ON MANY SUBJECTS

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 155, 29 December 1936, Page 6

ON MANY SUBJECTS

COLLECTION OF FIGURES

HOW WE SPEND'TIME

Figures occupy a great place in the lives of most of us, but we never seem to learn any but the most • ordinary statistics (writes Irwell Woolf in the "Cape Times"). . ■ \

The total births, deaths, and marriages are, of course, interesting, and it is' doubtless useful to the authorities to know how many cases there were of all the different diseases.. There are, however, amusingly strange statistics about which we barely hear at all.

What about the eighty-year-old Silesian, for example, who kept an exact account of how he had spent his life? A document giving the full details was found after his death.

His lifetime covered 29,220 days.. Twenty-six years and 312 days were passed in sleep; 'twenty-one years and ninety-five days were devoted to work; meals occupied six years; shaving filled 228 days; he ■ spent sixteen days at the theatre; lighting cigarettes took him twelve days.

He passed six days and twenty-one hours looking for collar-studs; he laughed during one day and twentyfour hours, and yawned during four days and two hours. Among other occupations accounting for the rest of his time he spent five years and 302 days waiting about for people. ' ; Curiously enough, the only details he omits are those concerning the time taken to note and calculate the hours absorbed in preparing this strange statistical record. Perhaps this was how he filled in the time when he was waiting "about for people. XWENTYrTHREE YEARS IN BED. It is interesting to compare these figures with those given by statisticians as the average distribution of a life of seventy years. Their calculations show that a man passes twenty-three years in bed, thirteen in talking, six in eating; three in study, one and a half in washing, twenty in leisure, three and a half in odds and ends." This brings us to consideration of what occupations lead to the longest lives. On the average, musicians live to 62, philosophers to 65, poets, sculptors/and painters to 66. Political agitators, strange to say, also average 66. Novelists live to 67, lawyers to 68, statesmen to 71, an average they '■, share with naval and military . j cers. Inventors climb to 72, and the record is held by historians, who average 73. It is surprising to find that philosophers die so young. Who would have thought that philosophy was so unhealthy an occupation?

Perhaps the relatively short lives of novelists are explained by the enormous amount of work they have to do. Mathematicians have worked it out in figures.

A man writes about 30 words a minute or 1800 words an hour. If he works 8 hours a day, that makes 14,400 words. In writing?3o words his hand covers approximately 2 yards, so that at the end of the day he will have covered 960 yards. In a year of 300 working days he will have pushed his pen nearly 164 miles. If he started writing when he was twenty, during his average remaining 47 years his hand would travel 7708 miles. A sort of manual marathon.

Which of all the occupations brings a man the most honour? A census of the statues in Paris gives the following rather unexpected results. The poets come off best: they have fifty statues. Other writers only have fortyseven, but journalists in particular have an additional seven. Statues > have been erected to five French kings and eleven queens. Five revolutionaries have also been honoured, as well as twelve politicians. Three victims of religious quarrels have statues, but only one theologian and two saints. , KINDS OF ANIMALS One director of friendly societies has a statue, one municipal councillor, one electrician, one iron smelter, one health expert. But two horticulturists have been honoured in stone, three surveyors and three agriculturists. Finally, two emperors look down on-the passing crowd from their pedestals.

Now for some little-known statistics about animals. Scientists, of course, know about them, but all have'not the same opportunity. There are 280,000 species of insects in the world; 120,000 of them are beetles,'so,ooo, butterflies, and 40,000 flies.

Fish provide 12,000 species, and only about 300 are fresh watei- fish' Birds are about as numerous as fish. There are 10,000 families of molluscs, oysters, etc., 8000 genera of crustaceans, crabs, etc., and 2500 different species of reptiles. There are 2000 sorts of mammals, 2000 arachnidans, spiders, etc., and 1200 amphibians, frogs, lizards.

In the whole world there are about 10,000 million rats.

Imagination reels when we learn that one green-fly, if it could obtain enough food, would iri a single season have descendants weighing a total of 822 million tons. Taking the population of the world as being 2000 million and the average weight of each individual as 12 stone—a very high average—the human beings in the world weigh a total of 150 million tons. In other words, one season's descendants of a single green-fly would weigh more than five times .the human population of the world. Fortunately, it is not always quantity that counts.

As regards vegetables, have you heard of the gigantic cabbages that are grown in Brazil by the Dominican monks? . They are as big as umbrellas. One, seven months old, reached the astonishing weight of nearly 13 stone. It had to be carried in a palanquin. The purchaser always had twenty guests at his table every day, and they fed off this huge cabbage for over a month.

Another surprise. Did you know that there are 1179 newspapers in Japan? Two hundred and eight are published in Tokio, ninety in Osaka. Of the great dailies, one has a circulation of 1.000.000, another , a circulation of i,100,000, a third sells 1,200,000 copies, and a fourth 1,500,000. Apart from super modern machinery, the "Asahi Shinbun," for example, owns nineteen aeroplanes, 500 carrierpigeons, two television sets, and a private long-distance telephone.

It is said that you can prove anything by statistics. Perhaps you can, if you must be proving something all the time.

Whatever they mean, these littleknown figures make interesting reading, and besides, did not somebody once say that there was safety in numbers?