MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1751, 13 June 1885, Page 6

MULT UM IN PARVO.

— The true name of China is eaid to be Chumque, "the centre Kingdom of tho world." Tbia term was by usap Q ronupind to Ohm qn«, and from this word tha Portucuo^Q fjive ih tha nama of China. China proper wnpiars of eighteen provinces, coafcrtininfr 'J50,0C0.000 people. —Ono of the greatcufc a^lroxomic^J v/orkri of the century, a catalocuo dealing with 75,000 stars in the Southern HeiiU'phcryj haw just boen issued ia London. Eivo p8i p soas V7era on^aged in the work for a period of fou»'te«n year*?, — Recently in Getminy.'i scbutit'ic journal mado the statement tbrA il would b-j boziPticial to the eyesight to priofc booics ,a ."iirk olua ink on pale green paper. Tho Sm l priai-ad in this way, "The Nauru) K.i.fcorv of tho Women of Barlin," has jjai, aiaie ; .ta auuaai'ance. —California has 8,000,000 truit fcree», which aro subdivided ps f"llow. : -Applo fcrcoß, ' 2.600,000; peais, 500,000; oraegej, 1,000 000 lemons and limes 500,000. —The diary which (lea. Gnrdoa loft s illustrated on almost evory y^fc, Hif> skoLohea being fantastic and othorwi-m. Tho diary ia vvrittou on Egyptian fi6lograph iorins, sown together with twine. # -- The San Eranciscn Viticu'lnral Comuiission is going to give Dr Biucr's phylloxera remedy a thorough taso. It consists :w id knov/n, of quick?ilv«i: irixed with oil and infused in clay, Tho compound is buriod ia the earth pear the roof; of I,b» div,ea c cd vinos, and the theory is that tho quicksilver emits a mercurial vapour which is faca! <.l> ra^ --c. Zifa. —The Sheygya Arab i have n,.,m lod \>i~ih<i Soudan by Joan of Eodicr,", v d.uiguc»v rf lht< Mahmud, oue of thu Madh) a leaders who wast killed in the last bs>.ttfe with thf» Muriir'a troopa. Thi3 has alwaya be .n r> S-uoanrse peculiavity. At the time of tho first conque&t of the Soudan by tho E^yptaane. ufadr-r Ismail Pasha in 1820, the Sheygya A-^ba ware also led by a woman, or at 'all ov»n'>u * virgin way put forth aa the osfceuaiblo loadar. — Within tho past i »w mont'i'i IV»V3ct-co. Maria, Carmolo,i anti .Mario DelJjpi, brothers and aistera of tha cmnpoior ot IVorwEi and Li Sonnambula have died atOiiis'iiia, in faicily. Mario Bellini was organist wad choirmaster of tha Dome Chapel, and was the writer o£ saveral church pieces. — A recent trave.Uer aays thafc should the immunily from phylloxera which Algeria has hitherto enjoyed coatiuue it would not be surprising if in tan years there were from 375,000 to 500,000 acres of vineyard in the country, with an annual production of 150,000,000 to 175,000,000 gallonu. —The Sandwich Island nagar planters ara turning to Japan as an nvaiJabie source of laboiu- supply. About 1000 JapanpHe havo been taken thero latrjy, r.nd i. is oaid that they mi'.ko excellent h»K:du. The majority of them come attended by their families, and therefore possess advantages which < ho Chin coolio at, n'-zv claim. Up fco March 7, 947 J apanese had arrived iv Honolulu, and it was exripcied that tne City of Tokio would brine 1600 raoro in May. — Prr^idonu Cleveland aaya that polygamy in Hie Territorioa is destructive to tho family religion i*rcd oli&uaive to tha moral aenee ot the civjli&od V'-«;idj and Hball he suppressed, --Marl df/rs boc&JKß'so Euraexouß in some y&,rt« of >\ Iftbtaua thai gcboola in ono country ■vare obliged to auspond lately 5 aa ifc was considered dangerous to have tho pupils abroar-1. —An Rxfcrsordinovy outrage was perpefcrated in Bt, Paul's CaUiedral, London, on Good Friday. Daring Uivino service, v/hilst Holy Communion was baing celebrated, a young man nainod Charles Beers rushed forward and struck the chalice oufe ot tho hands of the celebrant. Tba perpetrator way charged with tho offence at fche Mansion House," and wan remanded on bail, the defence act up being tha?; tho defendent was of unsound mino, but Gubficquently he was committed to prison for one month. Borne savage anti-Semitic riots took plasma recently in tho village g£ Dtratßcb Liptsch, Liplau, II unga/y. Jt was said thafc a Christian 1 pirl oj 14 aad been decoyed into a h use whoi'o soi.so Jewh, arrn^d with long knives, had nought to kill her, in order to obtain her bioud for vitual usosl In aonscqueucu of heariug this story, b«nda of peasants aaaonibled and made a night attack upon the houaes of tha Jew?, dostroying much proof rty, and v/oundinpr miiuy poison*, two Jewesses and some children very seriously. —The Emperor of Ausdia o-dered a li\r?Q chandelier for preßantau 'n tv hia Hulme«h the Pope on J<]i3ter D.vy to commemorate the jnbileo cf the dtfhei&vci ol Vienna from tho bands of ths Turk. Thn chandtlW in n magniticent work of art iv the Renaissance style. It ia 7ft high, and 3urmi;vjntPd by aDgßlo bear ingf a crown, and at each foot rcpope figures emblemat'cal of (ho triumph oi' Chrietiaaifcy ovai Iclaiii,

