OLLA PODRIDA.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 915, 13 September 1889, Page 6

OLLA PODRIDA.

TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN. It is claimed that persons addicted to the use of alcoholic liquors can be entirely cured by the new French method of hypnotism. The patieut is hypnotized and then told by the doctor that he must never want to drink again, but must feel disgust for liquor. This method of treatment is said to be suecessful in every instance. Mrs Hannah Whitall Smith writes to Miss Willard that the cases are wonderful and have excited so much attention that French specialists now have a hospital devoted to the treatment and publish a review.

AN ANTI-GAMBLING LEAGUE. We have our blue ribbons and our red rib. bons, and our white->cross leagues, and the like. Why should we not ask all youDg men and young women to pledge themselves that they will never bet, never share in a raffle or lottery, and never participate in a game of chance for money? Nothing would more speedily contribute to ‘the creation of a vigorous and healthy public sentiment upon this crying sin of our day than such a rule and such an order of persons. We are aware that societies abound, and that there has been so far an unanimous agreement that no new society should be formed to put down gambling. We undertake to say that unlesi some organised association, however slight and inexpensive, i 3 formed to concentrate the energies and intellects of a few able minds upon the subject, we shall never either secure effective legislation or stem this torrent of vice which is flooding our land. The gambling spirit dries up all generous impul-e and all sense of respect, so much so that soldiers could gamble for the clothes of One who was dying on the cross. It demoralises the sense of right till men rob aud cheat in other things. It lowers the commercial tone of a people until its very trade becomes infected in every department. If England is to maintain her commercial credit in the world she must stamp out the plague of gambling. If Christianity is to triumph, the Churches must remove this stumbling-block out of the way of the feet of her little ones. —Rock.

INTERMITTENT SENSATION.

The fact of intermittence in the intensity of some sensations is known to physiologists. Thus, the tick of a watch withdrawn gradually from the ear begins to be heard, by turns, distinctly and indistinctly, then times of Bilence alternate with the sound. M. Coue. toux, in the Revue Scientifique, calls attention to an analogous experience he has had in the case of vision. Looking at a distant windmill, with four vanes, he could not make up his mind whether it was in slow motion (like a nearer one) ; for, of the three vanes projecting against the sky, he saw now one, now another ; but the intermittent degradation of the sensorial impression prevented his observing two successive positions. These sensorial fluctuations seem to deserve careful study.—Nature. FIGURES THAT HAVE INTEREST. There are at present 3,064 languages spoken by the inhabitants of our globe, wboie religious convictions are divided be* tween 1000 different confessions of faith. The number of males is nearly equal to that of the females. The average duration of life is thirty-three years. One-fourth of the population of the earth dies before attaining the seventeenth year. Of 1000 persons only 1 reaches the age of one hundred years and not more than 6 that of sixty-five years. The entire population of the globe is upward of 1,200,000, of whom 35,214,000 die every year, 96,480 every day, 4020 every hour, 67 every minute and 1 and a fraction every second. On the other hand, the births amount to 36,702,000 every year, 100,800 every day, 4200 every hour, 70 every minute, 1 and a fraction every second. Married people live longer than the unmarried, the temperate and industrious longer than the gluttons and idle, and civilised nations longer than the uncivilised. Tall persons enjoy a greater longevity than small one 3. Women have a more favourable chance of life before reaching their fiftieth year than men, but a less favourable one after that period. The proportion of married persons to single ones is as 75 to 1000. Persons born in spring have a more robust constitution than those bora at other seasons. Births and deaths occur more frequently at night than in the daytime. It may finally be added that only one-fourth of the male inhabitants of the globe grow up to carry arms or perform military service.

IS THE EARTH IN DANGER FROM THE DRILL ?

