardin, who had been retained to defend Deroulede in his recent trial for high treason, but who was denied the privilege, will make her first appearance as a pleader next month, when she will defend the wife in a sensational sooiety divorce case. There are only ten other women lawyers in France. COSTLY FOLLY. London, Nov. 30. Queen Victoria has caused it to bn known that she will nevei use the new royal yacht, the Victoria Albert, built at a cost of more than £600,000. The yaoht turned turtle when first floated, but her designer, Sir William White, chief constructor of the navy, now claims that she is quite seaworthy, though owing to her engine defects she consumes three times tha amount of coal intended, reudering it impossible to undertake a lengthy voyage. Owing to the system prevailing in tho British Admiralty which makeß it impossible to fix the responsibility on any individual official, no one has even been reprimanded for this costly failure. „ It was proposed that the Duke and Duchess of York go to Australia in March in the Victoria Albert, but, owing to the yacht’s enormous coal burning capacity, the trip was impossible and an Orient liner (the Gphir) has been specially chartered for the royal voyage.