MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Volume 01, Issue 2123, 1 November 1894, Page 42

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— A Spanish inventor claims to have produced an iron automaton whose inner organs are machinery and whose diet is cartridges. The rifle which the monster carries can be turned in any direction, and delivers 50,000 shots in 15 rninuti-s. EU-otricity provides the motive power by which the machinery is set in motion.

— France has more persons over 60 years of age than any other country. Ireland comes — The Maharajah of Kooth-Behar has rented B'ackcraig Castle, Perthshire, for the shooting 6eason Blackcraig is the fl^e place in Strathardle where Mr Arinistead entertained Mr Gladstone for several woeks last year. _ The (scenery all round is very fine, but there is not much shooting of any bind. — In England the legal age afe which persons may marry is, for males 14 years, and for females 12 je*rs. — There is, it seems, a popu'ation of 22,000 children in the hospitals, workhouses, and dispensaries of London. — A French professor of experimental sur« fery hw succeeded in proving the presence of irulent tuberculous bacilli in the utsU'ils of Sieople perlectly ; heaHhy who frequent places nhabited by persons suffering from consumption. — In Madrid the Plaza de Toros holds 12,000 people, *nd setts cost from 2* to £2. Spanish workmen will live on bread and grapes or water melon for weeks to save enough moneyfora front seat, and, if the fatal sword be planted in the deadly spofc, he will fling his money, his tobacco, and his knife into the ring at the feeb i>f the successful cbampion.— Spectator. •— An ingenious app'.iauce is being fitted to billiard tables. It is on the principle used for returning balls in the American bowling alley. By having the pockets bottomless, and by allowing the bails to run freely along inclined grooves, the red ball returns to the ppot end of the table, and the white to the baulk end of the table. , Of Holland it may be said that no country within easy reach of England i« so foreign in pppearance, in its costume, and in its manners. JL very large portion ol the country is out of the tourißt route, «nd here the ancirnt distinctive Costumes are worn with aB much pride as of yore, wh'le the habits of the people are as primitive ; but only along the waterways, and not along the railway*.— Christopher Davies. — A French physician hts devised a vibrating helmet for tLe cure of nervous headache. Ifc U constructed ot s'rips of eteel, put in vibration by a small electrc-motor. which makes 600 turns a, minute. The sensation, which is not unpleasant, produces dowsiness ; the patient falls asleep under its iufluence, and awakes free from pain. — Japanese doctors rever present bills to their patients. They await the latter's inclination to pay, and then thankfully accept whativer sum is offered.

— A Glasgow doctor in his holograph will leaves the whole of Lis estate to his two sisters, and then inserts this extraordinary clause: — *' To my wife, a-* a recompense for deserting ftod leaving me in peace, I expeot tbo said sister Elizabeth to make hor a gift of 10s sterling to buy a handkerchief to weep in after my decease."

— The pay of an admiral in the navy is 41825 a year.

— Cases of sudden less of Fight have been reported on several occasions from Cairns, Queensland, and it is generally believed that this unusual condition was brought about after perioDS had eaten of a peculiar berry known as "fingers" or "native loquat," wbioh grows plentifully in the district. The matter is to be Scientifically inquired into. — The whale is said to send out from its hearfc.at every beat Dearly 15gal of Wood. — Gold in t-arsifc acroia the Atlantic "sweats," no matter how t'ghtly it may be packed. It is usually sent in s>out kegs and Squeezed in a*s tight as possible, but there is a regular al'qwaDce for loss by attrition upon the Voyage, aud in the course of years this loss to the commercial world amounts to a large sum.

— Analysts say that butter is the most nutritious article of diet, &Ld that bacon comes next.

— The Coreons affect the grr at -st disgust for the natiins v,hich put the faces of their Sovereigns on the'r coins, the divine image feeing then liable to be handled by dirty fingers Or rolled in the dust and mud. As for the photos of kings and queens, they appear to them as simple sacrileges ; one picture of the Sovereign is taken, and th ; s, after his death, is placed in a special apartment, next to thoae of his prf-deces? on.

— What will prove a most useful industrial development is the application of electricity to the cleansing and preservation of boilirs. The employed is the sending of currents periodically through (he shell of the boil- rs. By this means, it is stated, the scale formed on the shell and tube is disintegrated and easily Iremoved.

— The late Hans yen Billow was exreedingly yam. Fits of vanity Feizwl him when performing in public, and it wa<« his custom to shift the piano between tbe number*, bo that with each Hew piece a different profile of his face would be presented.

