MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2009, 25 August 1892, Page 36

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— The oldest and most noted remains of religious architecture of Great Britain are the round towers of Ireland, of which 118 are still to be seen. They are all built near churches and monasteries, and in time of danger were used as strongholds. When bells were introduced many of them were used as bell towers.

—To be perfectly proportioned, a man should weigh 281b for every foot of bis height. — Years rush by us like the wind. We see not whence the eddy comes nor whitherward is it leading, and we seem ourselves to witness their flight without a sense that we are changed, and yet time is beguiling man of his strength, as the winds rob the woods of their foliage. — Sir Walter Scott. — The beautiful enamel which is used for covering Japanese trays, boxes, • &c, and on which the painted birds and flowers and figures show so brilliantly, is obtained from the sap of the lacquer tree. The trees grow sometimes to the height of 30ft or 40ft.

— The old callousness about acute suffering is wholly dead, and has been replaced by a sympathy so lively and so deep, that to state publicly a true grievance, especially among the feeble, is to ensure an instant, sometimes a determined, effort for its removal. — Spectator.

— A young lad, son of the editor of the Florida Standard, is making, for exhibition at the World's Fair, Chicago, a table upon which appears an inlaid map of the State, each county being accurately represented by a separate piece of native Florida wood.

— Carlyle declared that Newman had not the " brain of a rabbit," while Mr Froude compares it to Caesar's. — Literary Opinion. — In 12 years the city of Paris has expended over L 40,000 on statues and over L 16,000 on ornamental fountains.

— Italy signifies •• country of pitch," from its yielding great quantities of black pitch.

— The earliest known lens is one of rock crystal unearthed by Layard at Nineveh. This lens, the age of which is measured by thousands of years, now lies in the British Museum as bright and as clear as it was the day it left the maker's hands.

— No doubt tho time has gone by -when the policy of nations could be largely affected by dynastic considerations ; but tho fact that henceforth the most ioiluetitial countries of Europe are likely to be ruled over by Princes having a main personal interest in the welfare of Denmark is not without material value to a small and isolated community. — Standard.

— Japan has no fewer than 700 earthquake observing stations scattered over the empire.

— The perfected Buddhist has, no doubt, no fears, no violent emotions ; his heart expands in benevolence ; he is solely occupied in leading a pure and holy life, in diminishing his carnal wants and his useless desires. As he must be born again and go through existence after existence, he is anxious to rise higher and higher in the social scale, to get nearer and nearer to the highest gocd.

— A single sheet of paper 6ft wide and seven miles and three-quarters long has btfen made at a paper mill in New Jersey (U.S.A.). — The Polynesian seems to me by nature a cheerful, hright sort of fellow. If he is not so in his island home he soon takes on this complexion when he comes to Queensland. When you look at him he grins responsively ; when you speak to him he Bmiles all ;over his head. Ho is a likeable fellow, and has an instinctive politeness and cordiality. — Archibald Forbes.

— The common balsam has a most singular method of disseminating its seeds. When they are ripe and prepared for germination the seed pod explodes with the slightest touch, and the seeds are scattered in every direction with such force as to carry them a distance of 20ft or 30ft. Plants have many curious methods of scattering their seeds, but there is none stranger than the vegetable artillery represented by the balsam.

— If we wish Englishmen to live up to even the lowest standard of life iv matters of food, clothing, lodging, and decenoy which we consider compatible with civilisation, they must not be exposed to the competition of a class of labour capable of existing and willing to exist at a far lower standard, a standard which all men will admit is a disgrace to civilisation. — Nineteenth Century. — A gentleman, it is stated, has recently tested the result of preserving a turkey in a refrigerator for 10 years. This time having elapsed, the fowl was removed from the apparatus, and after being properly cooked was duly eaten. While putrefactive changes seemed to be entirely absent, it was found that the meafc was practically tasteless. —In France, the only control which the State has over the clergy lies in the fact that the clergy are its pensionaries. Even the authority of the Pope cannot bring them to a more than formal and forced acquiescence in the Republic, with much of whose legislative and executive action, we frankly admit, they have good grounds of complaint. — Saturday Review.

— In 1886 there were about 8000 opium smokers in the United States. Now there are over 90,000. Nowhere in the world has the opium habit grown so rapidly as in the United States. At the beginning of this century the opium habit was unknown in China. From 1839, and especially during the last few decades, it has increased enormously. But the last five years in the United States show a greater increase.

— Persia has the respectable claim of a continuous national history for 2500 years — a distinction which few countries can exhibit ; while its physical peculiarity is that of a great plateau possessing a mean elevation of 4000 ft to 5000 ft above the level of the sea, whose manifold mountain ridges intervene, like the teeth of a saw, between the northern and southern seas. — G. N. Curzon.