— Tho firdfc RussicVi nchool for Mtiaau'man-T ha^i been opened at Ta^hk 'nd, in Tinkjslan, It iseaid that t"a pr.pils, who auiubcvod forty ono at tha li»g"'nni»ig of tha ton.i, belong to rii^fciogiiished u:\fci vo ?ftniilir>K, und tho success of this experiment h".s b°en wuob a=i to oncourapjfi the o^fi^blishment of similar institutions in other placcß,

— A woman quack has jusi been hied in Piiris for prescribing a i .' a remedy for rh?u miti^m a dt.coctian of chopped puppicn aad rf>d worms, cooked for three days and three eights. — The uso of vaseline, which is a product of peuoloum, has become no extsn^ivo in Francp, JHRfesd of lard for pastry, that the Council (if Hvpipno found it necoKsary to pass an order yrohibiliag 1 ita omployuicut iv this way. — A London acienlist sayfi that tho highest velocity thftt hrts been imparted to a cannon ball is 162G foot per second, equal to a tnilo in 3 2 seconds Tho velocity of the earth ai; tho oquator. di»» to rotation on ifs axis, is 1000 mile 3 per bour, or ;; mile in 8 6 seconds ; and thus, 51' v cannon ball was fired due west, and could mantain its initial velocity,' it would baat, tha sun in ita apparent journey around the earth,

—The oldest specimen of pure glass beating anything Jike a date is a little moulded lion's hoad, bearing tha name of an Egyptain King of the elevonth dynasty, in thn Slade collecfcion aft the British Museum. That is to say, at tho period which may bo moderately placed at more than 2000 years b c glass was not only made but mado with a skill winch shows that tho art wee nothing new 6ven at th it time.

— Compariyg (,ha Euglish insnraaco returns of the last 12 or 11 yours the 10-uranca Journal thinks it by no mains impropable that at the end of tho proseot century tha total premium incomcof the Hfoiaburanceoffi'oes doing business iuTSntfiandwUlhavoroached '23 million-! atr-r)it3g, and tho interest on invaatm.'.ats eight millions. Is expects claims to amount to 10 millions, i.ho *.otal lilo insuraiicea in force to 670 millions fitoriing, pijil thetoKl fuuds 210 millions.

- I?rin« Daraidoff, whose creditable life lias jn^fc bepn closed, onca played e.'artd wi*h Khaiil Bpy for sfcakef of £2000 par camo. I» an hour and a hnlf KhnliL won £20 000. Viul

Ibav kept ou all in 'bt, aad by morning D-jmi-diif W3H ahflad by £6000 Tho two, exhausted, then full arfloep on tho floor, but at noon they a'vnko, ate a little ani drank a good deal, and Kwaimof] pay. They kept at it, with ehort intervals oi eating and drinking, until uoon tho next day, when n ither was able to hold rhfl cwrls longer, K^alil w&s the winuer of the iong c ntest by £40 010. --On bt'asa, a tecbuiiul j'tnrnal says, a steel colour is developed by uping a boiling solution ri av&anic chloride, whila a careful application of » concentrated solution of Mndsum sulphide causes a blue colouration. Black, boir.g gpnerally used for optical in«tru nipnt:-!, ia obtained from a solution of platinum chlorido to which tin nitrate has be«n added In Japan tho braes in bronzed by using a boiling solution of copper Bulphate, alum, and verdigris.

