MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1851, 17 August 1893, Page 38

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— Edinburgh has 22,000 cows, while Dublin comes next with 11,000, and London stands third with a cow population of 8000, Glasgow having 2000 cows. _ The factories of England, France, Germany, and Holland produce about 77,000,000 pins daily. Bub where do they all go to P —It is said to be getting the fashion to address and stamp envelopes on the back. With the direction written acro?s the folds, the letter cannot bo opened by an unauthorised person without the fact being detected. — Some time back Mr Conybeare, M.P., purchased 5000 Bharea in the Oceania Land Company at £1 each. He shortly afterwards sold the same for £20 each share, the transaction showing a clear gain of £95,000. — During the past century the London Oity Corporation has expended on 28 separate occasions something like £30,000 upon gifts to royalty. This is exclusive of the grant of £2500 which has just been voted for a marriage present bo the Duke of York and Princess —'The thinnest part of the skull is the roof of the eje. It is very easy to break it, and to cause death. _ — A man was tried for theft at the Oxford Assizes. The foreman of the jury, when giving the verdict, made a mistake and said • Not Guilty" instead of "Guilty." Though he wished to rectify the mistake he could not do EOrand the man was released from custody. — The oldest royal family in Europe is that of the ducal bouse of Mecklenburg, which traces its-descent from Gecseric, who sacked Rome a.d. 455. — Horrible cnnnibilism is reported from the CoDgo. Au explorer who has just arrived in Liverpool says he 6aw slaves tied together, with marks on their bodies. The poor creatures j were to be killed on the following day, and the marks on their bodies were made by persons j who had purchased those particular "joints." — Animals grow old and wither away pretty much like plants. Tas blood-vessels, as age advances, bepome hard, because lime ealfcs are deposited in their walls ; their walls thicken, and their bore grows smaller. Then tfcey can carry less blood, and so the body fails to receive proper nourishment. The muscles decrease in size ; the bones dry up, and even the brain shtinks. — The county council of the North Riding of Yorkshire have decided that they will not levy any rates during the next 12 months. They are in a wonderfully happy position. The balanco at their bankers is so large that they want no more money for a year. «« physiognomical haircutting" is tab announcement of a Manchester hairdresser who is a little more up to date in bh methods. One's hair and beard are trimmed by him to suit the features. . The diff srence of a farthing per lb in the total trade turn-over of sugar in the United Kingdom for a year means no less than £3,000,000. — The Stats of Michigan raises 15,000 tons of peppermint a year. — An act of Parliament was passed in the reign of Edward 111 prohibiting anyone from being served afc dinner or supper with more than two courses, except upon some great holidays there specified, on which he may be served with three. This acb has never been repealed, and is therefore still in force. — The cassowary in the plains of Timbuctoo had a cousin several times removed in an ostrich that has just died at the Clifton Zoo. When the bird was dissected the local surgeons found in its inside a pencil case, two pockethandkerchiefs, and a prayer-book. — State Senator Kline, of Pennsylvania, who hung from a window at the burning of the Hotel Royal, New York, ayear or more ago, until ho was rescued by a fireman, was so affected by bis experience that his hair became suddenly white. — Paris has practically decided that the big thing with which she will amuse the world at the exhibition of 1900 will be the greatest of all telescopes. It will cosb at leasb £100,000, and it is expected to bring the moon near enough to see objects no larger than the steeple of an ordinary church. — The railways of America employ over 2,000,000 men. — Practically it is certain that advances of British capital, whetherfor land purchase orfor the other objects forwhich Ireland is now largely assisted by loan or gift, must come to an end if Mr Gladstone's Home Rule Bill Bhould become law, and the perception of this elementary truth which does not. depend upon legislation but on the facts of human nature, is beginning to filter down into the minds of the Irish farmers and shopkeepers —Times. — Lace of every kind is now made by machinery in 6u"ch perfection that even experts can scarcely tell the difference between the hand-made and the machine-made product;. There is, however, a delicacy about the handmade laces that the machine can never equal. — Sir John Herschel says that if a solid cylinder of ice,. 45 miles in diameter and 200,000 miles long, Were plunged end first into the sun, ib would melt in a second of time. — The foundations of Sir Edward Watkin's new Tower of London have been completed. They occupy four acres in a pleasure park of 120 acres between Willesden and Harrow. The English tower, is to be 150Eb higher than the Frensh wonder, and the latter cau be seen at a distance of 75 miles. The English structure wulalsobeonh'gher ground. On top of the English tower there will be an observatory and rooms for scientific experiment, which are likely to be of great value. — The most expensive Legislature in the world is that of France, which costs annually £720,000. The Italian Parliament casts £86,000 a year. — Persona whose temples are fuller above the eyes than below, whese heads enlarge above the ears, are usually more gifted with musical taste than those with cantrary characteristics. — It is aa interesting fact that although the Duke of Wellington is the ground landlord of the buried city_of Silchefcter, which was deserted by the Romans, it is supposed, in the fourth century and never reoecupied, he is not at liberty to sell or give away the interesting relics which are from timo to time discovered by the excavators working under the Society of Antiquaries. The land was granted by the Crown to the Iron Dnke, and in course of time it will reverb ixf the nation, together with all treasure trove. — A British scientist recently stated that if a man weighing 1401b were placed under a hydraulic press and squeezed flat the result would be 1051b of water and 351b of dry residue. / — Millions of sparrows, it is said, have invaded the World's Fair, and with their usual perkiness have driven away small birds of every other species. The area of Ceylon is a little less than 25,000 square miles. , — Seventeen houses of glass brick aro now in couwe of erection at Chicago. They are hollow for the sake of lightness, and can bo coloured or moulded on the face.

