MAIL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 323, 25 January 1902, Page 3

MAIL NEW S.

Berlin, Dec. 7. The German Crown Prince is rapidly becoming an object of lose niajeste. Several persons have been arrested lately for uttering insulting words about him. A workman at Hihleshelm was sentenced a few days ago to five weeks imprison rnont for making an uncomplimentary remark about tho Crown Prince’s picture on sale at a railway bookstall. At Breslau an elderly woman has been sentenced to prison for six weeks for saying something critical about the Crown Prince’s features and his manner of dressing his hair. But probably the worst recent case oi loso majeste is that of a workman named Adolph Kaiser, who was sentenced at Breslau to two years’ imprisonment for using offensive language about the Empress and the Crown Prince. Adolph Kaiser is a half imbecile, broken in health, given to strong drink and irresponsible, but all that failed to save him. A Meeklenburg manufacturer named Giebeler claims—and the Charlotterburg Technical Institute is said to have confirmed the claim —to have invented a composition of steele twice as hard as any ever yet made, the cost of production being 50 per cent, lower than that of other steel. Projectiles which penetrated eleven millimetres (about half an inch) of Krupp armor-plate caused only a slight dent on I pistes of the now steol seven millimetres ' (n. little more than one-quarter of an inch) I thick. 1

It was reported here that a representative of Herr Giebeler was going to

Pittsburg to negotiate with tho Steel Trust there for the sale of the patent, hut Herr Giebeler denies it. He says he will develop his secret for the benefit of his fatherland. He intends to use his steel for tools, which will be on sale soon, and for guns and armor plates for ships. According to experiments mado by the Royal Mechanics’ Technical Institution, the new steel is about 140 per cent, stronger and 50 per cent, lighter than Krupp, Harvey and Bolder steel and costs one-third less.

Physicians of the great Charity Hospital in Berlin are convinced that music has power to solace and help patients toward recovery. They have arranged concerts for tho whole of the coming winter. Solo players on the harp, the violin and the piano will alternate with quartets and orchestral music. Every patient well enough to attend will be asked to do so. Many of the musicians are selected from among the patients. Others are professionals, who will give their services gratis.

Paris, Dec. 7,

Tho Paris papers publish a story from Venice that Cecil Rhodes and Dr Jameson,

at the head of a large party of engineers and capitalists, have gone to Egypt to see if the Cairo-Khartoum Railway can be immediately pushed southward. Rhodes is quoted as saying it is useless to await the end of the Boer war to advance the Capetown-Cairo line from above, because as soon as the Boer country is a little more quiet work would begin at once in ten different places. It is intimated here that the Kaiser has promised Rhodes both moral and financial help. Dr Jameson seems to ue again Rhodes’ greatest favorite. A steamer is said to have been chartered for tho party’s special use along the Nile. Berlin, Dee. 7

Dr Zell, a German scientist and philologist, has become in a measure also an iconoclast. He has written a book to prove that Polj’phemus t * le ofc ber eyciopses were gorillas. It is not only a learned but a witty volume of perhaps two hundred pages. In Ulysses’s adventure with tho eyclops, related in the ninth book of Homer's Odyssey, Dr Zell sees no mere fancy, but a “ real recollection of actual experiences.” Paris, Dec. 7. Milo. Chauvin, tho first young woman admitted] to practise law in France—thereby inaugurating quite a revolution two years ago—-will appear in court in a case involving infringement of a corset patent. The fight is between two of the most exteusive corset manufacturers and involves an enormous sum of money. London, Dec. 7.

Among the many British ladies reckoned in the “ sure shot ” class the Duchess of Bedford, daughter of the Veu. W. H. Tribe, late Archdeacon of Lahore, is reckoned as one of the greatest experts with tho gun. She is also an expert angler, but caves more for the gun than for the fishing rod. Her Grace is also devoted to dogs, and is never seen without three or four wheu she is at her stately home, Woburn Abbey. She often goes out with her dogs on shooting expeditions, dispensing with keepers and beaters.

Paris, Dec. 7,

The possibility of making gold out of cheap substances is being warmly debated by scientists here. The topic would have been dismissed a few years ago as a crazy revival of medieval alchemy, but since the renowned chemist Berthelot’s discoveries and remarkable assertion that gold probably is a compound substance instead of being a simple metal, a quite important school of scientists has predicted that gold will be manufactured as cheaply as butter is some day.. Meanwhile the French Society of Modern Alchemy claims that three of its members, Messrs Jollivet, De Lassus and Hoovho, all chemists of reputation, have just completed a successful synthesis of gold? About half an ounco was produced and it took six months to do it. Prof. Berthelot is unwilling to give an opiniou about it without knowing the details of tho process and examining the product obtained, but he says : “ Until now chemistry has been a study of only immediate reactions, yet slow reactions —by which I mean those taking from a month to two or three years—are suspected, and this will open quite a new field in science. Possibly metals might be decomposed into several elements. If they can be so treated, they likewise can be recombined.” Camille Flammarion, to whom was given an opportunity to examine the artificial gold, says: “ It presents all the outward characteristics of real gold. I shall never pronounce anything impossible in science unless it is so mathematically.” -