NEWS LITE : HEMINGWAY LETTER FETCHES $25,300.

A letter Ernest Hemingway wrote to a boy 17 days before committing suicide sold for $25,300 at auction Friday in New York.

Hemingway, who was undergoing shock treatments at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, hoped to cheer a friend's ailing 9-year-old son with his letter, which describes the summertime weather and the Midwestern countryside and is signed ``Papa.''

Christie's said it was the Nobel Prize-winner's last dated piece of writing. The date on the letter is June 15, 1961. Hemingway killed himself on July 2 of that year.

Ten letters Hemingway wrote to Jane Kendall Mason, a woman with whom he drank and fished in Cuba and Key West, Fla., sold for a total of $43,355.

Scholars say he based two characters - Margo in the story ``The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber'' and Helene Bradley in ``To Have and Have Not'' - on Mason, a socialite who was married to Grant Mason, then head of Pan American Airways in Cuba.

``He considers her as a great friend, and apparently appreciates her companionship and her company,'' said Vredy Lytsman, a spokeswoman for Christie's.

Hemingway wrote the letters between July 1932 and October 1933. They were recently found in a steamer trunk that belonged to Mason.

All prices include Christie's commission of 15 percent on the first $50,000 and 10 percent thereafter.

Also Friday, the auction house withdrew an early print of the Declaration of Independence shortly before it was to be sold because Rhode Island's secretary of state lodged a protest.

The document, which Lytsman said was owned by a New England educational foundation, is one of the state's seven surviving official prints of the Declaration.

`Cosby' celebrating late Kahn's career

The CBS series ``Cosby'' is paying tribute to the late actress Madeline Kahn with a show devoted to clips of her work and remembrances from the cast.

There will be taped segments in which the show's stars, Bill Cosby and Phylicia Rashad, speak about working with Kahn, along with highlights of her work on the series. The episode, titled ``Loving Madeline,'' is scheduled to air Dec. 29.

Kahn, who died of ovarian cancer Dec. 3, played a neighbor and friend who owned a coffee shop with Rashad's character. Her last original episode will air Dec. 22.

Thatcher speaks well of '80s pals

Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher praised two of her contemporaries and did a little U.S. politicking during a college lecture in Clinton, N.Y.

Addressing about 4,000 people at Hamilton College on Thursday, Thatcher said former President Reagan performed his job ``with a soft voice, but delivered a tough message.''

Dubbed the ``Iron Lady'' by a Soviet magazine, Thatcher also had good words for former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, saying ``he started liberty in the Soviet Union.''

When asked about who she thinks should be the next occupant of the White House, Thatcher, a member of Britain's Conservative Party, answered: ``I'd like to see the best Republican.''

When asked how she'd advise Britain's current prime minister, Tony Blair of the Labor Party, she replied: ``I don't advise him, I criticize him. That's my job.''

OUT OF HAND; Pokemon craze gets

really crazy

Now that the innocent game of Pokemon has become a nationwide craze, children are coming to blows over the trading cards.

In the last week in Philadelphia, for example, four children from one middle school were arrested for attacking other students to steal Pokemon cards. A 14-year-old student in Quebec was recently stabbed during a fight over the cards.

Even adults are committing Pokemon violence. On Thursday, a North Carolina man was charged with assault for allegedly punching a Burger King cashier after he did not get a Pokemon toy with his meal.

``There are Pokemon card sharks out there,'' said Philadelphia police officer Charlie Sarkioglu. ``This is worse than the Cabbage Patch Kid craze because now it's the kids who are actually fighting each other instead of just the parents.''

Pokemon - popularized by a Japanese video game depicting tiny monsters - has become so popular among children ages 5 to 13, some say it's bigger than past obsessions with Beanie Babies or ``Star Wars.''

The card game involves a host of imaginary creatures, each with their own set of special powers. The goal is to win as many cards as possible.

The cards cost $3 a pack, but rare cards can go for more than $200.

Pokemon has become so distracting, schools from coast to coast have banned the games and trading cards.

Sarkioglu, who visits elementary schools to give children tips on how to avoid getting robbed, said many kids tend to think they need the cards because they are so popular.

At Philadelphia's Wilson Middle School on Monday, two boys punched and threw a trash can at an 11-year-old boy in a bathroom. The attackers ran off with two Pokemon cards and 75 cents. They were charged with robbery and suspended for five days.

Tony Ward's 10-year-old son and his friend were robbed of $60 worth of cards Sunday in Philadelphia. He said he wishes his son wouldn't trade cards anymore.

``But he insists on having them,'' Ward said. ``Hopefully, he has learned his lesson and won't carry around as many cards anymore. I tell him when he goes out he has to be more street smart now.''

Honest Hollander wins Dutch lottery

Who says honesty doesn't pay?

A 55-year-old woman who found $11,600 on a Haarlem, Netherlands, street last week and turned it over to police hit the Dutch lottery, winning $41,900.

The daily De Telegraaf newspaper reported Friday that the woman, who was not identified, really could have used the cash she had found in an envelope on a street in Haarlem, just north of Amsterdam, but promptly turned the money over to authorities.

Police eventually traced the lost cash to a 73-year-old woman who had lost it just after she left her local bank. The woman was so delighted, she gave a small reward.

But a bigger and purely coincidental payoff came in Sunday's nationally televised drawing of the Netherlands' wildly popular Post Code Lottery, in which cards printed with people's postal codes - which are unique to each Dutch home - are drawn at random.

The lucky winner said she didn't want any publicity, but told lottery officials she felt she was being rewarded for her honesty.

CAPTION(S):

4 photos

Photo: (1) JOINED AT THE HIP

Vivian Sontag of Chatsworth enjoys a stroll with Chelsea, left, Yoli the Widget and Sunny Days.

Andy Holzman/Staff Photographer

(2) Kahn

(3) Thatcher

(4) Hemingway