MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1847, 15 April 1887, Page 6

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— A writer in the Melbourne Leader recommends the people of Victoria, before they "go quite mad over the fact that Queen Victoria has reigned for 50 years over the British Empire, and indulge in all sorts of insane and costly freaks in order to testify their joy," to invest sixpence in purchasing "The New Book of Kings," by Monison •Davidson, barrister-at-lavv, Middle Temple, London, and read it in conjunction with "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London." He thinks that the Queen and family are the only ones who should spend money and celebrate this jubilee. —A St. Petersburg correspondent describes the condition of Russia as in the highest degree anomalous. Nothwithstanding the terrible depression in business, the reduction in value of Russian roubles, which are at a lower point than during the Turkish war, and the daily growing financial weakness of the Government, all classes desire war as a relief from present stagnation. It is vainly urged that this will lead to some reconstruction and improvement of affairs. - — One of the best evidence of the early study of astronomy by the Chinese is found in one of the Paris libraries. It consists of a Chinese chart of the heavens, made about 600 B.C. In this chart 1460 stars are correctly inserted, as corroborated by the observations of modern astronomers. —The largest Evangelical church in Mexico is the Presbyterian Church in Zacatecas. It has more than 900 members". They have bought a fine Catholic church at great cost, and are advancing rapidly. — A peculiar black paper made from the bark of certain trees, serves the purpose of slates in Siam and Burmah,the writing being erased by means of betel leaves. — The tunnel recently completed atSchemnitz, Hungary, is 10-27 miles long— the longest one in the world. It took 100 years to build it. ■ — The cat population of Great Britain is over 7,000,000. Probably 3,000,000 of these may be reckoned as females : and it may be taken for granted that almost 4,500,000 families of kittens annually enter the world. A family of kittens is generally four or five. Thus the total yearly production of kittens may be calculated as quite 9,000,000. — Ten millions of men' are said to be practically under arms in Europe at this time. — Parnell is said to have Bright 's disease. — Large floating fields of pumice, thrown up by the great volcanic eruption at Krakatoa, Java, have been seen in the Indian Ocean, nearly 700 miles from where they were seen a year ago. — India is going extensively into the cultivation of mahogany, which tree thrives there particularly well. —The Baptists are growing in Mexico steadily. Ten new churches will be organised in the near future. Churches have recently been organised in Lampazos and Nuevo Loredo. — The oldest picture in the worlds or what is supposed to be such, is in the museum at Boulak, in Egypt. It is a fresco from a tomb at Maydoom, representing six geese. — There is a street in Milan that is roofed with glass, topped off with a dome. — It is very difficult for kings not to think that their opinion must be final, and victory and old age have combined to make the Emperor William confident in his own judgment. — Spectator. —People who have visited Pasteur say that he treats from six to 10 Americans every day, and that many of these have been bitten by their pet dogs. — The Market street cable road in San Francisco is probably the best paying pro* perty of the kind in the country. The road is said to pay six per cent interest on 6,000,000d01, an amount more than double what the road cost. — The methods of the circumlocution office are still in operation in England. The report of the doings of the London police for the year 1885 made its appearance on the last day of 1886. — The great bridge, two and a half miles long, which is to span the Straits of Messina, thereby connecting Sicily and Italy, will cross the water almost directly above the famous Scylla and Charybdis, described in the classics as the terror of mariners in ancient times. — The Belgian Catholic bishops have issued a letter calling for missionaries to qualify for work on the Congo. Those who are willing to go are asked to enter the seminary at Lou vain, founded for the Congo mission. — A marine alga of the Arctic regions grows at a temperature far below zero, and its spores disappear at a higher temperature. It thus appears that intense cold is necessary to the existence of some forms of vegetable life, together with extreme dryness, and this class of plants probably includes the cryptograms of red snow. —The nation is growing richer, but the riches, instead of going to the heads of productive businesses, are divided among distributors and workmen. Great incomes, especially those above £5000 a year, are growing fewer ; but the incomes liable to taxation, under £2000, grow more numerous, and this in exact proportion to their Jowness in the scale. — Spectator. — In Geneva, Switzerland, a tax of 6 francs was, until recently, imposed on watch dogs, and a tax of 15 francs on oldens de luxe. The result of this was that all the puny poodles in the city were classed by their owners as bold and valiant watch dogs. The law was therefore altered, and all dogs are now taxed alike. — In the arid regions of Egypt a French botanist, M. Volkens, has found roots 20 times as long as the part of the plant above the surface. On some of these desert plants the same observer has noticed a very curious moisture-absorbing contrivance. Glandular hairs put forth by the leaves yield a bitter crystalline liquid which spreads out at night and collects the dew. —Metal is now being substituted in England for cardboard in bookbinding. This novelty is known asthe " British Pellisfort " binding, and it consists in the use of thin sheet-metal for covers. The metal is specially prspared, and the cover may be bent and straightened

