OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 878, 28 December 1888, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

ADVANTAGES OP VEGETABLE DIETDr Parkes says that a labouring man, by ringing the changes on catmeal, maize, peas and beans, rice and maoaroni (which is made from corn), to which may be added cheese and baoon occasionally, may bring up his children as well nourished as those of the richest people, and at a small oost. LIGHTNING NOT INSTANTANEOUS. . Some of the most interesting discussions that took place at the British Association were connected with lightning photographs and the lessons they tanght. The controversy turned upon lightning conductors, and the Hon. Ralph Aberorombie illustrated his remarks with a number of lightning flash photographs. He Baid that photography gave conclusive evidence that flashes wore not bo instantaneous as was generally supposed. It showed that the flash did nob jump from a cloud straight to the earth, but went meandering through the air and tying itself into knots, so that it could not be so instantaneous as was imagined. ‘ALOST NATION.’ Several Paris papers publish articles on the population of France. The France shows that the inorease of births over deaths is due entirely to a diminished death-rate. Men are living to be elder, but this cause of increase is, from its very nature, temporary. The tendency of the population is to decline, while England and Germany grow at the rate of half a million a year. The Anglo-Saxon race, which was much inferior iu point of number to the French race, is now two or three times as numerous. Withiu a century for one man speaking French there will be ten Bpeaking English. The France passes in review all the proposed remedies, and rejects them as visionary or impracticable, and concludes that the only one is to revive the old spirit of the nation. This, however, cannot be done by decree. The Univers says : •We can fix the day, not a distant day, when by the perennial falling off of births France will have lost one-third of its population. . The result is fatal. Within half a century France will have fallen below Italy and Spain, to the rank of a seoond-rate Power. There is no denying the figures. If this continues, iu addition to other causes of deoadence, wo are a lost nation.’ RIFLES OF SMALL CALIBRE. With the introduction of repeating rifles for purposes of war, a reduction in the calibre of the barrel became almost unavoid-: able. The French Government perceived this at a very early date, and the new Label rifle issued to the French army has a boro slightly less than J inch. Austria and Germany, for economical .reasons, retained in their new repeating rifles the calibre of the old breeohloaders with which their armies had hitherto been furnished. This policy, however, has proved to be of the penny-wise type, as both Governments have now found it necessary to adopt the small bore, which has, in the first place, the advantages of decreasing the weight of the arm and increasing the number of cartridges which a soldier can carry with him into the field, and since the adoption of the magazine is likely to lead to increased rapidity of fire, this becomes a matter of the first importance. Again, as the flatness of the trajectory depends, other things being equal, on the initial velocity of the shot, which, again, iB dependent on the ratio of the weight of the shot to the powder charge, the small calibre has another advantage, for, with a large calibre, the ratio of the weight of the shot to that of the powder cannot be made to have the most advantageous value without increasing the powder charge or unduly diminishing the length. The former plan is out of the question, as the kick of the weapon Is quite as great as is pleasant to the marksman now, whilst the latter remedy is also incapable of adoption, as it would lead to inaccuracy of fire. Both these objections can, however, be got over by the adoption of the small bore, as the powder charge need not be altered, and the length of the bullet may be made equal to that found practically to give the beat results. In the Werndl rifle, of the Austrian Government, the calibre of whieh is II mm., the pitch of the rifling corresponds to one turn in 724 mm., whilst with the Swiss Hebler rifle, having a calibre of 7"5 mm. and an initial velocity, of about 1,900 feet per second, tho pitch is 240 mm,‘ Bat by thus increasing the pitch it becomes necessary that the bullet should, to take the 1

