MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2120, 11 October 1894, Page 38

MULTUM IN PARVO.

*- A woman in the village of Bnmenen, Li m* ifcorg, Belgium, seized with a sadden fit of madness, threw her three children down a well, and jumped in herself. The children were drowned, but the- mother was rescued. — Of the English bench of bishops 12 ace pledged abstainers. -■- Tbe abolition of the ckath penalty in Italy is not reassuring. It is stated that there are'ncrtr in th*t countocy between 3000 and 4000 convicts undergoing sentences of life imprisonment for murder — sentences which are never commuted.— W .S. Lilly. .<. — "Spondolix," as a slang name for money, bad its origin in the Greek word snondulos, a certain kind of shell, shell 9of which species were once used as money boih in Greece and Egypt. — The who'e- world through there is no lovelier sight than; a well-planted, well-grown English orchard, whether in its full spring blossom or in- th& mellow richness of its antumnsl crop. — Alfred Austin. — Lord: Francis Hope, the brother of tha Coke of Newcastle, his incurred defits amounting .Co £657 942, and his assets ore returned at £173,920 15» 3d. Tbe lo»?e* on betting and gantbiing alone amounted to £70,000. — The- c*^naty stipend of curate* of the Church of England who have bern 25 year* in holy orders is, according to a chore h society, only £118 a year. t — Tbe Paris-born fcraeitfes wctnw txUnct in three or fonr generation*, in consequence of their feeble fecnndiliy and bigh rate of mortality,, and the average- length of lrfe among them is only 28 years and I rt,onth, as-compared with 40 years and 2 moatb* for the rest of France.. . ? — The smallest woman now on. earth is MdUe Paulina, of Holland, 18 years old, and 20in high- She weighs less tban 91b. — Lord Rothschild has been trying the experiment of breaking zebras to harness. He owns three, tow in the hards of a- trainer in Sonth Kensington. Mucb diificalty was experienced with the animals, at first, says tbe Kanchester ~Buardi»n, but they were "edxio».£ed" hy being harnessed with a quiet peny oue at a time. The postmen of Ltndon together walk something like 48,350 miles r p»r day, a distance nearly equal to twice the circumference of the globe. — Stfrplren- Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury, first divided 1 the Bible into chapter*' and rerses; this about the cTos. of the twelfth century. -i- The roar of Niagara hts been phc-no-graphed, and may be heard in any p<u.*t of America fora small fee. — The Egyptian monuments represent hats in nearly the shape of the well-known Mexican sombrero. — Many medioeval bindings are so incrusted with, gold and precious stone* that the. legitimate work of the kinder seems to have been - turned ever to- the lapidary and poldHnfrhv ~ Telegraphic mess«g=s are freqoently sent to jfcostralra, Mr Honniker-Heaton fays, costing. £1000, and one whs sent, a short tf me ago by it Londoner that cost £3200. -r- Lord P«1me»toBiB growth w^a very slow ; he wes over 50 before he was recognised by the people aa a statesman, of the higher cla*s at all, He ; wns7o before he beeanie Frim& MimsteP, and 80 before he attained his greatest popularity. — A Ge-man artisan's bretkfast consists of coffee and bread; his dinner of soup made of water, slices of bread, slices' of onion, and * little batter, meat once < r twice a week; bis supper, seup, cheese, potitces and b;e»d, with sausage and beer. — The Bank of England has only nine coun-try-brauches- — viz., Liverpool, Manchester, BfriniDgham, Leedf, Bristol, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Hull, Pyjnouth, and Portsmouth. AIL the same, its notes are tegal tender in all patts of England and Wales, except when issued by ifcetf. -^- Herrings form the greatest hardest cf the ocean. More herrings' are evten than any other fish.- — The HangiDg Gardens of Babylon, did not hing nor were ttrey gardens. They were terraces, supported by arches and overgrown with treesu. Tley were erected for the amusement of a Babylonian queen who had come from, a mountainous country. — M*ht acres of land in. Gloucestershire are derefled to the raising of wood for walking sticks-. » — From January of 1893 to the end of July, 96!j3 musical works were published in Germany* of wfcicb 288S were for the pianf orte, 2577 for other instruments, and 3966 were song*. __ — It- fe «^id • th«t quite: seven-tenths of thesingers on the London music-hall ttage hall eitfisr from, the neighbourhood 1 of Birmingham or Lreds, and in both these distsicis singing contests— which really provide the recruits for . ther regular stage— are held periodically.. -*- The average weight of the brain of an adult male is 31b 8oz ; and of w f emwle, 21b 4oz. The nerves are all connected with it directly or by the spinal marrow. These nerves with their branches and minute ramifications probably exceed 10, 000, 000 in nambt r. — Rossian railroads are themest dangerous ; 30 persons in every million passengers are killed or hurt. — Tfae_ Hindoos are passionately fend of horße.racing', and a race will practically close - all business. — The princesses of the English Royal Family hvre, on the average* married at the age of 22; th&pricces an 28. — lit Scotland daring, the latter' half of. the eighteenth century farm rervants got so much salmon that' at fair* they stipulated not to be fed; with it more than three times a week. ~ An elephant takes up the collection in some of the Hindoo temples. It goes round with a basket extended from its trunk. — The earliest fanning mill or winnowing machine was invented~m Chins and in use there forcenturies while Europeans were cleansing theft grain by casting it into the air on a windy day. — There are now over 250,000 words in the English language acknowledged by the best authorities, or about 70,000 more than m the German, French, Spanish, and Italian'iangusges combined. — Of all the materials for permanent writings papyiui is one of the most unsatisfactory. All ascient manuscripts of this material are almost aa brittle as dead leaves. — The average annuil payment to British soldiers in pensions for wounds is only £16,000. — The common crow is one of the 'slowest of British flying birds, and yet it can keep up with ease a-constant average speed of about 30 miles an hour. — Even the most expert free chopper or sawyer cannot compete in point of time with the electrical process or felling- trees. The method is simple. A. platinum, wise is'stretched between two poler, and made incandescent. Ka matter how large the tree in diameter, the wire will burn through fo and in about one-eighth of the time it would iake to saw it throng i

