MAIL NEWS.

Gisborne Times, Volume VII, Issue 342, 17 February 1902, Page 3

MAIL NEWS.

BUDAPEST, Dec. 28.

The Hungarian laureate, Maurus Jokai, the author of two hundred novels, who three years ago married at the •age of 76 an actress of 22, sent on All Saints Day a paragraph to the newspapers in which he launched a curse upon the person or persons who had pulled a wreath to pieces which, with an inscription Rom his young wife he

had deposited on the grave ol his first wile, a distinguished actress named Rosa Laborfaivy. It turns out that the person who destroyed that wreath was Rosa’s daughter by a first marriage who lived with Jokai until the second marri age, when, with husband and children, she was turned out of

the house. Jokai has sued her for destroying his property and committing sacrilege on a grave. BERLIN, Dec. 28.

The Germans are known throughout the world for i-heir love of pictured postal-cards. Every German has a collection of these. The energetic committee who direct the agitation agahist consumption have resolved to, utilise in their crusade a postal-card

on the front of which is a picture of a spittoon, with underneath it the words •’• Spit only "in the spittoon.” On the other side are various pictures representing the treatment of consumption, and a number of pithy sentences about the best methods of shielding the body from infection.

LONDON, Dec. 28

Alfred Harmsworth manifests in a

signed statement great despondency regarding the British trade outlook. He rays “ One way of waking up England would he to insist upon the members of the Cabinet occasionally leaving their oWn country to see for themselves what is being done by our commercial enemies. Those who, like Caret trie, Rosebery, Lipton, and Furnessi have taken the trouble of investigating matters appear well aware that this country is being hopelessly defeated in almost every branch of industry. The optimists are confined to people like my friend Mr Balfour, whose travels beyond the four-mile radius are not extensive. One week in the United y.ates would not fail to bring home the unpleasant fact that at the present

moment: the individual American is a$ great deal more efficient and industrious than the individual Briton. When we were captains of the world’s industries the travelling Englishman was a notable figure in both hemispheres. In these days the travelling Englishman has given way to the travelling American and G erman. Our pre-eminence has been destroyed by slav-al-home sel[-complacency. ’ ’ BERLIN, Dec. 28. ; Ever since the present Kaiser came to the throne it has been the practice among German school children to address him on all sorts of questions ins which they are interested. At first he was kind enough to make selections of. these letters and do his best to meet the wishes of his young petitioners, but as the years passed the petitions multiplied and became a nuisance. In t'-c last six months hundred of boys have written begging for articles of uniform or for condemned weapons, wide many girls have asked for the Kaiser’s photograph with his autouranli- The Minister of Education has now sent a circular to all school masters in Prussia begging them to iniorwi their pupil* that tnis letter writire: to the Kaiser must eease, and that it does not it will be visited with condign pumshment.