MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1754, 4 July 1885, Page 6

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— The Medicinischc Wochenschrif t makes the bold statement that English scientists are so far behind those of other nations in their study of the causes of infectious diseases that they are no longer in a position to make anything like a pertinent criticism upon such researches. The cause is attributed to English laws practically prohibiting experiments on animals. — In an Etruscan tomb of two young girls, dating to five centuries before the Christian era, artificial teeth have just been discovered. — Repeated experiment has proved that in schoolrooms lighted by windows on both sides the children suffer more or less from injured vision, and so important has the subject been considered in Germany, that a law has been passed forbidding such windows in schools. — Excepting during the three winter months the climate of Persia is warm and dry. For nine months no rain falls, and scarcely a cloud is to be seen. One who has not experienced such a steady climate might think it would prove monotonous. But those who have enjoyed it are very well satisfied with it, and never miss the variable and stormy climate of Europe, and especially that of America. — The first appearance of cotton as an article of commerce was a shipment of seven bales from Charleston in 1757. In ISBO-81 the crop was 6,000,000 bales. The yield of 1884 -S5 was about 7,000,000 bales. _ — An association for the propagation of the French language has been established for the purpose, on which more particular stress is laid, "of promoting the export trade of France." Senegal, Reunion, Madagascar, Persia, Syria, the Levant, Pondicherry, Canton, Shanghai, Japan, Spain, South America, Canada, &c, are among the fields of work of the association. — A Swiss guide recently made a bet with a wealthy Briton that he could visit every country in Europe during 12 months' time, and make the entire journey on foot. The guide gets his expenses anyway, and £1000 prize money if successful. He began his tour on January 1, and is now in Spain, having also visited Switzerland, Italy, France, and Portugal. — Rome, once the cheapest of Italian cities, is now the dearest, and prices have still an upward tendency. How impecunious art students manage to exist is a mystery. In the olden time they were, like the Welsh curate, passing rich on £40 a year, now double that sum would be barely sufficient to procure them the necessaries of life. — Five per cent, of all cancers, says a medical journal, are situated upon the tongue. The average duration of life in cancer of the tongue is, without operation, 10g months ; with operation, 16 months. In some cases, after operation, Ihe patients have lived for from two to five years, or even 10 years. — The Polish singer Mierzwinski, while recently singing at a private concert in Vienna, was suddenly seized with some temporary throat trouble, and whistled the airs he was to sing with such exquisite expression that he was loudly applauded. — Scarcely 25 years ago the most powerful piece of artillery was a 68-pounder, throwing its projectile with a velocity of 1600 ft per second. Now the weights of guns have been increased from five to 100 tons, the velocities from 1600 ft ia 20,000 ft per second, the energies from 1000 foot-tons to over 52,000 ; and the projections iron*. 68 pounds to 2000 pounds. — In the graduating class of forty homeopathic pupils of the New York Medical College, a Brahmin of Bombay, India, received the first honourable mention for excellence in his studies. — Whilst Russia has ;i great civilising mission in Northern and Central Asia, good policy forbids that she should be encouraged to break up (either the Turkish Empire or lh« British. She fis uwfit to replace either, and the^ thirst to destroy tSjem is a mischievous ambition. — Frederick Harjrison. Men hasre been employed on railways with the temperature at 104 degrees, and in the anines, under favourable circumstances, at 125 .degrees, while in the stokeholes of tropical vessels they are said to work occasionally at a temperature of 156 degrees. During the four weeks ending April 11 no iess than 360 persons died in Calcutta of cholera. The Indian papers report also that intense heat had caused a terrible outbreak of cholera at Pegu. Near Rangoon the native employes on the railway works were dying by hundreds. At Eastern ceremonies the Afghan chiefs are the most shabbily-dressed people who take part. They wear dark cloaks, like long dressinggowns, and on their heads high black astrachan caps. Other potentates of the neighbouring countries 'are barbaric in gems and gorgeouscoloured garments. It is as curious to think of the loud, bustl/ing and illiterate Lord Mayor Beckford as the father of the fastidious and scholarly recluse who wrote "Vathek" and built Fonthill as io see in Horace Walpole the offspring of the .great Sir Robert. Both phenomena seem 4o toe what naturalists call " sports.''