OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 770, 3 December 1886, Page 5

OLLA PODRIDA.

COLD BATHING. The use of cold water as a bath for ordinary bealth purposes—we are not speaking of its use for the strictly medical purpose of reducing the temperature of the body m certain states of disease—is purely reactionary. The cold bath is only useful, or even safe, when it produces a rapid return of the blood to the surface immediately alter the first impression made, whether by immersion or affusion. The surface must quickly redden, and there must be a glow of heat. If these effects are not rapidly apparent, cold bathing is bad ; and no such effects are likely to be produced unless the circulation be vigorous, and both the heart and bloodvessels are healthy. Great mistakes are made, and serious risks are often incurred, by the unintelligent use of the cold bath by the weakly or unsound. Moreover, it is necessary to bear in mind that there 38 Be b dom too much energy to spare after middle age, and it is seldom expedient for persons much overfortytorisk cold bathing. We would go so far as to say that no oue above that age should use the tnb quite cold unless under medical advice. It is possible to be apparently robust and. for all the average purposes of life, healthy, and yet to have such disabilities arising out of organic disease or weakness as to render recourse to heroic measures, even in the matter of cold bathing, perilous. —Lancet.

VACCINATION IN EAST AFRICA. A correspondent, writing in the Times, quotes from a letter recently written m East Africa as follows :— ‘ The small-pox is very severe just now in the Bondei country. The natives are offering three dollars apiece to be vaccinated ; but, unfortunately, our lymph supply was destroyed by the late fire at Maglia. One man offered twelve dollars, i e £2 10s of our money. They have such faith in it, for none of the people who were thoroughly vaccinated have suffered at all from small-pox, while members of the same family who were not vaccinated were seized with it.’ It is the old story over again. When small-pox is prevalent in an unvac cinated vaccination is valued, and no complaint is heard other than that which is caused by the scarcity of lymph ; but when a community is more or less protected by vaccination from death by smallpox then its value is forgotten, and the agitators of the time assert themselves very loudly. There is little doubt that if, instead of a compulsory law, difficulties had been put in the way of vaccination, the same individuals who now describe vaccination as a * huge and deplorable delusion,’ would have been loud in their demand fora removal of the restrictions. But these agitators must forgive our statesmen if they refuse to submit the country to a wholesale destruction of human life for the purpose of teaching them the lesson they need to learn.— Lancet. an unknown hero. Since the institution of the Victoria Cross there has been considerable disputation as to the wisdom'of the policy which inaugurated such a decoration. Many who could not be called cynics declared that, to decorate a soldier because he was brave, was almost as doubtful a compliment as to congratulate a woman because she was chaste. Bravery is supposed to be a soldierly attribute, inseparable from the profession of arms, and to make a special merit of it was held in some quarters to be a mockery and an insult to the warrior. It was difficult to define the limit where the soldier ceased to’ perform the duty of being brave and earned a special distinefcion for extraordinary courage; the records of the Victoria Cross show some ■curious instances of this difficulty. But Sir Frederick Roberts told the other day at Simla the story of a deed which, had it occurred in Roman history, would have made the hero of it immortal, and yet m

