MENELIK'S PIPE

Evening Post, Volume LX, Issue 18, 21 July 1900, Page 3 (Supplement)

MENELIK'S PIPE

Fiom the l.ilft i<ews it would f-ecin thai, Germany, where one is not even allowed to throw crumbs on the pavement, is not the only country where '•paternal" government is in existence. Emperor Menehk, of the •Abyssiiiums, has a great admiration for many European custom^ — ivitness his going about' in a motor-car — but, on the other hand, he seeks to 'protect" his people. Ha began by prohibiting spirits in his country, and in this was successful enough ; but he has now gone, another step, and entirely forbidden tobacco, which has raised so great a clamour as to givepause to an absolute- ruler. It is whispered that the reason fotf' the prohibition arises from the fact thatt one day, seeii^ some Englishmen with' their pipes and general air of well-being, he decided to try tobacco for himself.! He borrowed a pipe and some veryi strong tobacco — it must have been Italian — and began. He persisted until the' pipe fell from his nerveless hands, and| he fled from the presence of his wonder- 1 struck, and, it must be confessed, amused subjects, whom -he had assembled foUj the trial. Since thprt the odour of tha; weed recalls those moments of terrible, suffering. Hence the prohiibbion. !— Pall. Mall Gazette. " Reading Every Book in the Library." — Here is a story apropos of the wan, which Mr. Labouchere in. Truth avouches' to be time to his knowledge. One of the British officers, now temporarily stationed at Pretoria, wrote home a short time ago to his sister. 'It is awfully slow,'" he said, "I have read every book in the prison library, and there is not a thing left to do." The Boer censor whp read' the letter put a big blue mark against the passage, and a footnote below. "Now you shall see what lies your prisoners tell in their 'letters. The prison library contains 10,741 volumes." iividontliy what the officer meant was every readable book. "How can you eDdure that man?" asked one member of the club of another, "there's nothing in him." "You never made a greater mistake in your life," came the quick reply; "he's full of himself." For the six months just ended, 156,356 ounces of gold were raised in New South Wales, a decrease of nearly 30,000 ounces on the returns for the same period last year.