MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Volume 11, Issue 2280, 11 November 1897, Page 48

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— America is the only country which can boast of a daily musical paper. It is called the •' Presto," is published on all seven days oE the week, and has its headquarters at Chicago.

— The greatest length of England and Scotland, north to south, is about 608 miles.

■ — Making money is an arduous business. Mr Liplon declares that he has never been inside a London theatre — not because he does not care for such places, but because he really has not the time tq.go. — In SwedenY-ifl you address thß poorest person in the street, you must lift your hat. The same cburtesy^ia insisted upon if you pass a lady on the stairway. To enter a reading .room or a bank with one* hat on is regarded as impolite. — Twelve million silk hats are made annually in the United Kingdom, worth £5,000,000.

— Fifty-six per cent, of the to al white population of America i* not identified with any church, and 56 per cent, of these belong to the poorer classes. • — A remarkable eel has been discovered in the' Fiji Islands. It has a peculiar formation in its throat, which- causes it to whistle when in an excited state.- . The eel is 15ft long, and several inches in girth. — Iv Japan every child is taught to write with both hands.

. — There 13 always the right quotation in Shakespeare if you know where to look fo^.it. — St. James's Gazette.

— The oldest sailing craft in the world is the so-called Go'ustad ship, a Viking vessel, which was dif covered in a sepulchral mound on the shores of Ohristiania fjord. It is a thousand years old.

— The head of Liberty which adorns the silver dollar issued by the United J States Mint is a reproduction of the features of a beautiful young school teacher of Philadelphia. — A man has invented what he calls an " aquatic glove," which is intended' to be worn in swimming. The fingers of the glove are connected by a web, like the toes of a duck.

— The coloured people of the United States maintain 7 colleges, 17 academies, and 50 high echools.

— The Egyptian theologians attributed the origin of plants to tears falling from the eyes of the son aud daughter of the euu. After the creation of the universe by Rs, it was observed to be barren, a defect supplied in the manner just indicated, which seems to be symbolical of the fall of rain in a dry country after a long period of heat and drought.

— Ths largest fruit farm in the world is said to be at Olden, Missouri, U.S.A. It consists of 2500 acres, on which are more than 100,000 peach trees, 60,000 apple trees, 2000 pear trees, and 40 acres of blackberries.

— The estimated washing bill of London is upwards of £5,000,000 per annum.

— The cost of New Mar Lodge, the Duke of Fife'rf Highland home, will be about * quarter of a million.

— There are 48,000 artiate in Paris, more than half of them painters. The number of paictiDgs cent in to the exhibition last year was About IOjOOO. ■ , , ' I ' ; — The latest official estimate' of the population of the Upited States is 77,000,068. This is made by, the goverhmeut actuary. * ' — Two wealthy' Hebrews of Bagdad ,now ovru all that remains of the ancient town of Babylon.

— The hories of German cavalry regiments are to be entirely shod with paper shoes, recent experiments as to their durability aod lightness having proved very satisfactory.

— A German authority states that from the mouth to the source of the Rhine 725 castles, formerly the homes of warlike chiefs, are to be found overlooking its waters.

' — According to Lord Tweedmouth, the area of the herring nets used in Scotland one year was no less than 164,000,000 square yards, and the total amount of the line 3in daily use was 82,000,000 yards, or about 42,000 miles, or enough to go once and three-quarters round the globe.

— The Boers pay well for their guns, which Birmingham supplies — in fact, they have the best that money can buy. They are connoisseurs in selecting their " shooting irons," promptly rejecting the inferior art'cle. This, with their constant practice, is the secret of their extraordinary fkill as marksmen.

- — The pipe smoked by the Shah of Persia on State occasions is set with diamonds, emeralds, and rubies. It is said to have cost £80,000.

— Seaweed, though not the diet for an epicure, is, when dry, richer than oatmeal or Indian corn in nitrogenous constituents, and takes rank among the most nutritious of vegetable foods.