English story it has had no place, and the doer of it has received neither reward nor fame. His name possibly has been forgotten story of the. deed, as told by the present Commander-in Chief of India, an eye-witness, of the scene : - * At the relief of Lucknow, when a heavy fire from the loop-holed walls was making terrible havoc in the tanks of a storming party of the Sikanderbagh, a young Sikh, of the 4th Punjab Infantry, passed hk> arm through the wicket of the gats and endeavored to draw back the bolt with which it was barred. A' sword-cut from withiu nearly severed his hand from the wrist; nothing daunted, he withdrew the injured arm and thrust in the other one. This shared the fate of the first, hut not before the holt had been drawn, and t?he gallant Sikh had the satisfaction of seeing his comrades stream through the gateway, which by his determined bravery had been opened for them.’ There was no difficulty in defining the boundary line between courage and heroism here, but no Victoria Cross was granted ; the rules of the Order did not'recognise an exceptional cs3C of a soldier The story, however, will now find a place in England’s military history amongst other bright deeds that the world 'willnat willingly let die/—Broad Arrow. XYLONITE. Amongst the new products of which paper forms the basis, special interest attaches to one referred to by the Bulletin de la Cdramiquo, known as 1 xylonite.’ This substance can be made to imitate horn, ivory, shell, and even glass, its applications being of almost nndefined variety. One of the most extraordinary uses to which it has been put is, however, its employment as a substitute for church window glass. It was invented about fifteen years ago, and a company tor its industrial development was formed two years ago. The ba = is of the new substance is white paper made from linen or cotton, which is subjected to chemical modification, and to the action of a bath of sulphuric acid. The latter is carefully eliminated by washing, the paper being then treated with another preparation of alobol and camphor, which gives-it the appearance of parchment. It can then be worked, moulded, and reduced into very thin sheets, which are almost entirely transparent, and will take the most brilliant colors. It is much more flexible and less fragile than horn or. ivory.—lndustries. / - - | 1 MAGNETIC CLOCK. A curious application of the magnet is described in a French journal, the subject of > it being a clock recently patented in France. In appearance the clock consists of a tambourine, on the parchment head of which is painted a circle of flowers, corresponding to the hour signs of ordinary dials. Oa examination, two bees, one large and the other small, are discovered crawling among the flowers. The small bee runs rapidly from one to the other completing the circle m an hour, while the large one takes twelve hours to finish the circuit. The parchment membrane is unbroken, and the bees are simply laid upon it; but two magnets, connected with the clockwork inside the tambourine, move just under the membrane, and the insects, which are of iron, follow them. , A FASTING MAN. News comes from Rome that a gentleman named Giovanni Succi professes to have discovered a liquid, a small quantity of which will enable a person to remain without food for thirty days. The Italian doctors are interested in him, and he is now undergoing a fast of thirty days, under the surveillance of a vigilance committee at IHilau. During a fourteen days’ fast at Forii the changes that took place in his body were, it is said, a mummified appearance of the flesh, a yellowish tiDge of the skin, and dilation of the ~ pupils of the eyes, besides a loss of body weight, it seems, no loss of muscular force. As Hamlet says, ‘ Therevare more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of' in our philosophy,’ and though there may be good reasons for scouting the idea of such a feat as Signor Succi proposes to enact, yet it is well to refrain from scepticism till the experiment is found to be a failure* Physiologists record many extraordinary cases of fasting among lower' animals, the famous sow which existed for 105 days without food being often quoted. Dr. Tanner, too, is an instance of long fasting, though in hi 3 supplemented the powers ‘of nafcuie by alcoholic baths. It is not recorded, however, that the flesh in these instances was mummified in appearance, probably because the experimenters did not make incisions into the body to see. Whether anything of that kind took place at Forii we are not informed.—Evening News. THE FINANCES OF RUSSIA.

Instead of improving, the financial condition of Russia is going from bad to worse. According to the official statement, the receipts of the Treasury during the first five months of the current year amounted t0£25.891, £25.891, 000, or about £2,049i000 less than, in the corresponding period of 1885. While, on the other hand, the expenditure, , which amounted to £30,753,000, shows an increase of £1,967,000. It will not do, oE course, to compare the income of the five months with the expenditure, because the receipts and the disbursements fluctuate from month to month, and no trustworthy balance can be struck until the end of the year. It is sufficiently evident, however, that in this_ as in the immediately previous year, while' the revenue is shrinking the expenditure's increasing, and the country is becoming more unable than ever to pay its way, except by means of continuous borrowing.— Economist.

SIR CHARLES DILKE’3 FATHER. Wilfrid Wisgast writes to the Toronto Mail: ‘The father of Sir Charles Wentworth Dilke was a market gardener and florist, in a large way of business, at Fulham, a south western suburb of London. He was engaged to arrange the grounds about the Hyde Park Exhibition of 1851, and thus came to know and be frequently in contact with Prince Albert. Mr Dilke was a man of much shrewdness and a real artist in the cultivation and arrangement of flowers, and the acquaintance with the Prince Consort resulted in a lifelong friend-