rifling, be provided with a thin outer shell of some harder material than lead. In the Lebel rifle a Bkin of German silver is used, and in the new rifle for the British army it is proposed to employ a thin shell of steel for this purpose.—Engineering. A NEW POWDER EOR QUICKFIRING GUNS. ' Concurrently with the improvement in guns, a new departure has been made by the Elswick Company In the manufacture of powder. The Company ha 3 been, and is still, experimenting with a new powder for its quick-firing guns, whioh is made by the Chilworth Company. Notwithstanding that the charges have been reduced in weight by about one-third, velocities have been ob. tained of from 2,300 feet to 2,400 feet per second, as compared with velocities of 2,000 feet previously obtained with other powders. This new powder, moreover, leaves no residue in the gun to interfere with the essential requirement of rapid loading, and the smoke has been so far reduced as to present but a slight obstacle to the sighting of the guns in action. These are advantages that can hardly be over-estimated.—lron. A FRENCH PROPHECY. A Belgian paper professes to have unearthed a really Curious passage out of an old book in tho State Library of Brussels. This book was published by Joan Stratius in Lyons in the year 1585, and contains a number of astrological ‘.prophecies ’ much iu the style of the more celebrated ones of Nostradamus ; among these is said to be the following:— *Tu dois vivre et mourir, 6 Gaule, soubs trois 80. Deux Steeles sous Bo 1., tu haulseras, 6 Gaule. Tu corseras Bo 11., ains te feras lambeau; Puis soubs mitron Bo 111., Bis Clem clora ton role. ’ The meaning of these lines seems to be something like this :— * Thou must live and die,’ O Gaul, under three Bo's. For two centuries under Bo I. thou shalt rise, O Gaul. Thou shalt rise up (?) Bo 11., and thus shalt rend thyself into pieces. Then under Bo 111., the baker, Bis Clem will end thy r6le’ The explanation of the supposed ‘ prophecy ’is plain enough. ‘Bo I.’ is the Bourbon dynasty, which ruled France for two centuries—from 1589 to 1789, from Henry IV. to the outbreak of the Revolution. ‘Bo ll.’ is evidently Napoleon Bonaparte, and the ‘ corseras ’ soems to be a play upon his Corsican origin. Lastly, who can fail to see that ‘ Bo 111.,’ tho * baker,’ is Boulanger? Whilst the‘Bis Clem’ who is to bring France’s destiny to an ignominious end can only be Bis[marck] and Cldm[enceau]. Such is said to be the prophecy published iu 1585 by one Jacques Molan, Doctor of Laws and Advocate to the Parliament of M&con.— Tablet. , RELATIVE NUTRITIVE VALUE OF STARCH AND FAT. According to some recent experiments made by O. Kellner, who fed horses on different materials and compared the results, the nutritive value of linseed oil as compared with staroh is 2 - 6 to 1. These figures were based on calculation of the work done, and it should be noted that the comparison is made between vegetable oil and farinaceous vegetable food. lam not surprised at this result, having long ago witnessed similar experiments made on human beings 'in Shropshire. At the time when < mowing maohines were but little used, large numbers of Irish labourers came across to assist in the hay harvest. These were typioal specimens of poor cottiers, who at home fed almost entirely on potatoes, i.e., mainly upon starch. At first, for a week or two, the Irishmen were unable to keep up with the English labourers in mowing, a kind of work whioh pretty accurately measures the muscular energy of the labourer when paid for by the acre. At tho end of about a fortnight, they became able to do their fair share, having in the meantime been largely fed on fat bacon. The Irish labourers were annual visitors, and had the same amount of training in the. peculiar muscular action oi mowing as the Englishmen. My observations in Ireland in the course of four summers, during which I visited every county of the ‘ distressful country,’ convinced n>e that the politicians on both sides are raving in vain; that the chief curse of Ireland is neither the Saxon, nor the priest, nor the League, nor the Tory, nor the Radical, but is the potato ; and the craving for a sluggish distension of the stomach which is generated by potato feed, ing, beoomes a vice that in many cases is oomparable to the alcohol crave. Mr Parnell would be converted into a true patriot, a genuine benefactor to his country, if he would import the Colorado beetle, or any other creature that should devastate and finally extirpate the debasing tuber.> Even pigs degenerate if fed upon it exclusively, and human be. ings similarly fed suffer from a combination of habitual distension, and lack of nutrition that deprives them of both physical and moral energy. The Irishman transplanted to America and properly fed, becomes quite an altered being, so far as industry and general energy are concerned. —Mr Mattieu Williams in Hardwioke’a Science-Gossip.

