MASTER OF LANGUAGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20536, 11 October 1928, Page 9

MASTER OF LANGUAGES

AN UNSKILLED LABOURER. LED A WANDERING LIFE. BUDAPEST, September 24. When asked what his mother tongue was, a peasant name Joszef Rusz, who had come before the court with a lawsuit, astonished the judge by saying that, although he was Hungarian, he could speak English, French, Italian, German, Turkish, Japanese, Chinese, and several of the Slav languages. Rusz, who is at present employed as an unskilled labourer shovelling sand, stated that he shipped as an A.B. in 1890, and travelled round Europe, Africa, Asia, and America, and had lived in all the principal cities in the world. About 25 or 30 years ago a friend invited him to try his luck in New York. The friend was at that time employed to hammer nails into boxes, but very soon he distributed newspapers on a bicycle, became a house agent, and finally bought a skyscraper of 16 storeys, which he still owns, in Washington; but Rusz’s nomad spirit prevented him from remaining long enough in New „ork to participate in this rise to fortune. When asked if he had kept any souvenirs of his wandering life, Rusz replied that he possessed a pair of wide, untearable trousers which had been made for him in New York, a jacket which he had bought in a shop in Trafalgar square, in London, and a tie labelled “As worn by the Prince of Wales” (King Edward VII), which came from the Rue de la Vietorie in Paris. These articles of wearing apparel, with the addition of a straw hat from Tokio, constitute his holiday attire, and make him feel, he declares, delightfully international.