MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2085, 8 February 1894, Page 38

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— The Mohammedans always, whether in their own country or one of adoption, bury without coffin or casket of ajiy kind.

— A strong Government may survive a year of great commercial expression ; but the strongest totters after a wet summer, and none has ever been kuown to survive a frost that burst the household water-pipes. — Frank F. Moore.

— One half of mankind pass their lives in thinking how they shall get a dinner, and the other half in thinking what diuuer they shall get ; and the fitst are much less injured by occasional facts than are the latber by consbant feasts. — Horace Smith.

— We all like to be praised for the something we cannot do. Ib is for this reason Mr Stevenson interferes with Samoan politics when he ought to be writing romances. Just the desire of the dreamer to play the man of action. * — Speaker. — Do as John Bright did — keep a commonplace book, and copy into ib every particular passage you wish to remember. It is no good buying books of "Extracts," or "Familiar Quotations," except for purposes of reference. Make your own. Remember Bacon : " Reading maktth a full man, conference a ready man, writing au exact man." — Walter Wareu. — A good-sized whale yields about one ton of whalebuue.

— About 10,000 or 12,000 Asiatics enter London yearly ; a few hundreds are Parsees and Japanese, tho rest are mostly Chinebe, Malaj s, and Indians. In religion they are mostly Mohammedans, Buddhists, and Hindoos. Two thousand live hundred of them are Chinese.

— If parents are tall the children tend to bo tall, bub the iffspring of parents of uutqual height most frequently follow the 6horcer. Excessive taUuess is very rarely perpetuated ; even i£ both the parents are above the average, the height of the offspring is usually only a third of the excess rtached by the parents.

— In India aboub 70 per cenb. ot the population are engaged in cultivating the soil, while only about 3 per cent, reside in towns of over 50,000 inhabibanbu. — The London Council have decided to spend £5000 next jear on providing music in the parks for the people. — Ib is to be feared that the physique of Europeans to-day is not generally what it was when conveniences did not so abound, when tho body was braiued to greater endurance, aud the iniud necessarily enjoyed longer intervals of leisure. The remark is often made that we arc living too fabt ; perhaps we are also living too comfortably. — Blackwood.

— Business men occasionally lnaUc more than was at all frequent in tho forties, but professional men do not, aud tho decline in tho rate of interest obtainable for savings has cut their fortunes in two. They cauuot get 3 per cent, clear where, in 1840, they could get 5 ptr cent., or eveu with courage and a little luck, a secure 6 per cenb. — Spectator.

—In China, when a pupil ia reciting his lesson, he turns his back to the teacher.

— The thief a few centuries ago was picturesque, and nob altogether devoid of certain noble qualities which our modern freebooter missets. Who can think of Robin Hood in sunlit Sherwood Forest, of handsome Dick Turpin, or of courtly Claude Duval, as thieves ? They took only from the rich, the story tells, and gave to the poor. The tax-gatherer is now these gallant outlaws' sorry substitute, and he muddles the process wofully. — Globe.

— Coustrvative as Britons are m many ways, they are often indifferent to the past when it is merely picturesque. When it supplies a political precedent it may ba a sanctuary ; but ■when ifc makes no appeal save to tho imagination, it may sink into a lumber room. — Speaker

— It costs each individual less to maintain the Queen than it would to drink her health in a couple of pots of porter. The price of these pots is the utmost bo could gain by the abolition of the monarchy. — W. H. Maliock.

— Without the conquests of Chirlemagne, Europe might have waited centuries for bho extinction ot Paganism ; and because Europe could .nob conquer Western Asia, the most fertile regions ot the earth'd surface ate ebill lost to humanity in & kind if barbarism or tempered social anarchy. — Spectator.

— Thoughtful women almost alwayß spring from households which, in come form cr other, have known trouble, monetary or domestic — the pressure of circumstances without or of tempers within. — Spectator.

— Maps for the use of farmers, describing the chemical qualities of the land in various parb3 of the country, and naming the best manures for each section, have been proposed in France.

— The annual consumption of tea in Ecgland per person comes to a little more than 51b.

— The carpets annually manufactured in Philadelphia are worth over £10,000,000.

— New Scotland Yard, London, is the largesb police office iv the woild. It contains a room in which 3000 men can be assembled.

— Eight thousand tons of go!d have been miued throughout the world during the present century.

— Of the earth's surface 1,500,000 acres are devoted to tobacco culture.

— There are 22,000,000 soldiers under arms in Europe. It they were to march iv a st'eet parade, file 3of 10 abreast, ib would take the line of 2000 miles 100 days to pass a given point at fair mirchiug speed. In Indian file they wouM reach round the world. — The British army rifle has 83 component parts, iv the production of which 952 machines are employed, as well as various processes which do nofe require machinery.

— In some parts of Mexico, the party iv power maintain theic positions by throwing into gaol their political opponents on the eve of an election. When the election is decided, the disfranchised are released.