Professor Joseph F. Jones answers, in a recent issue of the Popular Science Monthly, the question, ‘ Is it safe to drill the earth too much ?’ The professor assumes the earth t© be a hollow sphere filled with a gaseous substance, called by us natural gas, and he thinks that tapping these reservoirs will cause disastrous explosions, resulting from the lighted gas coming in contact with that which is escaping. He compares the earth to a baloon floated and kept oisfcended by the gas in the interior, which, if exhausted, will cause the crust to collapse,, affect the motion of the earth in its orbit, cause it to lose its place among the heavenly bodies, and fall in pieces. Another writer thinks that drilling should be prohibited by stringent laws. , He, too, thinks there is a possibility of an explosion, though from another cause. Should' such a disaster occur, ‘ the country along the belt from Toledo through Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky will be ripped up to the depth of 1200 feet, or 1500 feet, and flopped over like a pancake, leaving a chasm through which the waters of Lake Erie will come down, filling the Ohio and Mississippi valleys, and blotting them out for ever.’ Still another theorist has investigated the gas wells with telephones and delicate thermometers, and he announces startling diacoveries. He distinguished sounds like the boiling of rocks, and estimated that a mile and one half or so beneath the Ohio and Indiana gas field the temperature of the earth

is ' 3200 degrees. The scientist says an immense cavity exists, and that here the gas is stored, that a mile below the bottom of the cavity mass of roaring, seething flame, which i 3 gradually eating into the rook floor of the cavern and thinning it. Eventually the flames will reach the gas, and a terrific explosion will ensue.

A CHURCH-TOWER INVADED BY COOKS-

The City Press says :—The church and the ale-house have been frequently associated by the irreverent; bub it has remained for the City of London to exhibit an instance of a well-known church being actually occupied by the kitchen servitors of a restaurant. One of the churchwardens of this church recently ascended the tower, and discovered that the cooks of a neighbouring eatinghouse (the kitchen being situated at the top of the building) bad made an entrance into the tower and utilised it as a store house. No doubt it was a cool and safe chamber ; hut it is scarcely necessary to add that the legs of mutton, Camembert cheeses, and the other dainties were bundled forth without ceremony and measures adopted to protect the sacred edifice from such worldly intrusion in the future.

THE OPIUM HABIT AMONG CHINESE. Rev. Virgil C. Hart has made a large and welcome a idition to the knowledge we already possess in his recent work, ‘Western China : a Journey to the Great Buddish Centre of Mount Omei.’ Mr Hart was for twenty-two years a missionary in Western China. Naturally the author has something to say of the opium habit among the Chinese. Large sections of the country through which he travelled were given up to poppy-raising, aud the people generally were habitual consumers of the drug. lie says, in describing his trip up the Yaiigtsze river : ‘The sallow complexion of the people—thoir emaciated forms and languid movements attract our attention everywhere along the river. I do not see a beautiful face or figure, nor a rosy cheek ; a dead leaden colour is on all faces, old and young, male and female. I look at the broad, swift river ; I feel the cool, clc-ar breeze, I gaze ac the high, green hills, the flowing rivulets and the wide-spreading tree 3 overhanging the hamlets. Upon the mountain sides are houses and hundreds of Workmen ; approach those busy labourers and you will see this death-like pallor on all faces. The climate seems to be the acme of perfection—a long pleasant summer, with a cool, agreeable autumn and bracing winter; yet there is a want of energy and life among the people. There is plenty of food, aud of excellent quality for China—rice, wheat, millet, peas, beans, corn, oils and fruits of many varietes —all within the means of the humblest labourer.