— In the United States 9,000,000 farm hands j raise, bait us much, grain as 66,000,000 in 'fiurope. Thus the use of proper machinery makes a farm labourer in the United States Worth more than three in Europe.. ' j . —/In the jungles of Sumatra the largest fepiders are found. Some of the larger specimens measure Bin across the back, and have 17in of leg-fipre&d. i — The islknd of Jamaica, owing to its peculiar situation and climate, is said to possess a greater variety and abundance of ferns than any known place on the globe. No fewer than 500 species of ferns grow there, and probably no other equal area produces half that number of ferns.

— The beautiful colours seen in the soap "bubble arise from the fact that' the bubble, being very thin, reflects light from both the outer and inner surfaces of the film. , — Abrupt emission of waste steam up the chimney csuses the cough or puff of a railway engine. When moving slowly, the coughs can, of course, be heard following each other quite distinctly, but when speed is put on the puffs come out one after the other much more rapidly, and when 18 coughs a second are produced they cannot be ieparately distinguished by the ear. *"" — London has 14,000 policemen, Paris has 6000, and New York 3800. The ordinary arrests in New York in a year dre 85^000, in Paiis 100,000, and in London 150,000. — The captain of a big Atlantic liner, after many calculations, has come to the conclusion that the general size of a fog in the Atlantic is 0 aiiles in diameter. "

— Tfae gr6at Ottoman empire, which at one lime threatened the civilised world, sprang jRm * band of 4-00 wandering Turkoman families.

— The " dnograph " is * new device that has been brought out in France for enabling direct correspondence between blind persons and those nho.ctn see. It is a kind of typewriter, which prints the letters in relief bo that *Eey are both, visible to the eye and sensible 'to the touch. ■ — The intrinsic value of a penny is less than % farthing. The tomato is popular with. all classes, in Italy. In every home and cottage the preserving of tomatoes is carried on. Terraces, balconies, and even the fiat roofs of the houses are half covered with plates containing the fruity

— Experts say that the clock of the future will have a face dial, but no hands. There will be two slots or hole 3on the dial— one showing the minute aud the other the hcur. Thus, when it is 40 minutes after 3 o'clock p m , the number 3 (or the hour) will appear in the lower slot and the number 40 (or the minute) in the upper Blot. I

— Mr William H. Dall, of the Smithsonian Institute, says, in Science, that " during the early days of the whale fishery several wellattested instances occurred of whales struck in one ocean, as the Atlantic, being afterwards killed in the North Pacific, and vice versa."

— Four years ago a farm servant, while visiting Hull, was robbed of his earning?, which consisted of two £5 notes. Tha unknown thief has jußfc returned to the loser two £5 notes, with an apology for having rqbbed him of them. ~-> — The French have again beaten ns ; they have produced the most remarkable kleptomaniac on record. This is an old lady named Bide, whose passion for smoking has impelled her to pilfer pipes from Parisian shops with such industry that no fewer than 2600 were found in her lodgings. All were meerschaums, aud 39 were well coloured.

— Sutton-in-Ashlield, in Nottingham, has given birth to more famous cricketers than any other town in England. "More than 20 professionals leave that little hosiery town at the beginning of every cricket season.

— An inmate of a lunatic agylam has invented a clock the dial of which is made to turn' round, while the hands stand still.

— Mr Winans, the American millionaire, who died recently, paid all his bills once every six years.

— Nations move to their destiny as a man who walks iv the dark at the edge of a precipice. While he remembers and takes care of his footsteps be is in no danger ; but if once his heart grows light with the insolence of success, and he rushes along flushed, self-con-fident, and unheeding, he is in deadly peril Then indeed may he ble3B the man who in a moment's flish shows him the precipice at his feet and recalls to his mind the prayer of men and of nations ;

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet, L -st we forget — lest we forget. — Spectator.

— The Gulf of Mexico has risen one foot since 1850. Many houses round the coast ar« now partially immereed. — One of the quickest known ways of dispelling a headache is to give some of the muscles — those of the legs, for instance — a little hard, sharp work to do. The reason is obvious. Muscular exercise flushes the parts engaged in it, aud so depletes the brain. When your head aches take a stiff walk or a short bicycle ride.

— The height of mountains on tbe moon is measured by the length of the shadows they cast upon the plain.