HALF A MILLION PENSIONERS. There are now quartered upon tho United States Treasury nearly half a million pensioners, who last year received no less a sum

thaa 82,038,386 dots., which was 31 per , cent., or nearly one-third of the Government’s actual expenditures for all purposes. The total amount paid since 1864, as pfin--1 sions to soldiers of the lata war, up to June 80 last, is 963,086,444 dols., and all this whilst new applications are being filed in Washington every day. There have, first and last, been granted pensions to 737,200 ex-soldiers. There were added to the roll, during the fisoalyear just ended, 60,252 new names, and 2,028 that had previously been dropped. Applications are not now allowed to accumulate in Washington as they did up to three years ago, but are promptly investigated and disposed of as their merits may require. Commissioner Black has made a most excellent and sympathetic head of the Pension Bureau, as ex-soldiers, without distinotion of party, invariably testify. The practiao has grown up of late for rejected applicants to get relief bills passed through Congress "with marvellous facility. There have been nearly as many auoh bills approved, daring the paßt three years, as there was during the previous twenty years. Congressmen have seemed to put through any pension claim, however good, bad or doubtful, that might be submitted to them. This has entailed upon a faithful President an amount of vigilant labour that he ought to have been spared. It was known that he would detect and veto bad bills, and hence such bills were sent to him by the hundred, with a view to create the false impression that he was inimical to the soldier element. A fair sample of these bills is the very latest one to hand. It bestowed a pension on a man who never did a single day’s service in the field, never left the State of Maine, in which he enlisted, and deserted while thers. Is it not a shame that, to serve a worthless party purpose, there are to be found representative men willing to impose upon the chief magistrate of tho nation the arduous and unpleasant duty of detecting and preventing Buoh frauds?— San Francisco Newß Letter. THE FORESTSOF - THE UNITED STATES. Separating the States into groups, the six New England States are credited with a forest area of 19,193,028 acres ; the four Middle States with 17,630,000 ; the fourteen Southern States, including Maryland and leaving out Missouri, with 232,800,000; the nine Western States with 80,350,767 ; the four Pacifio States with 52,630,000; and the seven Territories with 63,034,000. It will thus be seen that of the entire 465,645,895 aores of forest included iu this estimate the fourteen Southern Stateß possess fully onehalf. Theso statistics show that, while the prooeas of denudation has been carried to an unhealthy extreme in the Eastern, Middle, and a few of the Western Statos, the forest area still remaining in this country is a magnificent one. If the estimates of the depart- , ment are approximately correct, the timber lands of the country, exclusive of Alaska, , cover an area equal to fifteen States the size of Pennsylvania. If proper measures are taken to prevent the rapid and unnecessary ! destruction of what is left of our forest domain, it should be equal to the requirements for an indefinite period. It is not as yet a ease of locking the stable after the , horse is stolen, and should never be allowed , to become so. With the adoption of such a policy of judicious tree-planting in the prairie States, and a system of State or Government reservations in the mountainous districts which are the sources of the obief rivers of the country, the evil effects which > have followed forest denudation in Europe and some portions of Asia would never exist here.—Philadelphia Times. THE POPULATION OF INDIA. The ‘ Statistical Abstract of India,’ which has just been issued, contains an estimate of the present population of India. According to the census of 1831, the population of British territory was 198,790,853, and of the native States 55,191,742, giving a total of 253,982,595. The estimated population of Oaßhmere (which was nob inoluded in the census) in 1873 was 1,500,000 ; of Upper Burmah in 1886, 3,000,000 ; and of the Burmese Shan States, 2,000,000. The yearly increment of the population is at least J per oent. With these additions, and with allowances for annual increments since the census of February, 1881, the population of India in Maroh, 1887, would be—British territory, 207,754,578; the native States, 60,352,466 ; giving a total population for all India of 268,137,044. Both in British territory and the native States the number of males is much larger than that of females. In 1881 in British territory there were 101*2 males to 97*4 females; and in the native States 28*7 males to 26*4 females ; and in all India there were in th a', year just 6,013,419 more males than females.