— Japan means ♦♦ sun-origin." The Japanese claim to be descendants of the sun, instead of being an offshoot of the Chinese race. ' — It is estimated that 130 million oysters are yearly received at Liverpool from abroad. „ — With the natives of Burmah it is a belief that people born on a Monday are zealous ; on Tuesday, honest ; Wednesday, quick tempered, bub soon calmed again ; Thursday, mild ; Friday, talkative; Saturday, hot tempered and quarrelsome ; while Sunday's children will bo parsimonious. — A large block of workmen's dwellings has been opened at Brussels by King Leopold. One thousand five hundred artisans were employed in the construction of the building. —In China there are three systems of religion : Confucianism, Taoism, and Buddhism. . — There are 30,000 Chinese in San Francisco. — A former vicar of a church in the parish of Hawarden, said Mr Gladstone recently, spent 20 years in decorating the building with his own hands, doing even the staining of the glass and the carving, though ha had never had any training. . A French aluminium worker has introduced cartes-de-visite of this metal which are light, thin, flexible, of silvery lustre, and, of course, more durable than paper. Aluminium foil is apparently destined to many useful applications. — Writing on the trade of the Chinese distrcb of Taiaan, tho British Con3ulsay3 :— " The habit of opium smoking is becoming more prevalent among all classes in the town?, and is even said to have became hereditary, children of a very tender age whose mothers have been opium smokers taking to ib naturally. The alinoab universal prevalence of the habit is accranted for by the comparative cheapness of the Persian drug." — One of Lord Salisbury's treasures at Ha(> fiold House is a large quill pen. It is pointed oub to visitor^ as the identical one with which the Earl of Beaconsfield appended his Bigaature to the famous Berlin treaty.

— The blowhole at Cvtlins River has a c.mpetitor in the Home country. In Ireland there is a remarkable natural hole iv the rocks of the sea coast, known all over Britain as M'Swiney's Gun. It is believed to be connected with a sea cavern. When the sea runs full the gun sends up a jet of water to the height of more than 100 ft, each spouting being preceded and followed by loud explosions. — An illusjbrabed Eskimo paper published ab Godthaab, a Danish colony on the wes*; coast of Greenland, claims the distinction of being the mosb northern newspaper in the world. > — The Sunday drinkers at Cardiff have again turned the fUnk of the prohibitionists. As shebeen after shebeen was dug out, they meet openly in public space, subscribe and buy casks of beer at the nearest wholesale store. Then they drink— long, deep, and without rebuke. For thelaw— the dear old law— holds that they constitute a club. List Sunday (says a Home paper of May 27) there were 500 people boozing in the open on one spot. — The immense number and length of the avenues of fine trees round the ' Duke of Buccleuch's 6eat at Boughton arose oub of the eccentric wish of a late relative of the Duke's to make an avenue of trees connecting that place with London, a distance of 76 miles. Upon finding the project impracticable, he planted the same number of miles of avenues round the house.

— The Chinese detective force is a 'secret body, and the best organised in the world. They have an eye upon every man, woman, or child, foreign or native, in China, and, in addition, watch over each other. — Hawking is a favourite pastime in Persia, and every man of standing has his falcons and his falconer. No man, in facb, who loves the pleasures of the chase in that country is regarded as a good sportsman if he does aot keep his partridge hawks and at least a pair of fleet greyhounds. — An official inquiry in France brought out some interesting information about the methods adopted by convicts for carrying on secret correspondence. One plan was to write with milk between the lines of an ordinary formal letter written in ink. The prisoner could make the secret writing legible by 6imply rubbing a dirty finger over it. Another ingenious form of secret correspondence consisted in leaving letters out of words, as if the writer were illiterate. The omitted letters put together formed the requisite words and sentences. — Salviati's Venetian glass manufacture is only understood by two men ; bub precautions havobeen taken so tbat the mystery will not bo lost to the world, although the two should die suddenly. — All the special flavouring of a certain kind of sweetmeat made' by a large West of England house is the work of a partner who has had the advantages of a university education.^ — Fewer limbs are amputated nowadays than was the case 10 years ago. Surgical operations have increased by 50 per cent., but they have become more conservative, and every new application of surgical science is devoted to saving limbs and other parts which in 1883 there would have been no option bub to cub off. At the same time the mortality has greajbly decreased. -

Both the Kurds and Cossacks bslieve that Mount Ararat is guarded by an unearthly being, and that no man can ascend the peak and live.

A tale comes from Russia, which sounds like a romance of middleage barbarism. General Count Scherematieff, of the Czar's body guards died suddenly the other day, and it is given out that he was murdered by Nihilists. His death, ib i« said, was decided some time ago by the Nihilists' Exeaufcive Committee, and one of its emissaries managed to substitute a pair of poisoned gloves for the ones that the general was wearing and had laid down for a moment. Not observing the change, the general put on the poi3oned pair, and death follow* d shortly.