again without perceptible damage. It may.v, in fact, be safely subjected to such treatment as would destroy ordinary covers. The metal is covered with the leather usually employed in bookbinding, and the finished book presents no difference in appearance except in the' greater thinness of the cover. — The excavations in Rome are now being conducted by the National Government, the Municipal Government and private citizens. Hundreds of statues and busts have been found, some of marble, others of costly bronze, many in perfect preservation. The Government has spent within the last 12 years not far from £200,000, but it has been a remarkable business investment, for the value of the finds is placed at £800,000. So rapidly is the work going on that it is almost impossible to store properly from day to day the results of excavation. —Statistics, more or less accurate, show that John Bull is by no means the beef eater that he used to be. Englishmen eat but an average of 451b of beef a year, while the Australians average 1501b, and citizens of the United States 1301b. — The Union' Pacific Eailway systeni's'payroll includes 20,000 persons. The payment of actual moneys to employes lias now entirely ceased, a system of check payments being substituted.^ This does away with the handling of money and attendant risk, and the ticket offices at the different stations are made banks where these checks are cashed. The indorsed and cancelled checks are then returned'to Omaha as vouchers or receipts. If any agent cannot meet the demand, he telegraphs to the nearest station for funds. — The Queen for the last 50 years has received £385,000 per annum. In addition to this the maintenance of her royal yachts, palaces, household, .&c, costs the nation £234,379 per annum, or a total of £619,379 per annum. During the last 50 years she has thus cost the nation £30,968,950, without reckoning the salaries paid to each member of her family, now amounting in the aggregate to over £150,000 per annum. — Mr Mallin, a photographic artist of Southporfc, England, has recently been very successful in taking instantaneous photographs of flying gulls. About 60 birds are shown quite sharply and distinctly, and their various attitudes are curious. Most of them have the wings spread in the orthodox manner, but some of them are caught in the position with the wings hanging down, which, from the shortness of the time during which it is maintained, the eye does not appear to catch. The photographs are striking examples of the speed with which objects can now be thus reproduced. — " Among the myriads of natural curiosities and wonders that confront the visitor to the coast of the North Pacific Ocean," said a gentleman recently returned from a trip to that region, " nothing impressed me so deeply as the gigantic forests of Puget Sound. .That arm of the Pacific is 200 miles in length, with a shore so irregular and indented so plentifully with bays and deep haroours that its measurement is 1800 miles in extent. Along this whole shore line, and extending thence on both sides miles and miles farther than the eye Gan see, is one vast unbroken area of forest trees, the like of which I never saw. A few sawmills have been erected along the sound, and, although for several years they have ripped 500,000,000 ft of lumber from these forests annually, the spaces made by what seems like tremendous inroads on the timber .appeal; like little garden patches."/^ t^UvyZ*^£frfo < f\ t Qft lAtA v*** — Russia and Germany are in permanent alliance and perpetual good understanding. It was doubted during the Crimean War, yet was proved by the war. It was doubted during the Franco-German War, yet was proved up to the hilt, both by the events of that war and by the telegrams of gratitude despatched by the Emperor William to the Czar at. the end of the struggle. It is still doubted, and will again be doubted ; but it will again and again be proved, to all who regard acts more than they attend to newspaper conjectures put abroad to mislead them. — Vanity Fair. — Dr E. W. Blyden of Sierra Leone, a splendidly educated negro, shows in the African Church Review that Mohammedanism is being rapidly extended in Africa, especially in Nigritia, the region lying between the Equator and the Great Desert. Everywhere mosques and schools are being established and Arabic literature inculcated; and it is not rare to meet a negro scholar, learned in the Arabic and the Koran, but knowing nothing about the culture of the coast. Dr Blyden thinks the Moslem religion far better than the degrading paganism of Africa. — The island of Tierro, one of the Canaries, has a tree constantly surrounded by a cloud which it condenses into water-drops. This is the sole water supply in the island. The '• butter " tree belongs to Central Africa, and from the kernel of the fruit is made butter, which, Livingston says, will keep for a year. The "manna" tree is tapped about August, when its sap flows; this sap" hardens by evaporation into manna. Calabria and Sicily possess these trees. The maple "sugar" tree is similarly tapped in the spring, the sap being collected and boiled down.