ship, and hence Tcaine the title. Having been for many years a resident in the borough of Chelsea, I can say that to no one there is this scandal a revelation, and among those who presumably know there is but one opinion in the matter. Sir Charles Dilke had been for a long time prior to the Crawford.scandal on very strained terms with the educated uortion of his constituency. The loss of his seat was a foregone conclusion directly this exposure occurred, as was shown by Mr Whitmore being only 175 behind Dilke at the election last year, and his gaining the seat the other day by a considerable majority. 5 BIRTHS AHD DEATHS IN THE • UNITED STATESThe death-rate for the whole United States for the last census year was 18 per 1000. Comparing it with the rates of some other countries for the year 1880, we find that in England and Wales the rate was 20 5 ; in the rural districts of England, 18’5; in Sweden, IS’l ; in Belgium, 22 - 4 ;in the German Empire, 26'1 ; in Austria, 29 6 ; and in Italy, 30‘5. The mean annual birth-rate of the United States is 36 per 1000 of popu tion, and the annual increase of population from the excess of births over deaths is nearly 2 per cent a year, and this is exclusive of the increase from immigration. The mean annual birth-rates of some foreign countries —viz., England and Wales, 35 4; Sweden, 30 2; Denmark, 31‘9 ; Belgium, 32; Austria, 39T ; German Empire, 39'3. The birth-rate is greater among the colored than among the whites, but this difference is less in the rural districts than it is in the cities. A STORY OF SOMNAMBULISM. An eminent lawyer was on a visit at Minto, in the lifetime of the second Earl of that name, and a day or two before the bearing of an important case in which he had been retained as counsel. He had brought with him a bundle of papers connected with the suit, and these he took with him to his bedroom. On the following day the packet could nowhere be found. Careful search was of course made, but quite iu vain ; and eventually the advocate had to go - into Court without it. Years passed without any tidings of the missing bundle, till the same gentleman chanced to be once more the guest at,Minto, and occupying the same bedroom. The 'morning after his arrival lie awoke to see the long-lost papers lying on his dressing table. ‘The presumption is, 5 according to Miss Cobbe, * that on the first occasion he hid them in his sleep, and on the second visit he found them in his sleep, but where he hid and found them has never been discovered.’—St. James’ Gazette. , ARTIFICIAL RUBIES. The following was published in a Californian paper on October 7th last, as a telegram : —A most interesting paper was read last evening before the New York Academy of Sciences by George F. Kunz, the subject being ‘ New Artificial Rubies.’ Kunz explained first thst artificial Btone differed from the mere imitation * then that the latest, best and most dangerous artificial gem ever produced is the artificial ruby in question. Early la3t summer a syndicate of diamond merchants in Paris were led to suspect that a number of rubies that were offered for sale from Switzerland were not genuine. They were sent on by a well known house in Geneva, and a careful examination, which was speedily made, established the theory that the stones were -the product of fusion. Their actual value would not exceed 20 francs ; their nominal value as rubies would run from lOOOdol to 2500d01. The stone had the requisite hardness of the ruby, but was a trifle more brittle, and the color, while not as good as the finest rubies, was still equal to that of fairly good stones. Mr Kunz said there is every reason to believe that the new stone is formed by -fusing aluminative lead with silica in a sand crucible ; the silica takes up the lead oxide and liberates the alumina, which,crystallizes -in the form of corundum. It is also evident that some chromium salt is added to give •color to the stone. QUEEN ELIZABETH’S NAVY/ An interesting list was recently compiled by the London Army and Navy Gazette ot the British Navy as it was in 1599. Its two largest vessels were the Triumph and St. Matthew, of 1000 tons and 500 men each, the former carrying 68 guns and the latter 48. Next came the 900-ton ships, the Elizabeth Jonas, White Bear and St. Andrew, the two former carrying 500 men each and 56 and 40 guns respectively, and the St. Andrew 50 guns and 400 men. The 800-ton vessels, with 400 men each, were the Ark Royal, More Honor and Victory, of 40, 41, and 59 guns. The Due Repulse, of 350 men and 50 guns, and the Guardland of 300 and 45, were the. 700-ton ships. The 600-tonners embraced the Eliza Bonadventure, with 47 guns and 250 men; the Hope, with 48 guns and 250 men ; the Mary Rose, with 39 gun 3 and 250 men ; the Warspite, with 29 guns and 300 men ; The Lion, 60 guns : the Defiance. 46 guns ; the Nonpareille 56, and the Rainbow 27, with complements of 250 men each, were the 500-ton ships. Of various tonnagelower were the Achates, Adventurer, Advantage, Antelope, and Answer, the Charles ar.d the Crane; the Dreadnaught, Foresight, Quittance, Scout, Swiftsure, Swallow, and Tiger. To these were added suudry small craft of a few score tons, the Amity, Advice, Aid, Bear, Cygnet, Daisy, Mercury, Merlin, Moon, Spy, Sun, Tremontana :Ind Vanguard, The great number of guns carried on these vessels compared with the four monsters that comprise the armament of a modern ironclad of five or six thousand tons shows the differ ence between ancient and modem warfare. Yet the forty-five vessels, some very large, with their many hundred guns and many thousand men, constituted a great navy in the age of Queen Blizaoeth.