WHEN MISSIONARY WORK FIRST BEGAN. When Carey, the father of Protestant missions in Bengal, propounded at the meeting of Baptist ministers a century ago the duty of preaching the Gospel to ‘ the heathen,’ the aged President is said to have sprung up in displeasure and Bhouted: ‘ Young man, sit down. When God pleases to convert the heathen He will do it without your aid or mine.’ A second Pentecost, he thought, must precede such a work. To another pious Nonconformist divine the proposal suggested the thought, ‘ If the Lord would make windows in heaven might this thing be.’ Ministers of the Kirk of Scotland, which has since laboured so nobly for the education of India, pronounced the idea to be ‘ highly preposterous,’ and extolled the simple virtues of the untutored savage. A Bishop of the Church of England, the church whose miseionaries now compass the earth, argued publioly and powerfully in opposition to such schemes. The British nation ■ as represented in Parliament declared against them. Its servants in the East regarded the missionaries as dangerous breakers of the law. But for the benevolence of a Hindu moneychanger the first missionary family in Bengal would have been without a. roof. But for the courage of a petty Danish Governor the next missionary party would have been seized by our authorities in Calcutta and shipped back to Europe. A hundred years ago the senße of the churches, the of Rirliamcnt, tho instinct of. self-preservation among the Englishmen who were doing Eng-

land’s work in distant lands, were all arrayod against the missionary idea. The mission-, aries had to encounter not less hostile, and Certainly better founded, prejudices among the non-Christian peoples to whom they Tfreriti For until a oentiiry -ago the white man had brought no blessing to the darker nations of the earth; During 300 years he had been the despoiler, the enslaver, the exterminator of the simpler raceß. The bright and brief episode in Pennsylvania stands out against a grim background of oppression and wrong. . In America ancient Kingdoms and civilizations had been trodden out beneath the hoofs of the Spanish horse. In Africa the white man had organized a great export trade in human flesh. In South Asia cities had been sacked, districts devastated by the Portuguese. Throughout the Eastern Ocean the best of the nations of Europe appeared as rapacious traders, the worst of them as pirates and buccaneers. In India which was destined to be the ohief field of missionary labour, the power had passed the English without the sense of responsibility for using their power aright. During a whole generation the natives had learned to regard us as a people whose arms it was impossible to resist, and to whose mercy it was useless to appeal. Even the retired slave trader of Bristol looked askance at the retired nabob from Bengal.—The Nineteenth Century.

GERMAN LOSSES IN THE FRANCOGERMAN WAR. The Avenir Militaire quotes from the official sanitary reports of the German army during the Franco. German war a number of very interesting particulars concerning the Germans killed and wounded. The following are a fen statistics :—Total number wounded during the war, 116,821, died on the field without medical oare, 17,255 ; attended on the field or in tho ambulances, 99,566, of whor.i 11,023 died and 88,543 were oured. Location of the wounds of the 99,566 men : 10,013 in the head ; 1,700 in the neck ; 9,460 in the back or chest; 3,366 in the abdomen ; 32,307 in the arms or shoulders : 39,811 in the legs ; 2,909 in places not indicated. Of 49,624 wounded, 39,054 were by infantry balls (7,629 died) ; 2,676 by artillery projectiles (565 died); 6,777 by projectiles not indicated (1,152 died); 104 by sabre cuts (12 died); 273 by bayonet and point wounds (8 died); 390 by blows, kicks from horses, &c. (17died); 118 indireotly by projectiles (4 died); 192 by falls from horses, &o. (8 died); and 40 by burning (1 died), LARGEST THINGS OF THEIR KIND. The highest mountain range is the Himalayas, the mean elevation being estimated at 18,000 feet. The loftiest mountain is Mount Everest, or Guarisauker, of the Himalaya Range, having an elevation of 29,002 feet above the sea level. The largest pleasure ground in the United States, and one of the largest in the world, is Fairmount Paik, Philadelphia, which contains 2,745 acres.—Philadelphia Record, whioh speaks to suit that city's pride. The most extensive park is Deer Park, in the environs of Copenhagen, in Denmark. The enclosure contains 4,200 acres, and is divided by a small river. The largest city in the world is London. Its population numbers 4,621,875 .souls New York, with a population of 1,550,000, comes fifth in the list of great cities. The largest island sea is the Caspian, lying between Europe and Asia. Its greatest length is 760 miles, its greatest breadth 270 miles, and its area 180,000 square miles. The largest cavern is Mammoth Cave, in Edmund county, Ky. It is near Green river, six miles from Cave City, and about twenty-eight miles from Bowling Green. The tallest smoke chimney in the world is probably the one that is being erected in East Newark. Its diameter at the base is twenty-eight feet.. It is solid brick to an altitude of 310 feet. At its top it is nine feet in diameter. A cast-iron rim twenty feet in diameter, and a bell surmount the whole, and make the total altitude of the structure 335.

