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Otago Witness, Issue 1761, 22 August 1885, Page 6

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— The American Colony at Paris, of which so much is said, comprises from* 500 to 1000 residents, consisting of artists, students, hangers-on at the legation and consulate, and people of elegant leisure. It is said to be the centre of much small talk and scandal.

— The juice of the curious ink-plant of New Granada requires no preparation before boing used for writing. The colour is reddish when first applied to paper, but soon becomes a deep black, which is very durable. The ink is now used for public records and documents. — French engineers are about to boing further surveys in relation to the proposed African island sea, with the twofold view of constructing a harbour at the mouth of the Oued Mellah, and of ascertaining the feasibility of sinking artesian wells along the proposed line of the canal. — The Highland landlord, if he likes, can swagger more tremendously, and put on more of what youth calls "side," than any Southern squire. If this be doubted, go watch him at a Highland gathering. The King of Dahomey or Abyssina could not be more magnificently aware of his position, nor more contemptuous of the rabble. — Daily News. — " Drugwump " is a new word just invented in Kansas. Its meaning is somewhat obscure, as the Prohibitionists apply it to the whisky men and the whisky men hurl it back on the Prohibitionists. •

— Every plant begins life like an animal — a consumer, not a producer. Not until the young shoot rises apove the soil and unfolds itself to the light of the sun, at the touch of whose rays chlorophyl is created, does real constructive vegetation begin. Then the plant's mode of life is reversed ; carbon is retained and oxygen set free.

— The practice of giving, a bonus of some kind to all purchasers is said to have grown to such an extent in Berlin as to have become an odious oppression upon dealers. The custom originated in the United States.

— Miss Maude St. Pierre, who is known as the " Southern Coal Queen," is the possessor of 300,000 acres of mining lands, situated in Tennessee, Alabama, and Kentucky. She overlooks 22,000 acres of mineral wealth from her mountain home in Tennessee, and superintends herown workmen.

— London produces 50,000 tons of soot per annum, which is worth £40,000, and is used for a fertiliser at a rate of lOcwt per acre.

— The Derby was at one time so far and away the best race of the year that people went to Epsom for that alone ; but now that such powerful counter-attractions exist elsewhere, the Derby has ceased to stand alone. Still it has, as a rule, considerable interest for professional racing people, if not quite so enthralling as before. — Vanity Fair.

— It is now definitely settled that the oldest Freemason in the world is John Tressirler, of Falmouth, England, initiated August 6, 1805, while the oldest in America is Captain Sylvanus Hatch, of Port Levacca, Texas, who joined the order in 1809.

— What is said to be oldest living thing upon the globe is the cypress of Santa Maria del Tule, in the Mexican State OaxaGa. Thjs venerable monarch of the forest, still instinct with apparently strong life, probably spans the whole period of written history. It is still growing. Humbolclt speaks of it in 1851 as measuring 34ft in diameter, 146 ft in circumference, and 282 ft between the two extremes. '

— There is perhaps no more interesting period in all history than that of the great French Revolution, and of the years immediately preceding it. Certainly there is none in which the French people present themselves so picturesquely to the imagination ; and any book, be it historical or biographical, a novel or a memoir, that deals with this time, is sure of being widely read. — Spectator. — It js stated that ex-President Arthur is suffering from Bright's disease, which during the past year ho 3 assumed an aggravated form. — Engineering skill in China has achieved a notable triumph in the bridge at Lagang, over an arm of the China Sea. Thjs structure is five miles long, built entirely of stone, 30,0 archeg 70 feet high, tne roadway is 70 feet wide, and the pillars are 75 feet apart. — The Scientific American calculates that the force with which Odium struck the water under Brooklyn bridge was equal to 25,200 pounds, It is not, therofpre, difficult to explain the doctors' statement that tke victim was "simply mangled to death." —0 Sata-San, a young Japanese lady writer, *■>«§ keen tftken on the editorial staff of one of t-u x *«t newspapers in Tokio. This js the first the bb. . *tie kingdom of the Mikado who has woman ot tfee eN4e of journalism, been admitted ?v.? v. , «ffi m <km Avm? has died — Not a soldier in v- 'PhJair imnumiLy is of small-pox since 1875. J3j whkh thought to be due to the strictn. . vaccination is enforced. ' . — A remarkable collection of mineral spring exists in North Georgia. They are known as the Catoosa Springs, and consist of fifty-two springs, all different in character, within the space of a two-acre plat.

— A writer in the British Medical Journal says that if the infection of cholera is as largely spread by drinking Avater as the investigators say, the safe way to avoid it is to drink distilled water.

— Mr Sala is a master of making the most commonplace travel readable ; his ready flow of illustration, his marvellous memory, his capacity for seeing all sorts of similitudes that would strike no other man, his dexterous suggestion of matters which would affect his own person remotely or directly — are not his talents in this respect known unto all men? — St. James' Gazette.

— Nearly 12,000 women are engaged in giving musical instruction in England.

— An English clergyman in London recently made the following extraordinary announcement to his congregation : — " There will be an amateur cencert and ballet under distinguished patronage : the ballet will be danced entirely by the children of ladies."

— A Russian traveller predicts that Thibet will prove to be a second California, as during a recent visit there, he found the natives goldwashing in the crudest way, but with the richest results.

