THE GIVER

Taranaki Daily News, 19 January 1935, Page 17 (Supplement)

THE GIVER

A FRIEND OF HIS PEOPLE. One of the greatest French benefactors who ever lived has passed away in Baron Edmond de Rothschild. It is estimated that he must have given at least £10,000,000 to re-establish the Jewish race in Palestine. This restoration of his people to their ancient home wag the first interest of his very busy life, but it was by no means the only scheme to which he presented huge sums of money. There was, for example, his gift of £400,000 to the French Academy of Sciences, and the handing over of his house at Kensington as a centre in which young Frenchmen could study in England. Edmond was the son of that James de Rothschild whom thousands have seen in the House of Rothschild film; James was the Rothschild who had established a bank in Paris. When Napoleon .escaped from Elba he hurried to his ancestral home in Frankfort, where he was persuaded by Nathan not to lend to Napoleon, for the success of Napoleon would have meant more years of tragedy for Europe. Thus James was made a Baron of the Austrian Empire, a title to which the Frenchman who has jufct died Succeeded. Baron Edmond was a great lover of art, and his collection of 18th-century paintings and furniture is unrivalled. The most famous English painting in his possession was Gainsborough’s Pink Boy. TAX ABOLISHED OLDEST IN THE WORLD. A tax has been abolished, a surprising event in this tax-tormented world. The tax is one of the oldest in the world and is known as the Khutva. From time immemorial it has been levied on every traveller about to cross the desert of Mesopotamia, and the payment of it ensured a safe journey, as the money was distributed among the nomad tribes of the region. The Government of Iraq '■■■■■ recently decided that this tax shot’.? ’ no longer be enforced. RJDDLE. What is the hardest train to catch?— The twelve fifty, because it’s ten to one that you catch It. (Sent by Jean Fisher).