The largest churoh in the world-is St. Peter’s in Rome. It 3 dimensions are as foi« lows :—Length of interior, 613 feet; breadth of the naves and aisles, 197 f feet; height of the nave, 152 feet; length cf the transcepts, 446 J feet; diameter of the dome, including the walls, 195 feet, or nearly two feet more than that of the Pantheon ; diameter of the interior, 139 feet; height from the pavement to the base of the lantern, 405 feet; to the summit of the cross outside, 448 feet. The whole of St. Paul’s Cathedral in London might stand within the shell of St. Peters, with room to spare. The towers of the Cologne Cathedral when completed will be the highest church towers in the world feet - which is the length of the Cathedral. The breadth of edifice is 231 feet. SOME FACTS ABOUT THE BRITISH ARMY. The army of Queen Victoria is composed of a hundred aud nine foot regiments, to which are added the Royal Artillery, Engineers, Royal Marines, and Rifle Brigade, together with the three regiments of guards called the Coldstream. Soots, and Grenadiers. The Grenadiers were raised in London in the year 1660, and since that date the name and number have served in no fewer than fifty-five battles and campaigns. Formerly it was called the King’s Royal Regiment, but in 1815, to commemorate its having defeated the French Imperial Guardß at Waterloo, it received the title of Grenadiers. The Coldscream Guards have fought side by side with the Grenadiers, but have on their list three snore honours. The regiment's first title was Colonel Monck’s Regiment, and its cloth has always been scarlet The Scots Guards have 52 on their list. This was the only regiment of Guards present at Boyne Water, 1690. There are 32 regiments of ; oavalry. Of these the Ist Life Guards, though as old in date of origin as the Foot Guards, have but eight on their list of honours, which inclnde Boyne and Waterloo. The 2nd Life Guards had the same origin as the 1st —both were raised in Holland by Charles 11. The Royal Horse Guard formed part of the Parliamentary army during the reign of Charles I. Seventeen battles are on its list, including

Aughrim, Boyne, and Waterloo. The Ist Dragoon Guards have 33 honours, whilethe remainder of the mounted regiments—. Light Dragoons, Lancers, and Hussars, have each a long and formidable-looking glory roll, except 18th, 20th, and 21st Hussars, whioh as yet have no records of work done, but the 19th has Berved in Egypt and the Nile quite recently. These four regiments in their pres•at form date only from 1858. Except the Engineers and Artillery, whioh have served everywhere on all occasions, the Ist Foot of the Line possesses the most honours. The number is 62. Its uniform Is, and always has been, scarlet. It was in the service of both Sweden and France, and various authorities assert that it was the favourite bodyguard of the Scottish Kings. It dates from 1663, when it was known at Le Regiment de Douglas, and till this day it is nicknamed ‘Pontius Pilate's Bodyguard’ on account of its antiquity. The 42nd Kilties come next with 43 glorious engagements, including Waterloo. The 40th has 42, the 4th has 41, the 60th has 37, and the Rifle Brigade has 36 battles and campaigns on their respective records. The remaining regiments having the longest lists are the 44th with 36, 52 with 35, and the 10th with 32. The 94th dates only (in present form, from 1823, and has none as yet; neither have the 100th (date 1858) Prince of Wales’ Royal Canadian, or 105th (1839) Madras Light Infantry. The 107th Bengal Infantry, however, were present at the Indian Mutiny.