— Daily — A. strong effort is being made to break up tthe gaming at Monaco. Several suicides of late, «>ne being a sandsome and aristocratic young lady, have aided in concentrating attention to the demoralising influences surrounding European watering-places. A new order of phy&idans in Boston holds ihat mind has control over matter, and that all disease will yield to mental force in the physi.cian. It is popularly called the '•' railed cure," and marvellous stories are told of the working of this new process in eradicating the most obstinate diseases. — In TehertiJ?, Persia, the tea-houses fire all ■open to the pvtUic, and even the schools are ' exposed like the shops, often having shops on each side. The boys sit <jn their heels in rows, and repeat the lesson aftti fAie master, apparently nndisturbed by the eowjwnal hubbub going on around them. Perhaps JK? man who has written wail has written so badly as Charles Reade ; and it is a question whether he £ver wrote worse than he has '• A Perilous Secret.*'— World. —Every town, jn England of any considerable ■size has caterers vvho may be galled in for public or large domestic dinner companies at a ifew hours' notice, aud fco whom every rtiAail of isueh a dinner may be committed without the least armety as to a perfect and satisfactory' mesults. — Madame <lo Struve may coi*»fort herself that, departing, «he will leave behind her a collection of Japanese tea-kettles not likely to be approximated by any private collector. She has 700 — no two alike. Sir fiajnuel Baker ha." forty. —No part of the pig beloved 'by <Corbett is dost to the Parisians. They put truffles imder ■ - 14s feet, and carefully make stuffing in his cars. His tfcail is esteemed a choice morsel, and tib.e , treatment of his head shows also that there is . " a.divißKv that shapes our ends, rough-hew v iihem as.yw.will,"

— Ballooning 111 .Paris would seem to be an almost universal pastime.,' Le Temps says that on a recent Sunday afternoon ''the skies .seemed literally studded" with them. — Paper is made in France from hop bines, and it is claimed that the fibre secured is the best substitute for rags yet obtained, as it possesses great length, strength, flexibility, and delicacy. — There are probably more women pursuing a collegiate course in France than in auv other country in Europe, and the number will soou be much increased through the operation of the law establishing intermediate schools for girls. — Tf a pauper who is able refuses to work, the Dutch put him into a deep cistern and let in a sluice of water. It comes in just so fast that by briskly plying a pump with which the cistern is furnished he keeps himself from drowning. —Different countries, different ways. In Germany knives are used instead of forks ; in China, chopsticks. In one country to spif on tho lloor is not considered j>ro-s ; in another, to tuck up one's coal-tails and toast one's breeches at tho fire is perfectly permissible. The foreigner who constitutes hiin-u-lf arint-i' elcf/antimn deserves to bo snubbed. —Advocates of industrial cdueriion appear to think that the whole sy.-,tein of education should be changed in order i<» make room for purely mechanic arts. This is riding .1 hobby to death. What is known as industrial education is certainly very important, and it« importance is now recognised by the best edueatoij-. But it is not all-important. A liberal culture, aside from manual skill, is still one of the necessary elements of a true education, and no good end can be served by ignoring the fact.