MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2056, 20 July 1893, Page 38

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— The King and Queen of Italy and the German Emperor and Empress have been examining the ruins of Pompeii. During their visit excavations were made upon the site of an ancient house, resulting in the discovery of a marble table, a bronze vessel, a wineflask, and a needle. The Queen and Empress were carried to and from the ruins in Sedan chairs. — Alfred Mace, son of the once famous English prize-fighter, Jem Mace, has just closed a series of evangelistic meetings in Indianapolis. For 20 years he has been preaching. —In Scotland there is a feeble party for Scotch Home Rule ', but no Scotchman would even listen to Scotch Home Rule if he could realise that Scotchmen might lose any atom of influence over the Imperial Government of the United Kingdom— and of course they would lose a vast deal of their influence over it— by giving up their control of English finance and English mercantile development. — Spectator. The average length of the whale is (30ft, average girth 40ft, thickness of blubber 15in. — It is said there are more herring eaten than any other kind of fish. . -s- In a town in Hungary, a month or two ago, 650 German Catholics, in a body, abandoned their former church relations and cast in their lot with the Evangelicals. The primary cause of the movement was said to be dissatisfaction with the Hungarian tongue in which the services were conducted ; but when the archbishop attempted to make concessions and compromises, they still persisted in their determination to withdraw. — Professor Sayce writes to a correspondent as follows :— " I hear that the remains of a Jewish synagogue of the fourth century have been found in old Cairo." — Of the Presidents of the United States five have been Episcopalians, three Presbyterians, four Methodists, one a Baptist, one a Campbellite, two Congregationalists. Five were connected with no particular church. — The bones and muscles of the human body are capable of over 1200 different movements. — When Napoleon overran Italy his attention was called to a number of silver statues of the Apostles which had decorated an ecclesiastical institution for centuries. " Take them down," said the 'great conqueror, "and coin them into currency, that they may go about doing good, as did their master." — The Bolton Corporation have taken advantage of powers given them by the Factory Acts to restrict the hours of barmaids to 74 per week. It is said that many barmaids in that town have been in the habit of working 100 hours a week. The corporation have appointed an inspector to see that the law in this direction is carried out. — In a discussion lately carried on as to the distance at which large objects on the earth's surface are visible, it was stated that the Himalaya mountains have appeared to view from the great distance of 224 miles, and Mont Blanc 210 miles. — It is calculated that on a bright summer day there are raised into the air by evaporation from the surface of the Mediterranean 5,280,000,000 tons of water. — An American lad 13 years old has just arrived in London who has already travelled 50,000 miles. He had a mania for seeing the world, and when he could not get employed on a vessel, smuggled himself on board as a stowaway. — Some curious experiments have been made at one of tho royal philanthropic institutions in Copenhagen. For seven years back the 70 boys and girls in the place have been carefully weighed every day in groups of 15 and under. Thereby it is proved that the children gain weight mostly in autumn and in the early part of December. From that time till the end of April there is scarcely any growth in weight. More remarkable still, there is a diminution till the end of summer. — Another new cannon has just been invented in Germany which is expected to revolutionise the artillery of all Europe. Krupp, it is reported, has offered 3,000,000 marks for the exclusive right to the invention, and the inventor, Herr Ehrhardt, has refused the offer. — The largest' Greek temple was that of Jupiter Olympus. It was 370 ft long, 60ft broad, and 220 ft high. — In England, during the last seven years, there have been collected the names of 265 per* sons who died or were found living at 100 years of age or over. The list for 1892 comprises 45 persons — 23 women and 22 men. It is observed that a majority of these centenarians were inmates of workhouses. — Wine skins, made of tbe hides of pigs, goats, calves, or oxen, are still used in the rural districts of Spain.

— The "house-keeping book" of the butler of Napoleon I, during his exile at St. Helena, has been discovered in Paris. It contains some interesting details.

— A Renter's telegram from Homestead,

U.S.A., states that Messrs Carnegie and Company have ordered from a Manchester firm a new press for their armour-plate works, to cost £200,000. It will be the largest piece of machinery of the kind in America, and perhaps in the world. It is asserted that it will enable the company to make the greatest forgings in Europe or America. — In view of the frequency of such accidents to him, it is of interest to note that there is a popular superstition in Germany to the effect that the Kaiser will ultimately meet his death through a carriage accident. — Notwithstanding the former heavy war debt of the United States and their exorbitant pension list, taxation in the Republic is only sdol 37c per head ; in Canada it is 6dol 26c. — Two American women are studying ■divinity at Manchester New College, Oxford, to prepareihemselves for the joint pastorship of a congregation at C.'f veland, Ohio. — • It is said that the Turks were the first to hury their dead in cemeteries adorned with ornamental headstones.

— Whenever ' a strict Mohammedan pro-

nounces the name of the prophet, he piously •* kisses his thumb-nails, presses them to his forehead, and says, " The prophet of God, to whom

be all glory." — A girl was discovered near a village in Russia after being buried under amass of snow for 51 days, her only nourishment during the whole of the time being a few morsels of bread which she had with her. She suffered from

hunger, but did not feel the cold excessive. The Church of All Hallows in London still possesses an income originally given to it for the purpose of buying fagots for burning heretics.

— The Chewsures in the Government of Tiflis, according to a publication of the Imperial Geographical Society of Russia, constitute a race of 7000 people, who know nothing about money, their unit of value being a cow. A horse, for instance, is valued at three cows.'