‘I enter a large field near a hamlet, by the side of a luxuriant gi’owth of ripening wheat. The field is clean, not a weed visible; but close together and four feet high stand stalks with large dry heads, brown and decaying now, for their bright flowers faded a mouth ago. These decaying stalks speak ; they tell me why the deathpallor is upon all faces, from the shrivelled form of age to the bow-legged child sitting in the cottage door. Oh, seductive viper, curse of millions ! Who shall dare to stand up in the presence of this fast-fading, degenerating people, and say the evil is not widespread and fatal ? Traverse the fairest portions of all the provinces ; not the cities alone, but the quiet, out-of-the-way places are all saturated and besmeared with the black paste, even to the gods.’ SOME SUPERSTITIONS, It is unlucky to enter a house with the left foot forward. It is unlucky to ride behind a bob-tailed horse at a funeral. It is unlucky to sneeze before breakfast or when you see the new moon. It is unlucky to own a crowing hen, a white horse, a white cow, a white oat, or to carry a white umbrella. It is unlucky to whistle or sing before breakfast. It is also unlucky to tell your dreams before breakfast. If your right ear burns friends are talkliig' about you. If your left ear burns enemies are scandalizing you. If the palm of your right hand itches you will receive money or shake hands- If your left hand itches you will pay your debts. If you sneeze on Monday you Eneeze for danger ; Sneeze on Tuesday, kiss a stranger ; Sneeze on Wednesday, sneeze for a letter ; Sneeze on Thursday, something better j Sneeze on Friday, sneeze for sorrow ; Sneeze on Saturday, see your sweetheart to-

morrow ; Sneeze on Sunday, and the devil will have dominion over you all the week. See a pin and pick it up, All the day you’ll have good luck ; See a pin anrl let it lay, Bad luck you’ll have all the day.

SPEED OF LIGHT AND SOUND. Sir R. S. Ball gives an account in Good Words of a remarkable meteor which passed over great part of the United States on 21st December, 1876. Between Chicago and St. Louis the meteor exploded, being * shivered into a cluster of brilliant balls of fire which seemed to chase each other across the sky.’ The sound of the explosion was heard frightfully loud at Bloomington, Indiana, 185 miles distant 7n this instance the difference of the speed at which, light and sound travels was strikingly exemplified. 1 Sound,’ says Prof. Ball, ‘ takes five seconds to travel a mile. Light travels so quickly that the time necessary to traverse a mile, or a hundred miles, or a thousand miles is utterly inappreciable by ordinary measurement. The superb spectacle had been seen at Bloomington. It had excited the utmost astonishment. Doubtless it had been discussed, and notes had been oompared by those whose good fortune had permitted them to see it. But the immediate excitement was over, friends had parted for the night; some of them had entered their houses; others had

renewed their walk homewards, and had travelled nearly a mile on their journey; vehicles had drivou a couple of miles ; trains had run half a dozen miles ; columns of newspapers had been read. Many who had seen' the meteor hnd already forgotten it, when their ears were deafened by the arrival of the awful explosion. The waves of sound had to travel a distance as great as from London' to Liverpool, and even at the rate of a mile every five seconds this cannot be done in less than a quarter of an hour. Probably many ot those who had heard the noise and saw the light found it hard to believe in their connection.

CITY GROWTH BY ANNEXATION. The proposed annexation by Chicago of its suburbs with a population of less than 200,000 souls seems insignificant compared with the grand schemes which now occupy the minds of New Yorkers. That city has a population of 1,600,000. It is proposed to add on Brooklyn and all Kings and Richmond counties and some towns in Westchester and Queens. Then it would have an area of 320 square miles and a population of 3,000,000, as against Loudon, with an urea of 657 square miles aud 4,500,090 souls, and Paris, with its IS4 square miles and 2,225,000 people. New York would then become the second largest city in the world, with every prospect of retaining the place,—Chicago Tribune.

ATMOSPHERIC PRESSURE. That air has weight is an elementary fact regarding the atmosphere ; and that it becomes more and more rarified as we ascend hills aud mountains is also a primary lesson of physics. As a matter of fact air presses on all bodies on the earth’s surface with a pressure of about 161 b to the square inch. On this computation a man must exist at all times under a weight of several tons of atmosphere, bub a 3 the pressure is equal in all directions, he is practically unconscious of his atmospheric burden. If, however, we could conceive that the pressure, say, outside his clie3t, were at any time to be rendered even slightly greater than that which exists within that cavity, very disastrous results would naturally ensue. The equality of air-pressure is thus the saving clause of all forms of life ; and something of a similar nature obtains in the case of animals living in great dept hs of sea. What is meant by our living under ‘one atmosphere of pressure,’ then, is simply that wo exist under the normal aud equal pressure of 16lb or so. Men who work in the caissons or coffer-dams used in making the foundation of bridges, and in other engineering works, may have to exist temporarily under greatly increased airpressure. But in their case we find this increased pressure attended by the occurrence of peculiar symptoms not unlike those of rheumatism. That this disease has an intimate relationship with the weather and with atmospheric pressure, is, of course, a well-ascertained fact. Hence * caisson disease ’ has been regarded by many writers as merely artificially-produced rheumatism.