— New York Tribune. — There are twenty persons whoso gifts to colleges in America aggregate over 23,000,000 dollars. Three of these rich men — Stephen Girard, John Hopkins, and Asa Packer — gave over 14,000,000 dollars. — One of the signs of the times, and one which grieves me very considerably, is the growing indifference of the public to magazines. Where, years ago, men would ask — " Have you seen that famous article by S in the Quarterly, or that startling attack by 0 in the Fortnightly, and would discuss them by the hour at their clubs, you now hear — " What does the ' tape ' say ? What's in tho ' special ' ?"' "What does this portend ? The decay of literature. — Life. — Ocean steamers are large consumers of coal. The Orient line, with their fleet of '-.hips running to Australia every two weeks, may be mentioned. The steamship Austral went from London to Sydney in thirty-five- days, and consumed on the voyage 30-11 tons of: coal : h»r coal bunkers hold 2750 tons. The steamship Oregon consumes over 330 tons per day on her passage from Liverpool to New York : her bunkers will hold nearly 4000 tons. — The Vanne aqueduct. France, which is some thirty-seven miles long, is said to be the most important and costly work that has ever been constructed of artificial stone. This aqueduct, which supplies the City of Paris with water, traversing the forests of Fontainbleau its entire length, comprises two and a-half to three miles of arches (some of them as much as 50 feet in height), eleven miles of tunnels, and eight or ten bridges of from 7f> feet to 125 feet span for the bridging of ri\ ers, canals, and highways. — There is no force in Persia itself which could resist a real invasion — mi invasion, we mean, with General Gourko i\t its h.-.ul, and 100,000 Russians, with breech-loader*, behind him — for a month. Tho effective Persian army — the, army, we mean, that could face Europeans in the open with a ehanw of success, — does not exceed 15,000 men, and the remainder have proved incompetent e\en to defeat Sepoys, and, though brave, men with great intelligence, are scarcely soldiers at all. — Spectator. — During the year 188J Armour and Co., of Illinois, purchased, slaughtered, and disposed of 1,000,000 head of hogs, 300,000 head of cattle, and their sales have reached tho enormous aggregate sum 0f '40,000,000 dollars. The firm employs in the several departments of its business about 4000 men, and its monthly pay-roll amounts to not less than 150,000 dollars. — The'cataracts of the Nile are due, to granite veins, which the river, while working a way through tho sandstone, had been unable to destroy or remove. A little modern engineering, aided by dynamite, would probably add 1500 miles to the uninterrupted navigation of that river, and open up northern-central Africa to the direct commerce of the world, as the Congo will eventually open up the southerncentral portion of that continent. — The Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, whose pecuniary position has not been entirely satisfactory for some years past, has resolved to quit England, and he is therefore proposing to sell his famous sporting estate of Elveden, in Norfolk. The property Gxtends to some 17,000 acres, of which two-thirds are occupied by the owner's game farm. The shooting on this estate has always very good.. In one season 9600 pheasants were shot, also 0100 partridges, 2000 hares, and 70,000 rabbits. — General Lew Wallace, late United States Minister to Turkey, acknowledges -that when he went tWr> he was prejudiced against the. nrissioum-i.' .. -s '■•> composed nearly all the American residents in that country, But he says that his views of them and their work have entirely changed ; that they are an excellent body of men, doing a grand educational and civilising work outside of their strictly religious duties. The, population of Persia has been reduced by misgoverninent, famine, and other causes, , below 5,000,000, scattered over 500,000 square milps ; ami the only organisation is a certain habit of obedience to the Royal House, which monopolige^ fll first-class posts. The people are regarded as lJeivtJes by all other Mussulman races ; thoy are perniij.Ufntly hated by Turks and Arabs ; and the Court has, except in London, no ally. ' Several doctors m Valencia nave »cfea making numerous experiments by inoculating adujAs and children with the choleraic virus. The'l'alU' of the local physicians and of persons of all classy in these experiments is so great that iv one aft<.-u,j;pn 300 persons were inoculated. The Scolapian £&i.ltnrs brought all their pupils also for this pr'evci^iyo vaccination against cholera. Tho medical njea coy the sume phenomena have been Observed as wjtvp noticud jn similar experiments in France last year during the epidemic. A commission of Madrid doctors >l*af been sent to report on the experiments. General Grant drew his Jiv^t month's salary (i 3.33 dollars) as a General on the Retired List on ' Apr:) 10. Grant's salary will bo 13,600 dollars per wjnum as long as he lives. In return he 4ias to reader no service whatever. In this respect >he-is situated the same as General Sherman. All .the pther officers qn the retired list receiy.G but two-thirds pf their regular pay, feui by.il special Act pf .Congress jSherman and Grant will ywwve £1$ PP-y.