MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 953, 25 April 1889, Page 37

MULTUM IN PARVO.

—Where three men kill themselves in towps and four men in the country, only one woman follows' their example,- The->most> fatal times ?of life 1 to. the gentle sex are from 14 to 20 and from 40 to 50. — The imitation of Western civilisation by the Japanese has led them to regard Sunday, whicnjn Japan. has hitherto been decidedly Continental in its character, as a day of rest. Thisbegan with the closing of the Government .establishments on Sunday. The. Tokio citizens followed this example, and the closing spread from city to village, and now on a fine Sunday business is nearly suspended and the r pjac6s j of pdp'ular resort are crowded. —The Chinese have been silent, but have made marvellous strides. Probably not one ' Englishman in 11000 1 1000 is a.ware, ,of, the cx r istence of a first-rate' telegraphic system in China, by which one may " wire " from London to Chin Kiang, 1500 miles in the interior of the empire. ; —Suicide is fatally hereditary. Gall, "the phrenologist* knew a family of which the' grandmother, sister, and mother all killed themselves ; and the son and daughter of the last followed in the same terrible track. Another family of seven brothers, all w ol \ and in good positions, co^- ' one after another '- " ..«" oif j —In 1 * ' .^xiiitted suicide . »ix one space of 40 years. . patents who neglect to provide prapet food and nourishment for tlaeiif cbildrea are liable to imprisonment, and the Local Government Board has issued a circular calling 1 attention to the duty of Boards of druardians to prosecute in such cases. — Thef 6 wfere nearly 4,000,000 slaves in the tihited States in 1860. The civil war cost 555 million., pounds— about £140 per each slavefreed. In 1834 the indemnity for freedom of slaves in British colonies was about £26 per slave. —The Chancellor of the Exchequer will receive a very large windfall from the probate and legacy duties payable under the will of Mr John Rylands. Many of the legacies are to strangers ip. blood and charities, and these pay 10 per bent, duty in addition to the probate levy. The lowest estimate places the sum payable to the Government as duty at £135,000, but it is not unlikely to exceed £150,000. - — " The Mexicans," s*ays a traveller, " have a very,queer ,way of burying the'dead. The corpse is tightly wrapped in century plant matting, and .placed in a coffin rented for about 25 cents. One or two natives, as the case may be, place the coffin on their heads and go in a trot to the grave, where the body is interred, and the comn is then returned. The wealthy class use the street-cars as hearses, and the friends follow beside the' car on foot." . , — The moral of history is that peace and war have not the slightest connection with ' territorial divisions or internal constitutions. Republics have been as combative as Monarchies. The mediaavel annals of the Italian cities are not, a whif less distressing than 1 the record of the Napoleonic Empire. The tiny Greek States were always at loggerheads with their neighbours y'ttome, whether.under Consuls or Caesars, was perpetually fighting. — Standard.

— The grandest tomb in the world does not belong to an American millionaire, but is a marvellous structure at Agra, in India, called the Taj Mahal, and built by the Emperor Shah Jehan for his wife, whom' lie had promised on her death-bed that she should 'have such a mausoleum as the world had never seen. It .is- Said to have cost three millions sterling. To-day, with paid labour, itjwould cost ten millions in India, or twice that sum iii this, country. — Two years ago 1 a* wax mine was discovered in the Utah oilfields, and a carload of the product has recently arrived in New 'Tork. It is scientifically' called ozokerite, and is a sort of natural paraffin, varying in colour from black't'o3, yellowish tinge. Heretofore about 500, tons have been taken to America from Austria annually, and it is used for the adulteration of beeswax, the manufacture of candles and wax paper, and as an insulator for electric wires. It is found in Utah in veins from Sinto lOin in thickness.

—A hundred .years ago the people of Dngland were looked upon by themselves And by their neighbours as being the most iboastful and self-confident people on the face •of the earth. Now, however, we have changed •all that. Insbeadof holding that in practice the English race can do, and could have done, >no wrong, we find it difficult to believe that it can ever have done right. Whenever things go wrong where people of English race are 'concerned, we at once feel certain that the wrong must be with the English. —And -now a meddlesome, interfering 'doctor has gone arid invented some kind of a "scope" or something through which he looks into a fellow's eye without asking him a solitary question, and knows right away whether or not the fellow smokes, how many cigars a day, and about the kind of cigars. It's getting to be so that it's no earthly use to lie to a doctor. And by-and-bye the preachers will begin to find us out the same way, and then we'll either have to be honest all round orgo to the dentist, have our backbones extracted, and join Eoberfc Elsmere.—Brooklyn Eagle.

—A company has just been formed in London for the purpose of placing small oneihorse 'buses to run on short routes at halfpenny fares. They have the novel idea, however, of running every second or third "vehicle as a smoking 'bus, and these latter "will be fitted with automatic delivery boxes for the supply of cigars, cigarettes, &c. The smoking 'buses will also be fitted with racks of newspapers so that a passenger can read the latest news solaced by an excellent cigarette.

—A new Parisian industry- is the manufacture of hoar-frost glass, which is covered with feathery patterns resembling those naturally produced upon window panes in cold weather. The glass is first given a ground surface, either by the sandblast or the ordinary method, and is then coated with 6oft varnish. The varnish contracts strongly *a drying, taking with it the particles of glass to which it adheres, and this produces v «y accurately the branching crystal of frostwo j*. A single coat gives a.delicate effect, and several coats yield a bold design. + , mere are are 15 packs of staghounds in hi i mfced n g dom . counting nearly 800 »osi<fs amongst them. . '

— It is said that the phrase " blue blood " originated in Spain after the black Moors were driven out. The aristocracy of Spain was held to consist of those who could trace, i their lineage back to the time before the Moorish conquest. These people were whiter •than those who had been mixed with Moorish blood ; the veins upon their white hands were blue, while the blood of the masses, contaminated by the Moorish infusion, showed black upon their hands and faces. So the white J Spaniards of- old race came to declare that* their blood was " blue," while that of com* morf"people was black.