— It is a curious fact, and shows the jealousy, if not animosity, existing between the two Rations, that the Emperor of Chma has never exchanged any courtesies with the Mikado, nor have the ladies of their families corresponded This is strange, for both the Emperor and Empress of Japan correspond with European royalties frequently; the Empress Ham is in coustant communication with the Empress Frederick for example.

— In 1868 one person out of every 409 in England and Wales was under suspicion or clawed as a known tbief . In 1888 the proportion was only one to 871.

— The work of draining the valley of Mexico, which has been in pr. gr< 88 of development for nearly 300 years, will 6oon be completed. It h»s coM; about 10 millions of dollars and some 200,000 human Jives. The canal and Bi'x-mile tunnel through the mountain range have a total len«ih of Dearly 40 miles Nin^-tenths of the tunnel is finished, aud only gome 15 per cent, of Ghe canal remains to be completed.

— The roar of the lion cau be heard farther 3ban the sound of any living creature. Next comes the hjasna, then the screech owl, the SaLther, and the jackal in succi s^ion. The onkey can be h< a-d 50 limes farther off than the ho se, and thj cat 10 times farther than the dog. It is strange that the quiet and timid hare, wl on she cries in fear, can be heard farther off tnan e'th r cat or drg.

—If is estimate ' that, in addition to about £3,000,000 in tropical woods, Great Britain import* annually £12,000,000 worth of cak, ash. pine, &c. It is believed that the latter expense cou d be saved to the country by the afforevation of 6,000,000 acres of what is now waste land— a that Dr Schlich calculates would require 15,000 labourers, if the planting were done at the rare of 300,000 acres yearly while it would ev.ni ually provide steady employment for 100.000 persons.

— Organ-gridlug In the East Is carried on with decided Oriental luxury. A regular Italian organ-grinder is now enlivening Rangoon; but he disdains to do anything more than collect the money. A coolie wheels the instrument, and a Bengali in white raiment turns the haudle under the Italian's direction. . — M. Eifffl, whose great tower is known to all the world, once declared that in all engineering enterprises he reckoned that ono man was killed for every million of francs expended ; but engineers regard this as an extravagant estimate, though in the case of the Forth Bridge the proportion of lives lost was considerably greater than that stated by the French engineer, no les-i than 55 men being killed, in addition to great numbers who were crippled and terribly injured in one way or another. — A little toy who has just boen born at Downshire House, in Belgrave square, is the beirfco £96,000 a year, large estates in County Down and Berkshire, a very fine London housa in the very centre of the fashionable quarter, a marquisate, two earldoms (one Irish and one English), two Irish and oue English viscsunty, an English and an Irinh barony. — On a person dying without next-of-kin, and not leaving a will, his or her estate becomes the property of the Crown. In this way her Majesty s Exchequer came into the pojses j ion, in 1876, of £140 000, left by a Miss Blake ; in 1886, of £100,000, left by » Mr Bird ; and in 1887, of £200,000, left by a Mr Hea'hcote. — The luxury indulged in by the rich people of New York is almost beyond belief. Among other means of spending their money, one ot the most ostentatious is the purchase and u-e of table service made of sold gold. Theres are 12 or 13 ouch now in use in that city, aud their aggregate cost is noi less than £600,000. — British naval surg. ons on appointment receive £209 17s 6d per year, and the various steps are worth about £50 a year each, an Inspeotor-general of hospitals receiving £1003 15s per annum. In the army a surgeon receives on appointment £200 per year, and can be promoted until as surgeon-general he receives £1000. — Lord Wolseley has just been bearing notable testimony to the spiead of temperance in the army. "lam glad " (he writes to an Iri3h temperance association) "tosa> we have now but little drunkenness in the army— less, indeed, of it in our ranks than in any other class of her Majesty's subjects. To this fact, I consider, we owe much of the improvement in every respect [ that has been steadily going on amoDgst us for the past 20 years." — France seems in a fair way to distance Engfltnd in the matter of electrical locomotion. The Chemin de Fer dc l'Oue&t bas just had an electrical engine cens ructed for use with express train', and it is expeDted to begin running very shortly between Paris and Mantes, covering the 32 miles in 50 minutes-not a very high rate of speed, but quite enough to show what may possibly be done in the fu-ure. — It is said that while 150fJ is the limit at which diving work can be carried on safely unde* water, a depth of 201 ft has been attained by ft ••helmet diver"— a diver who descends by himself and not in a diving bell. — Edmund Yates d ; rected that an incision should be made in his jugular vein, and even wont tbe lergth of mentioning the sum which 6hould be paid for the operation. Thin provision was due to the great dread many men have of being buried alive The same terror aleo posse'sed Lord Lytton, the great novelist, for his will also contained a provision the carrying out of which would prevent all doubt of his being really dead.