— It is stated that there are 80,000 barmaids in England whose hours average 14- daily, while the wage earned is 10s per week. In Norway, persons who have not been vaccinated are not allowed to vote at auy election.

Germany has 5,000,000 depositors in saving banks; France, 4,150,000; Great Britain, 3,750,000 ; real}, 1,970,000; Austria, 1,850,000 ; Switzerland, l,G00,000 ; Sweden and Norway, 1,570,000. — The Swiss posb office conveys auything, from ajpostal card to barrels of wive, scythes, and bundles of old iron.

—lb is estimated that there are about 530.070 persons employed in mines in Great Britain.

— Imperial edicts ia China are carried by couriei s who travel in cases of emergency 200 or 250 miles a day.

— England eats 40,000 tono of Irish eggs annually. — Persons bc-aring the same surname are forbidden to marry in China.

— The United States has a lower percentage of blind people thau auy other country in the world.

Extreme heat i 8 more fatal to human life han extreme cold, t

— During the past 12 months the railways of the United Kingdom carried 864 millions of passengers.

— A wire-nettiDg, called a "man-catcher," has been fixed in front of street cars in America. When a pedestrian is struck by the car, instead of being mutilated . he is thrown into the netting, and carried safeJy along.

■ — Men attending the pans in salt works are never kaowa. to have cholera, smallpox, scarlet fever, or influenza.

— Seldom does a day pass without the death of someone who has bsen run over in the streets of London, bub recenbly 11 deaths caused by vehicles in city thoroughfares were announced in a single week.

— Ib has been calculated that the annual expenditure in the salaries of professional football pla3'ers in the United Kingdom amounts to an aggregate of £1,078,272 sterling a year, or nearly twice as much as the annuities of bhe entire Royal Family.

— There have been, cays a Home paper, about 80 cremations at Woking this year. This is only just aboub the same as last year up to this time, and tho almost unbroken increase every year since 1875, when the institution was opened, will probably prove at the end of the year to have been hardly maintained.

— London devours every year 400,000 oxen, 1,600,000 sheep, 500,000 calves, 700,000 hogs, fowls innumerable, and 9,800,000 gal of milk.

— The world's navies are estimated as empljing 1,693.000 men.

— A scientific writer says that night is the time which Nature utilises for the growth of plants and animals j children also grow more rapidly during the night. In the day time the system is kept busy disposing of bhe wastes consequent on activity ; but while asleep the system is free to extend its operations beyond the men? replacing of worn-out particles ; hence tho rapid growth. This is why invalids need so much rest and sleep.

— Counsel, says an Home paper, mentioned, with five simulation of regret, in Mr Justice North's Courb, while arguing in re Sartoris v. Green, tlat in a case in which one of the parties was concerned over a will and au executorship. although the amount in dispute was only £1100, between £10.000 and £12,000 had already been expended in costs.

— Herr Liudorraaun, in sinking wells below the bed of the Rhine, to obtain a supply for a neighbouring town, found the water so impure as to bo unfit for use, and tho source of contamination was traced to another town 20 miles dibtaut.

— The British War Office has been compelled to re? ort to a strange method in order to obtain recruits. It has elircctcd all sergeanb instructors of volunteers to attend cricket and football matches aud sporting assemblies generally, and, by the circulation of leaflets and conversation, to inspire a desire for a military life.

— Over 3,000,000 women arc earning indepeudenb incomes in the United Sbabes There *re some 2500 practising medicine, 6000 managing post offices, 275 preaching tho Gospel, and iv New York city alone 27,000 of them are sup porting their husbands.

— The laftt decree of the Emperor William is to the effect that when he goes to church all seats of which he can peo the occupants, or from which he can be seen, shall be filled by soldiers, fo that ho may nob be distracted or disturbed in his prayers.

— According to Money, England as a ealtproducinjj country is fast losing its prestige. The Salt Union has evidently done very little to benefit bhis industry. Its formation maintained prices for a time, but meanwhile trade was slipping away into other hands. At a social rrieeting held in London recently, at which there wen? under a score of business men present, it was stated that amongst them they paid away fully £2,000,000 a year in advertising. The gentleman who acted as chairman added, with the approval of the rest, that the expenditure had paid them.

— Dr Rappin, the distinguished specialisb, of Nantes, is investigating the bacteriology of cards. He recommends people to be caret ul of contamination when playing cards, especially with consumptive persons ; and he draws attention to the bad habit of certain players holding the cards with their teeth, or wetting their finger in their mouth to shuffle them.

— The Caribs of- Gautemala and Honduras, descendants of tho aboriginal inhabitant? of the southern West Indies and escaped negro slaves, have an entirely distinct language for each sex The men speak their language to the women and the latter reply in theirs. Each sex understands the language of the other sex perfectly, but it always uses its own. The conversation between a Carib husband and wife is about as straDge as ib would be if husbands addressed their wives in English and received replies in French.