— M. Waspero landed a mummy the other, day at Marseilles, a particularly nice Egyptian { " deader" that he had brought home for some ; friends. The douaniers did not know how j to rate a Pharaoh, no such article being men- ; tioned in their tariff of duty on imports, so I they said he should be considered as " dried I fish," and taxed him accordingly ! —An attractive new book, " The Folklore of Planes," has been published, in which we learn that the human racs sprang from ashtrees by the Norse .mythology. Homer tells us that the Greek's came from the oak« m ' Zulus- claim descent from '"■■' " ' Sumatians f^-- — :• f, ne ' f*~ - » ued of reette, the; -*wm a cane> the Ohiapanecas,; a silk cotton tree, and the Tamanaquas. from a date. | —European tourists this Bummer will; have opportunities to se<i anew "Passion; Play," but not at Oberammergauj Brixlegg,! in the Lower Inn Valley, Austrian Tyrol, being the place, and a company, organised from, the inhabitants of the village, furnishing the players. They ar« said to be making great! preparations to outshine the older establishrneut, and even contemplate illuminating the! Biblical scenes with electric light. |

— In Italy the poorest little house in the country has its ceilings stencilled as well as its walls; the designs may be .grotesque, the; colours crude, but anything is better than 1 the bald expanse of whitewash, with one of those terrible abominations, a stucco " rose " in the middle. — World

— Twenty-five theatres were destroyed byj fire in 1888. Of these six were in the United States, five in England, four in France, twoi in Bussia, two in Belgium, one in Hungary, one in Spain, one in Portugal, one in Roumania, one in China* and one in New Zealand.

—Bismarck^ neuralgia is complicated with rheumatism, want of appetite, and insomnia. He, however, continues to work against the advice of his doctors.

— The most furious mobs on earth are those in whichnine men "out of ten are discharged soldiers, raging at a hated Minister, an unpopular law, or, as just after Sedan and Tonquin, a national disaster. , „ , -r-The Great Eastern Railway Company has an income of £4,000,000 per annum, which is larger than the entire revenue of the kingdom of Greece, and not quite so large as the revenue of the united kingdoms of Sweden and Norway. ,

—Paris 'has gone to the length of beginning a building .tb;cost GOO.OOOdoI whose first floor Will be used as an employment* agency, conducted by the city, with a register open to all. applicants ; the top floor is -a hall seating 2000 people for the use of labour meetings, dnd the' floor between holds the offices of the Paris Federation of Labour and of every union in the city.

—An establishment in the United States is doing an extensive business in the manufacture of 'paper clothing, and the fabric is said to equal that of any other class of goods in style and durability. For blankets, piano coverings, and similar purposes the paper fabrics are an estabished success ; they are also very light and serviceable; —Bismarck when in Parliament never sits out the speech of an opponent; but retires in dudgeon to his private room, where secretaries bting him the s.ubstance.of what is being said. . ' —Sir Edwin Arnpld, author of " The Light of Asia," has undergone a successful operation for the removal of a large tumour on his forehead.

— The CSarina, it is. said, is approaching an acute stage in her mania. She passes whole days in absolute silence.; on other occasions she refuses to touch a morsel of food ; while at times she even fails to recognise the members or her family.

— The population of Switzerland has only increased 100,000 since 1880— a fact which much concerns the authoritiesv .

—A plebiscite as fro whether children shall receive religious instruction' in the schools of Milan, Italy, was taken in that city, and 25,000 out 27,006 voted "Yes." ' - —The miners of Scotland have formed an order called the "Sons of Labour." This is a better name and not so high sounding as the "Knights of Labour," the big labour order of the United States.

— The British Ambassador at Paris receives a higher salary than any other — £10,000 a year.

— There is not much danger of an early extinction of the line of statesmen in the Bismarck family. Count William yon Bismarck, the younger brother of Count Herbert, is about to assume the post of President of the Government Council of Hanover,

— The London gas companies on a recent foggy day supplied 105,046,000 cubic feet of gas, the largest daily output ever recorded.

— The people of the United States eat more raisins than the people of any other country— 44,ooo,ooolb a year.

— The latest addition to the family of Emperor William of Germany is reported to be very feeble and to have inherited a malformation of the left arm similar to that of his father.

—Mrs Emma Althores, of Attica, New York, recently awoke from a long sleep or trance, 1 which continued 35 days. She was very weak and could not speak, but was able to take light nourishment. Her mind was clear.

—Thirteen tons of postage stamps were sold last year in America.

Poisokoxts Hair Restorers asd Dies.— The public have frequently been warned in medical and other papers, against wing hair reueweri and restorers, which being composed of poisonous and mineral ingredients have a most ■detrimental effect on the hair and scalp. The only safe preparation is Rowlands' Macassar Oil, which nearly 100 years trial hat proved to be perfectly harmless and most beneficial in all^oues of lost of Blair, scarf, and dandruff ; it prevents and arrests baldness and produces a luxuriant and glossy head of hair ; also sold in a golden colour. . Bowlakds' Kaiydob produces soft and delicate akin and removes all : , cutaneous ttN&bM. iSJk(^eoii^forßoTOA«Dfl'ar4|oiM,