— -A woman was recently arraigned in Eagliind foe stealing ft garni cock and a ca f .. A numbor of vat-kins were found in her garden. IShi killed tho animals by putting a wet towel ovnr tbe?r heais o-nd ihen preesi» i g them be tween he r koees ; they died in a minute or bo. Sho admittod having put <he akinn iv the ft&rddn, and statfld <jhe buried othara. tShe had haon in th« habit of killing cats and selling them !is "Scotch bnres."

— Gordon wa3 :», man full of humour and ocjoying a k(M>n s"nso of tho ridiculous; be wis a man of ro.tdiog — not tho homo unius libri whom wo »to taught to dis'trusfc. His mannerE and td'ireßs were unnpually gentlo and pleaoing ; hi* courage waa lik«) that of Skobnlotf, without S'ho tonoh of rbpatrical effect which, no doubb, Mkobnlrf? indulged in, because ho found ii. fo inspiring to hU inon on the wide sfcnga of war. — S.\curdtiy Tfeviaov.

— In the discussions in England aa to overpressure in thepvblic schools, the prevail >oe of headache waa stated to ba a fair ipzt of th' fvrnount of pressure exerted, and a child r-hould b« rel.aved from continuous attendance at school after a succession of headaches had given tho warning. Sir R'chard O won ptatas rhat about 5 por ceufc. of children Buffer from hphd&cha. whether they go to school or not. Acc"rdiri{j to Liveing, about 14 pov crnt of all iv hool ehiidrou may bo expected to sullar from bendrtcl'i

Tho White House covers about onotnird of an. acre, and bus cost up to the present time about 2,000 000 Jol. It is modelled after a castle in Dublin, and the architect, who waa a South Carolina man named Hoban, got SOOdol iov drawing tho plans. When it wiv< lirnt built, away bacte in tho nineties, it cost 300,000d01, but the British burnt out its insidss, and its coat has since added to that, sum about 1,700,000d01. In it all of the Presidents since Washington have lived, and each hao added fco its beauties and its expanses. Year by year, however, the furnishing ban gone on, until now it is a sort of muiitnff of art and beauty. — M. Pasteur recently recommended a member of the Academic dcs Sciences to experiment with young animals in order to ascertain if thoy cpn be nourished upon the absolutely pure food which many people regard as an ideal diet — that is, a food wholly free from microbes. He believed that such a diet would not sustain life, and that the presence of common microbes in the digestive organ 3 was necessary to the proper functional action of those organs.

— Afrar a cruise of a few months in tbo South Pacific, a French man-of-war waa recandy found to have snocimens of living corals growing upon her hull. The interesting discovery has thrown ooraa light on tho quostion of the 'rapidity of growth of co;v,!«s. The evidence tendt> to chow t.hftt tho vessel, on paFsing a reef of the G.tmbJer Islando, against which she rubbod, had pickod up a iiingia, which adhrred to tho eheathing and grow to a diameter of nine inches and a weight of two and a half pounds in nine weeks.

— German trado journals are already bewailing tha activity of English promotern, no loss than three merchant banking eompan!f"< being reported to ba about to exploit the now Gorman oolonies with English capital. Tt is even ntat6d in Berlin that the British Government has halp«d to create these new companies; and tho f-ar ia thcro nxpvasaed that th 9 iniquitous but proraot Englishman v;ill hive secured tho kornrf of fch» now business in time to leave the blowm G arman traders fche mere hufikß. — lfc ia aai« that a (Vorman olectrician has invented n battery which will do wondora if its plans could only bo carried out. Tho oloctrio battery ir to be worked by punlfcht mostly, if not. entirely, and the cost of tho other elements could ba reduced to a minimum. If cheap »nd portnblo accumulator* couli ha made for a* onnf? t'lQ plentricitv the sunlight of a single summer ould bo mado to store up force enough to diiva all tho mills and rail road -i for years. — Official i-a'u'-m show a remarkable inorea^e of micido in F--ouc<3, Five yeara swjo the numbpv per 100,000 inhabitants was 17 ; it is now 19. Hanging ami drowning are most popular, and next in favour are firearms and charcoal fumes. April, May, and June ara the favourite mouths of (ho Parisian tiaicido.