MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2106, 5 July 1894, Page 38

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— "When one of the late Emperor Alexander's visits to Warsaw was announced, there was no time to clear the streets of a quantity of mud which had been scraped up in heaps by the roidside. The police ordered the windows on the ground floor of the houses in tbese streets to be opened, and threw tho mud into the rooms !

— One of the largest hospitals in the world is the Misericordia of Rio Janeiro. It receives annually over 13,000 patients. — Pri?r to 1825 all shoes made for women's wear were without heels, and after that date all hee's of that class were of the concave pattern up to 1857. From the earliest dites in shoemaking down to 1840 women's shoes were "straights" — that is to say, they were made so as to be wora on either foot without inconvenience.

— Everybody in China \ve«-rs silks. It is the prose ibed attire of hhahi a h officers. The finer kinds of it form the ordinary dresses of the opulent, while the poorest manage to dtck themselves in coarser, if not on Miiraon, at least on gala days. The embroidery of silk is cirried on to an amazing extent.

— Governors of g«ols and workhouses frequently say that among the severest punishments inflicted upon the class with whom they deal is the unsati-fied > earning for tobacco.

— There is a church in London, near Charing Cross, from the steeple of which ovcry day at noon a bushel cf wheat is thrown out as a donition to the pigeons. The wheat is provided by funds left over 200 years ago by an elderly maiden lady. The theatres of London will scat 60,000 people. — The national mode of salutation in Siam is rather singular. It consists in joining the finger tips together immediately in front of the forehead, at the same time inclining the kead at an angle of 45deg. — M. Berthillon, of Paris, has nearly completed an Anarchist album, which will contain 500 pages of full-face and profile portraits of every suspected Anarchist, as well as the anthropometrical measures necessary for their future identification.

— Less than one-tenth of the sugar the American people consume is of home production. More than nine-tenths is imported.

— The average Atlantic steamer consutces 70 tons of coal a day.

— The number of licenses to publicans in England and Wales has decreased since 1892 by 333. The present number is 73,147. Scotland has 11,532 licensed victuallers, and Ireland 17,833, as against 11,914 and 17,788 respectively in the previous year. — Recruits for the Chinese army are not accepted unless they can jump a ditch 6ft wide. — The Churchman is authority for the statement that no fewer than 320 tablets " have recently been recovered in Palestine and Arabia, all throwing more or less light upon contested portions of the Holy Scriptures. The tablets are nearly 4000 years old — There are about lOOgr of iron in the average human body, and yet so important is this exceedingly small quautity that its diminution is attended with very serious results. — The causes of the triumph of Germany in the war of 1870-71 were accidents that will hardly recur ; and Europe, which thought France blotted out 23 years ago, has awakened to a perception of her colossal strength.— Academy. — In 1631 the invention of milling the edges of coins, to prevent clipping, was introduced. — A good many women of wealth and fashion who have much correspondence are getting into the way of employing private secretaries more and more. — The use of cycling messengers in the German army has been found so satisfactory that the number of them is to be greatly increased. — London is growing every year at such a startlingly rapid rate that the hospitals are quite unable to cope with the denv.nds mule upon them, for claimants on their care multiply altoge'her out of proportion to the increase in their annu>l revenue.' — Speaker.

— It was in 1856 that the decoraHon " For Valour," known as the Victoria Cros«, was instituted by the Queen Tho littte Mnlt se ci'O'S of bronze bears the royal crest in the cen' re, and uud rncath it the words above quoted It carries wi h i1;i 1 ; a special annuity of £10, except to officers, and for the bar or clasp thereto, £5.

— Exiles and convicts are to do most of the work on the new Siberian railway, now in course of construction.

— Th« Burmese believe that the onyx conthins in it an evil spirit, which wakes at sunset end causes terror to the wearer, disturbing sleep wi'h 'errib'e dreams. — St \tistics relating to inqu<- sts held in Ihe City of New York during the pasb quarter of a ccn'ury show that the Irish and the negroes are not given to self-destruction. Til's Germans sho v a much larger percentage of suicides than either of the races above-menti'med. — Three out of every 135 English-speaking people have rei hair. — Compe'enb authorities estimate that not lrss than 400,000,000 liunnn mummies were made in Egypt from the time of the beginning of the art of embalming until itsdiscontiiunncc in the seventh century. — The first hat -makers who plied their tra^e in Britain were Spaniards, who came over in 1510. — In spite of Hosp'tal Saturdays and Sundays and other special efforts, the ordinary income for the year 1892 of the metropolitan hospitals and dispensaries was £171,881 less than the actual expenditure. — German soldiers nowadays train hawks to attack carrier pigeons, and bring back the birds as well as the war despatches they carry. — One farmer in Long Island has his entire ground of several acres laid out exclusively in thyme, parsley, &c, from which lie is said t6 secure about 3500d0l annually. — London dealers in pet animals and birds say that women buy more than half the dogs. — A system of slavery or bondage for debt unhappily still exists in Siam and at Bangkok one frequently sees men of all ages walking about in chains.

— An English officer, named Harrington, in India discovered a working telephone between the two temples at Pauj, about a milcapar\ The system is said to have been in operation at Pauj for over 2000 yeirs

— Prince Bismarck is the possessor of 482 crosses and decorations. It would require abreast of 21ft in width io wear them all at once

— Gorman experts have determined that the gas motor is the cheapest and best of all means of power propulsion The cost of operating by gas is found to be 25 per cent cheaper than by electricity and the cost of equipment is also much cheaper. — You can cha : n a terrier to Richtor's desk, and force it to listen to all the symphonies of Beethoven, without changing its opinion one jot as to the rola'ive delights of r<ifc hunting and classical music ; and the same thing is true in its degree of mankind. — Bernard Shaw.

— Some idea of the number of New York men who get their clothes in London may be gathered from the fact that recently there were 23 representatives of English tailoring houses in that town. Almost all the big London houses have branches in New York, where alterations are made free of charge.

— There is a saying in England that bo you ever so genteel you may brew, but that if you bake you can never be genteel again. A duke may put his capital into brewing and sell his own beer without derogation to his ducal dignity ; but if ha bakes, then farewell to all his social honours.

— It is a remarkable fact that coffco is found to be especially injurious to the human system the farther one travels north. Greeiilanders have found at necessary to prohibit its use by the young.