Every young man has two lives before him. He may choose either. He may be a man with a man’s powers and immunities, or a sham of a man—a whited sepulchre—conscious ho carries with him his own dead bones and all uncleanliness. It is a matter entirely of choice. He knows what one life is and where it ends. He knows the essential qualities and certain destiny of the, other. The man who says he cannot control himself not only lies, but places his Maker in blame. The sense of security and selfrespect is worth more than the illicit pleasures of a world for all time. There is just one way of safety, and only one ; and a young man can choose whether he will walk in it.

At a certain country house the pheasants were fed daily from a kind of box, the lid of which rises with the pressure of the bird standing on the rail in front of the trough. A water lion observing this went and stood upon the rail as soon as a pheasant had quitted it; but its weight being insufficient to raise the lid, so as to enable it to get at the corn, the bird kept jumping on the rail to give additional impetus to its weight ; this partially succeeded, but not to the satisfaction of the sagacious bird. Accordingly it went off, and returning with a bird ot its own species, the united weight of the two had the desired effect, and the successful pair enjoyed the benefit of their ingenuity. This anecdote contains a suggestion something like reasoning. Those who have given close study to the requirements of the human system in the matter of food say that a healthy man requires 300 grains of nitrogen and 4600 grains of carbon daily to repair the waste that goes on during the 24 hours. As meat contains 100 grains of carbon and 300 of nitrogen in every 1000 grains, it would be necessary to eat 6Jlb of meat to supply the amount of carbon the system requires, which would entail the consumption of a great deal more nitrogen than the system needs. On the other hand, bread contains 300 grains of carbon and 10 of nitrogen in every 1000 grains, so that to obtain the amount of nitrogen required it is necessary to consume twice as much bread as will supply the requisite amount of carbon. These calculations indicate the value of a mixed diet. The Annamites have long been known to be among the ugliest of human beings ; but one of their peculiarities, and a very extraordinary one. has been but little remarked upon. The Qhinese call them Giao-Chi, or the big toed ones ; and, in fact, their big toes are very fiat; so much so as to be quite abnormal. The origin of the peculiarity is explained in an old Siamese legend, accord, ing tq which a Buddhist missionary was ouoe wrecked ou the shores of Annnm. Seeing no living creature, save flocks of wild geese, the good man piayed that human beings might appear, in order that he might convert them. Thereupon the geese swooped down, and, taking up a position around him, were presently transformed into crowds of men, women, and ohildren, retaining no trace of their former condition save the broad, fiat, distended big too—the sole relic of the web foot.

A just balance between play and work may be struck for the individual by noting what duration of mental exercise can be borne

without the signs of fatigue following. Recreation of the athletic kind is most useful in turning the brain overpressed with thoughts toother modes of action, and preventing it from continuously acting in mental modes producing a cloud of uncontrolled thoughts, to be followed by troubled sleep and dreams. Habits of bodily activity, properly regulated, are often the best cure for sickly states of mind. '

Suppose a person takes an even number of coins or counters or anything else in one hand, and an odd number in the other, there is a simple method by which to tell in which, hand the even number is. Ask her to multiply the number in her right hand by an odd number, »Dd the number in her left hand by an even ; then let her add the two products together and tell you if the total sum be odd or even. If it be even, the even number is in the right hand, and if it be odd the even number is iu the left hand.

In the future every great ironclad will have its suite, composed of a small fleet. This will consist of two first-class torpedo, boats, a fast gunboat ram, generally towed, and a very fast 200-ton ‘ turn-about torpedocatcher,’ fitted with the latest improvements for destroying torpedoes.