— The most bealthfulspbtin the world is said to be the site of the little French hamlet named Aumore, a town of 40 inhabitants, of whom 28 are over 85 years of age, and three are over 1 100. There are no gravts in the local cemetery. — In the PariHHn cemeteries it U now customary to place metil bosea on tbe tombstones. Each box h»s a slit in tie top, and in it drop their card*. The »e)ati«es can thus see tbe names of persons who cherish the memory of the dtcetsed. — In tbe museam at Capetown is shown an old-fasbii.ned, high-backed wcoden chair, to which attaches a weird story. It is reUted [ that the chair is the one in which the Dutch Governor de Noorde was found sitting dead a few moments after the execution of a soldier ! whom he had sentenced to be hanged, and who, ! on bis doom being pronounced, ro emnly called upon his- condemner to aceompa&y him to the | Throne of the Supreme Judge. «^— Pamphlets are said to owe tbeir name to Famphela, a Greek lady, who left behind her a number of scrap-books containing notes, anec* , dotes* and memoranda. I — female clerks in post offices are now ; more largely employed in Great Brita'n than ever. In this department of official work there | are upwards of 27,000 women. Of these 21,088 : »re serving the Postmaster-general in England I and Wales, 2676 in Scotland, and 3333 in Ire* land. — The capital of the Dominion of Canada is Ottawa, ' but the largest cities are Montreal, j Toronto, and Quebec. h — Hitzferi-n, or heat holidays, for school 1 children are now established by law in Ger- ! many anA Switzerland. When the thermometer i reactes a certain point, lessons must ceas*. I Throughout Prussia the observance of tbis regulat on 'is compulsory in all private as well as in puhlic school*. — Thf-re are known to be between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 total abstainers in Great Britain. if — Sir John Lawes hat observed that ever since 1634, ewry jear wbich ends with the figure 4 has betn an unususlly fruitful one. — Arabia is too rough and dangerous for the tocrri.-t, aud too poor for commercial exploitation. No compiler of guide books has yet published " Walks About the Hijaz," nor has any chattered company pegged out claims in Yemen or Nejd. The whole interior region is still ! held by free and warlike tribes, to whom life is ; hard xnd death easy, and whose property con- | cists of cattle, camels, and, above all, ho: ses.< — Speaker. j — A curious and interesting fact given by the ' Registrar-geceral in bis statistics for 1893 is . tbst in the Celtic 1 portions of the Halted Kingdom theprcportion of the female bi.-tbs is much i higher thau it ia ia the non-Celtic portions. The bighes* proportions are found in Cumber- : land, Cornwall, »nd North Wales, while South Wales is only a little way down in the list, and has a proportion considerably above the average for the whole country. The proportion of : female-births is higher in. lielaod and Scotland thanfn England. ; — In Norway the average length of -life ia greater than ia any other country oathe globe. This is attributed to the facb that the temperature is cool and umf orm throughout the rear. —In some legal proceeding* which took •place not long, ago in Neir York it ca-ne to [ 1-ghS that Jay Gould's c tate— essentially a speculative eaate, as to the o-igin - of wbJch, now that he- is deid, it is needless- to speak — was estimated at the time of bis- <Je»tb, two , yeara ago, *t 66,000,000d01, or a little over 13 millions sterling*.. — Two' hotels in the Adirondack mountains publish the? following extraordinary announce* menb in. their advertisements r — "The man aggers beg to announce th*t it will be impossible to accommodate guests afflicted with pulmonary , troubles. Tuberculosis paticntsr not derired." —On the road between Yarmouth and Gorleston is a small obeli*k or monument, with a device of a ship in a storm-, a rocket with a ! rope attached ju?t passing over it, and bearing thefollowinginscfiption:— **In commemoration of the 12tht of Febraary 180&, on which day, directly eastward of this sp-t, the first life waa awed from shipwreck by means of a rjpe attached to a ebot propell- d by the force of gunpowder ovsr the straaded vessel— a method now universally adopted, and to which at least , 1000 sailors of different nations owe their preservation." — There ia no doobt but that the Engli?h : Established Church will die hard, for it is immensely rich, and serve* to famish a. largeDumber of sinecures for the incompetent sons o£ the nobility. But the ncost tbat can be done is to slightly postpone the date. As. a Statesupported, political, and retlly Tory organisai tion, the days of the English Church are numbered. Theo religious f eedom in. England will ' hsva betn accomplahed. — Social Economist (U.S.A.).