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Zangwill, Israel, 1864-1926

"Without Prejudice"


And from far ahead came back to his deaf ears with ever-diminishing
intensity our noisy madrigal--most music-hall, most melancholy--his only
dirge:
Mary Jane was a farmer's daughter,
Mary Jane did what she oughter.
She fell in love but all in vain.
O poor Mary! O poor Jane!


BUDAPEST
The Millennial Exhibition of Budapest--for which the Directors gave me a
season ticket as soon as they heard I was leaving--professes to celebrate
the foundation of Hungary; but 896 is a very long time ago, and the event
does not seem to have been reported in the newspapers of the period.
However, as a Hungarian explained to me, when you are counting by
thousands you are not particular to a year or two, so perhaps it was not
precisely ten centuries ago that the foundation of Hungary was
inaugurated by a national assembly that created "the Constitution of
Pusztaszer." After all, have not those irrepressible German savants
discovered that Christ was born in the year 6 B.C.? At any rate, there is
no doubt that the Magyars did steal a country some time or other in the
remote past, or in more political language, did obtain a footing in
Europe by ousting the Slav tribes that peopled the great plain bounded by
the Carpathians and the Danube and the Tisza.


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