— There are cases ia which an extraordinary intellect has accompanied heavy brain weight, but the records show that men whose mental abilities have never been questioned have had brains under the average in both size and weight. The cast of Raphael's skull shows that it was very small, much smaller than the average. Cardinal Mezzofanti, who understood more languages than any other man who has ever lived, had a very small head. So, too, had Dickens, Lord Byron, and Charles Lamb. From this it would seem that there is more in the quality than in tho quantity of the brain. — 1 Miss Florence Marryatt still maintains her belief in Spiritualism. In a letter in the Literary World of May 13 she says: — "I have, within the last fortnight., seen, in company with four genllemcu (all of whose brains are presumably heavier and more reliable than my own), as great marvels as any I have related in my book. Iv one afternoon seance, during which 11 materialised forms appeared to all of us, Frank Buckland and Colonel Fred Burnaby came amongst them, and were spoken to and recognised by those present who had known them in this world."

— A university in Cairo is said to have 10,000 students, more than attend any other two universities in the world.

— The Municipal Council of St. Etienne, France, has decided upon an interesting experiment, which is to distribute electrical power to 18,000 looms scattered about in the homes of the inhabitants, 70,000 of whom are engaged in the ribbon industry. The power is to be supplied from the city reservoirs. — It may not be generally known that four men in every six use tobacco, yet a medical man in Vienna asserts that diphtheria is thrice as prevalent amongst smokers as those who deny themselves the Juxury of the weed. — Oub of 240,000 domestic servants in London 10,000 are always out of employment. — Sir Edwin Arnold has remarked that in Japan every child is taught to write with either and both hands, and he hinted that this was not the only evidence of sound common sense he met with while in the kingdom of the Mikado. — In the most advanced Continental glass manufactories glass-blowing is no longer done by the mouth, but by compressed air. Lead mixing is done by workmen wearing masks, in which are inserted sponges on a level with the nose and mouth. — Women have often served as soldiers and sailors for years without detection, and it may be confidently affirmed that if female regiments and female crews were in vogue, there would be little or no difficulty in enlisting eligible recruits, and partially, at all events, womanning the navy. — World. — At the Central Criminal Court, London, a few weeks ago, a man was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for stealing a farthing from an offertory box in St. Peter's Church, Hampstead — the same term as the heartless woman Montague received for tho manslaughter of her child. — Last year 22,080 patents were issued in America. This is nearly twice as many as were granted during tho first 50 years of tho Patent Office. — The practice of cremation is on the increase in Germany. In addition to the crematorium which has been in operation at Gotha since 1877, and where from 500 to 600 bodies arc now cremated every year, a new establishment of the same kind has been consecrated at Ohlsdorf . Another crematory will bo opened in October at Carlsruhe, making the third in Germany. — Visits of representative French workmen to England may have almost as much to do with tho good relations of England and Franco as the offices even of Lord Dufferin and M. Wadington. — Speaker. — Up to the middle of June nearly L4OOO had been contributed to tho Spurgeon Memorial Fund. — Leuwenhoek has computed that 10,000 threads of tho web of a full-grown spider are not larger than a single hair of a man's beard. He calculates that when young spiders bogie te spin, 400 of their threads are not larger than one from a full-sized insect. If this be a fact, 4,000,000 webs of a young spider are not as large as a single hair from a man's face. — The biggest brain on record was that of the Russian novelist, Tourgueneff,* which weighed 2012 grammes. How large it was is seen from the fact that the average human brain weighs 1584 grammes. In point of size that of Cuvier, the naturalist, comes next. It weighed 1800 grammes. — At the ceremony of unveiling the monument erected in memory of Felix MendelssohnBartholdy before the new Conzerfchaus at Leipzig, a great-granddaughter of the composer placed a wreath of flowers at the base of the statue. — The yearly fair in the Carpathians is still vigorous, and on the feast day all the marriageable maidens of the regions round about assemble on the summit of the Gaina, 6000 ft above the level of the sea, in order that they may be wooed and won by bachelors who can afford to keep a wife. — Botanical gardens were first instituted during the latter half of the sixteenth century, Italy leading. — All founds, whether high or low,. loud or soft, travel at precisely the same rate — that is, about 1100 ft a second. Were this not so the different notes of music would reach the ear at different times, and tho result would be confusion instead of melody. — When America is as densely peopled as Europe, that half of the world will have nearly 1,400,000,000 — practically the same as are in the whole world at the present time.' Hibernia signifies "utmost" or "lasthabitatation," for beyond this to the westward the Phoenicians never extended their voyages. — If the sun gave forth sounds loud enough to reach the earth, such sounds instead of reaching us in the space of about eight minutes, as light does, would only arrive after a period of nearly 14 years. — The parish top was a large top provided by the parish, and its function was to be whipped in frosty weather, so that the villagers might, by the exercise, keep themselves warm. " His brain turns like a parish top," is in Shakespeare, and other writers of old mention this odd village appliance. — The Koch tuberculin has been found to be an excellent diagnostic agent for tuberculosis in cattle, as it gives a considerable rise in temperature in cattle which are affected with tuberculosis. —Mr Rudyard Kipling is contributing a series of sketches to the Times on his present trip round the globe. He declares that the New Yorkers think lightly of human life, buy and sell justice openly and without shame, and keep their streets in a disgraceful condition. The Government of tho city is, he says, "a despotism of the alien by the alien for the alien, tempered with occasional insurrections of decent folk."