. — The telegraph service of the United ( " Kingdom has, since its purchase by the Government, resulted in a total loss of four and onehalf millions sterling. For the year 1891-92 the total loss was nearly £400,000, though the actual excess of working expenses over income was only £90,000.

— Mr Alderman Scupham, of Leeds, has had a singular find at Bridlington. He was walking at the seaside, when a package was washed on shore. It was securely tied. Inside there were 41 cheques and a promissory note, of the total value of £6000. They were, for the most part, drawn in the year 1815, upon a local firm of bankers. All the documents were in a state of almost perfect preservation, the watermarks being very clear. The promissory note is for £3198.

— Afghanistan has 6,000,000 of population and no missionary ; India, one missionary to 275,000 ; Persia, one to 300,000 ; Thibet, one to 2,000,000. If 40,000 missionaries were sent to India there would still be only one to every 50,000. — It is estimated that the great smoke cloud which hangs over London weighs 300 tons, 50 tons of which is solid carbon and 250 tons hydro-carbon. It is calculated that the smoke of the year is worth £2,000,000. — In the Russian Empire there are more than 8,000,000 Roman Catholics, 3,000,000 Protestants, 3,000,000 Jews, 2,500,000 Mohammedans, 25,000 professed pagans, and 70,000 members of the Orthodox Greek Church.

— In Burmah. there are many ancient buildings and monuments second to none in India in archaeological interest, and it is proposed that a thorough arcc£eplogical survey of the whole country should' be undertaken during the winter.

— It is said to cost £6000 a year to keep St. Peter's Church in Rome in repair.

— At the beginning of the century the Bible was accessible to but one-fifth of the population of the world. Now it may be read by ninetenths of the people of the globe, so rapidly has its translation been carried on.

— There are three large porcelain factories in Great Britain — viz. : Derby, Worcester, and Stoke-on-Trent. The one in Derby employs something like 400 hands, and many eminent artists are engaged in designing and painting for it. X. — [In 1870 the British Government bought up the telegraph companies at a cost of something like seven and one-third millions sterling. Since that date the capital account has been increased to close upon 11 million pounds sterling, involving an^ annual interest and charge of £300,000.

— Artificial legs and arms were in use in Egypt as early as b.c. 700. They were made by the priests, who were the physicians of that early time.

— There are 88,564 trees in Paris. The Passy Quarter possesses the most, 10,689. Afterwards come in order the Elysees, Grenelle, Montparnasse, Les Ternes. The Second Arrondissement has the fewest trees, 739.

— The skirl of the bagpipes carried by some of the Scotch regiments on Indian frontier service greatly delights the hill tribes. The Lushais in particular are much attracted by the music, which they consider resembles the strains of their own native instruments, notably the snake-charmer's pipe.

— Her Majesty's fondness for Pomeranian dogs has made them somewhat popular, and the partiality of the Prince and Princess of Wales for rough-coated basset griffons has brought these hounds a good deal into notice. For some years the Duchess of Newcastle has been foremost in the introduction of the Czar's favourites, the Borzois — the Russian wolfhound, used also for coursing hares.

— In the island of Ceylon 760,000 acres are devoted to the cultivation of cocoanuts and 40,500 acres to cinnamon. '

— There are some very long-established houses of business in England, but nothing to be compared with one in Japan. A dancing master there has just been celebrating the 1000 th anniversary of the death of the member of his family who first started the business.

— The smallestconscript in France is Edouard Lomet, a dwarf 2ft 7in in height, who is now being exhibited in Paris. In spite of his diminutive size, Lomet has had to draw a number for military service. He will, of course, be rejected at the medical examination. -/„ — Euclid, who is sometimes called the father of mathematics, taught this subject in the famous school at Alexandria. Being asked one day by the King of Egypt (Ptolemy Soter) whether he could not teach him the science in a shorter way, Euclid answered in words that have been memorable ever sinee — " Sire, there is no royal road to learning." Not many scraps of [conversation have lived, as this reply has, for nearly 2200 years.

— A German journal states that in the year 1889 the quantity of cotton produced in the whole world amounted to 11,400,000 bales, while in 1870 it reached only 6,200,000 bales.

— A couple of decades ago the German officer was looked upon by his English counterpart as an altogether extraordinary creation, in consequence of his thorough knowledge of subjects connected ever so slightly with the science and art of war ; but nowadays the average English staff officer is almost, if not quite, as highly and carefully educated as the German officer, except, perhaps, in linguistic attainments. — A new medicine bottle indicates the hours at which the drug is to be taken.

— Mr Gladstone's treatment of the Opposition organs differs altogether from the tactics pursued by Lord Salisbury when in office. The present Premier is accustomed not merely to withhold items of news from the editors who do not support his party, but has excluded their representatives from attending gatherings of an unquestionably public character. The Marquis of Salisbury adopted an exactly opposite policy. — The census of India for 1891, according to a summary of it prepared by the Rev. Dr S. B. Fairbank for the Dnyanodaya, reveals some astonishing facts in regard to the divisions of caste. It seems that there are 1354 divisions of caste, tribe, and race, specified by name in the census, while there are 7109 similar divisions not so specified in the printed list, but noted in tho manuscript returns. The census gives specific names to 521 kinds of Brahmans, who are priests.