— Tt is estimated that it will cost the Russian Government £400,000 a year to keep the Central Asiatic railway, when finished, open, and the receipts of the first year are not expected to exceed 200,000 roubles.

—The first vessel which sailed from London with immigrants for Australia was .anchored in the Thames alongside the transport which carried the last detachment of British troops from the United States at the close of the revolution. The vessel bound for Australia, or New Holland as it was then called, arrived at Botany Bay, January 26, 1788. The immigrants numbered 1000.

— Vienna has ten times as many doctors in proportion to population as London. But Vienna has the greatest medical school in the world.

— A private letter to a Cape Town newspaper reports Madagascar to be rich in precious stones and metals, but that the law of the country prohibits mining under a penalty of twenty years in chains.

— Punishment by " hanging " or any other kind of death does not enter into the penal code in Roumania. Criminals are condemned to the salt mines for a term of years, or for life according to the enormity of their crimes.

— In England there is an organisation which undertakes to audit the books and accounts of individuals and companies, and to it belong some of the best actuaries in the kingdom.

— The contractors for a canal in Germany, 1 laving occasion to cross a much-travelled highway, after completing the waterway, constructed a concrete bridge over the same in one day. The span was 39 feet, and total weight between the abutments 194 tons. The work between the abutments was done between C a.m. and 6 p.m., by sixty-five men. — By an incendiary fire in a Hungarian village recently, 1000 persons were left homeless. The culprit, being discovered, was roasted to death over a bonfire.

—An English woman suffrage advocate puts it thi.s way : " I have no vote, but my groom lias. I have great respect for that man in the stables, but I am sure if I were to go to him and say, ' John, will you exercise the franchise ? ' he would reply, ' Please, mum, which horse be that?'"

— Fielding defined Nobody as " all the people in Great Britain except about 1300." The definition seems to hold good to-day. The lapse of 150 years has made no difference in the numbers of Everybody — the Anybodies have nothing to do with the increase of population. Ye shall find that making allowance for the increase of population since 1881, and excluding Ireland, the number of persons in Great Britain invited to regard themselves as Nobody amounts to something more than thirty millions;— Globe.

— The Rome Diretto foreshadows the occupation of Suakim next autumn by Italy.' It says that the Italian Government is preparing another expedition to the Red Sea, and that it will take many gifts from King Humbert to the native authorities at Suakim.

— A kindergarten movement in the form of church schools is taking shape at New York. Already a few such schools exist and are 'doing excellent work. Rev. Heber Newton has a free kindergarten in the basement of his church, where eighty poor children- are instructed from 9.30 till 12, and then given a free luncheon before being sent home.

— An Italian ship has been sheathed with glass plates, cast like iron plates, so as to fit the hull, to take the place of copper sheathings. The joints of the plates ar'j made water tight by the use of waterproof mastic. The advantages claimed for glass over copper are its insensibility to oxidation and its exemption from incrustation.

— Still another wonderful use has been found for electricity. Recently electrodes connected with a dynamo of the power of forty ordinary Daniell cells were put into forty-five gallons of fresh milk, and in exactly four and one-half minutes the field was, as dairymen say, churned, the butter rising on the surface. The quantity obtained was fully equal to that procured in the ordinary way, and the quality perfect.

— Corsicans are Italians by blood and language, Frenchmen by political accident, and idlers by nature. The women are the labourers, and also the beasts of burden. A French traveller says he has seen women and girls emerging from the woods bending under their heavy loads of brushwood for fuel, while their male companions rode behind them on ponies or mules.

— Man is an animal who loves being in a crowd. There are cities abroad of which the whole population turns out every fine evening into one and the same central square, and fill it and try to promenade and render promenading impossible by sheer density of numbers, and are happy. If the people wanted promenading, they could break up into various groups, disperse through several streets or squares, and promenade to their hearts' consent. But what they want is first of all to make part of a throng ; to crowd and be crowded. — Daily News.

— Out of 615,000,000 British subjects, or those more or less under England's political control, only 46,000,000 profess Christianity, while 188,000,000 profess Hindooism.' There are 60,000,000 of Mohammedans under $he flag of the Empire, a number greater than in any of the Mohammedan States ; it is actually the half of the Mohammedan world. The aboriginal tribes are classed chiefly as pagan, and those amount to about 7,000,000. ' "

— That the piano is a generally seryioea.tye instrument no one would dream of denying, though out of it there are not to be evoked those deep and tender sounds which we look for in the violin pr violoncello, and are prepared for in the organ. JJut, though the violin is an instrument which js. jjajn{ng }n popularity, and which perhaps is dߧt?J]e4 {ft FBpl aGe the pianqas a.n instrument of *«*tie tortlJFPj we haye not yet reached that dom. -**ge, ftn«l %%a piano remains, by reason unhappy .. _ '■h^ l'otidiost ftnd Jess ebjeotionable of its übiquity, v. " nno'g uojghbour by the mode of punishing v- A «v&, making of mere noise. — Stanui

— The 'professional ar&user has become • .v. stitution of New York society. At dinners, cluk.," banquets, and parties, they are in continual demand, and a popular artist in this line is perpetually on the go. The stupid half -hour after the coffee is served, which usually falls on a party of diners, which was formerly filled with tedious or tiresome speeches, is now admirably utilised by the professional amuses. He goes in as one of the guests, dines, is professionally jolly for an hour after dinner, pockets a fejs of £10, and disappears.