MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2242, 18 February 1897, Page 40

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— Last year the British postal c - spondince with the United States was sec nly in magnitude to that with all the Gre i ff J .i\vers of Europe combined, being about 41 000,000 letters, &c, as against about 65,000,000 for Europe. If letter-writing goes for anything, it ought to make America and England firm allies. — Every London omnibus earns dn an average daily 44s for hire and Is for advertisements. — Corsets have been worn since the earliest ages. The mummy of an Egyptian princess, that had been entombed for 2000 yeans before the Christian era, was recently found encased in a laced article of this kind. j — A peculiarity noticed by the keepers at i the London Zoo is that bad weather affects lions -just »s it does human beings. A rainy day will make them limp and listless, aud a \ glimpse of sunshine makes them h»ppy as j crickets. Bad weather, however, does not prevent th< in remembering when meal time is at hand and they are a^ restless as young kittens till their food is forthcoming. — Grty borses live longesr, i\>an horses nearly as long. Cream-coloured horses are deficient in staying power, especially in summer ' weather. Baye, on an average, are the best. — Photographs of flying bullets recently j made in tiheerness show dark streaks aud blur 6 just iv front of the projeotiles, and it is j thought that these are the^ images of little j clouds formed by the sudden condensation of moisture as the advancing bullet compresses . the air ahead ofit. j — It is said that shortening the term of com- • puleory service in the Geiman army has reduced ! the number of Buicides among the troops nearly one-hnlf. — Naval experts say that the balloon is about to become a marine life-saving appliance. The big ooean greyhounds will aoon be equipped Kith lifeboats harnessed to balloons, so us to be practically tinsmkable. — All beggars in Italy must be duly licensed. — The tongues ot the cab family are covered j with recurvirg spines. In the common domestic ; cat these are »mall, but sufficiently well developed to give the tongue a feeling of roughness. < But in the lion and tiger the spines are strong I enough to enable the animal to tear away the ; (kin of a man's hand merely by licking it ! — Brandy, used habitually as a beverage, is B&id to aggravate a tendency to suicide. Excessive beer drinking produce* suicide indirectly by diseases of the heart and liver productive of melancholy. — The London hospitals treat about 87,000 in-patirnts and about 1,299,000 out-patieu(s .every year. This does not include the large number of out-patients who are treated in the free dispennaries — Laplanders are great skaters, and somef^ times cover 150 miles in a day. \ — The yearly importation of pearls to London reaches £1,000,000. Most of them come from Bombay. — Pulverised tiger bones are used as medicine in China. It rs bs'icved that they imp&rt i to the invalid the strength of a tiger. I — At the opening of the present century it is claimed that but 47 translations of the Btble (Were in existence. To-day there are 90 entire 'iuad 230 partial once. ; — Some Hindoos wear moustaches and : beards, but all wear whiskers, which are shaved off at once when an adult relation dies. The shaving off of whiskers is thus a sign of mourning. | — It is calculated that Londoners pay an I ■extra water rate of some £70,000 to £80,000 a j .year in respect of the article which they buy as I milk. { — Some curious experiments have been made »t one of the royal philanthropic institutions in Copenhagen. For some years back the 70 boys 'and girls in the place have been carefully weighed every day in groups of 15 and under. Thereby it is proved that the children gain weight mostly in autumn and in the early p»rt of December. From tbat time till the end of April there is scarcely any growth in weight. More remarkable still, there is a diminution till the end of summer. — Fifteen thousand people are employed in xnakiDg violins in Germany. — Amoßg the many autograph letters of authors preserved by the T^uchnitz home in Leipsic is one from Thackeray, iv which' he *iays : "Don't be afraid of your English, my > dear man. A letter containing £sd is always in pretty style." — A flute that was discovered lately in an Egyptian tomb was in so good a state ot preservation that it could be played upon as well as ]f it had been made this century, instead of 5000 years ago. What is equally interesting is fchat while the sound differs from the flutes of to-day, its notes are said to be based upon the tules of the modern scale. — In Cashmere they have a novel method of putting todder up for winter u*e. The country lies in * valley among the Himalayas. The chief industry of the people consists in raising line wool, and ia making this into fabrics which Lave carried the name of the couutry all over the world. As in winter snow lies some five and six yards deep, supplies of hay are hang among the branches of trees, where they are easily reached by the flocks of sheep. — The soil of Cuba is io fertile that in some districts four cropa a year are raised. * — The belief that it is not good to eat oysters in any month tbe name of which dees not ] contain an "r"is very ancieub. It is to be Jound in a work published in 1599, and the original sentence reads as follows : "It is unseasonable and unwholesome in all months that have not an "r" in their name to eat an oyster." — A regular Hindustanee carrier, with a weight of 801b on his shoulders— carried, of course, in two divisions, hang on his neck by a yoke — will, if properly paid, cover over 100 miles in 24 hours. — There are springs of fresh water in the Persian Gulf that furnish supplies to vessels. — Cats can «mell even during sleep. If a of meat be placed immediately in front of » sleeping cat's nose, the nostrils will begin to work as the scent is received, and an instant later the cat will wake up. — A very light and warm waterproof cloth is j cow manuiactured from the down of chickens, j ducks, and geese. Seven hundred and fifty grains of the feathers make little more than a square yard of the cloth. , j — The railway companies in New South Wales allow children to ride free in the country districts when going to or returning from school. ! —In all mythology and folk low iii-«j ] flowers are supposed to spring from tean. V —A. "bcag" whs originally the golden chain " trorn round tne neck of a civic magistrate ; this Naturally attracted tbe attention of the public, who called the man first a " beag " and then a "beak." ■ — The owl'i eyes have no muscles by which they can be moved, but extraordinary flexibility in the masoles of the neck enables the owl to move his head with incredible rapidity in any direction, '

— A statistician computes that Queen Victori* is now sovereign over one cotuineut, 100 peninsul&i, SJO promontories, 1000 lakes, 2000 rivers, and 10,000 inlands. I — Barge horses are longer lived than carriage 1 horses. — A church organ made of bamboo has been builb at Shanghai. The notes are said to be sweeter than those of metallic pipes. — Eighteeii tons of steel disappear daily on the London and North-western railway through wear and rust. — Every standing army of continental Europe hai army druggists as well ai doctors. There are 130 in the Russian .army alone. — In Jamaica and other West Indian islands they have a very curious way of preserving eggs fresh for a considerable time. A layer ot eggs is placed at the bottom of a barrel, and ordinary black treacle is poured over in sufficient quantity to cover them. Then another layer is added, and more treacle, and so on till the barrel is full. — When a person is drowned in certain parts of Norway a cock is pufc in a boat, which ia rowed about the scene of disaster, thi belief being that the bird will crow when the boat passes over the body. — In Austria drunkards are treated under the Ouratel law, which applies to persons mentally afflicted and to spendthrifts, their affairs being placed in charge of an adruiuirtrator. A person fiiff.-riug fiom excessive indulgence in drink may be brought judicially under this law. — It is estimated that during the last quarter of a century 10 tous of diamonds, selling for more than £60,000,000 uncut, and £120,000,000 after cutting, have been added to the world's wealth — an amount more than twice as great as the value of all the diamonds known to exist before — According to some recent experiments, when the comparison is based on equality of weight instead of equality of size, several kinds of wood are actually stronger than steel. Comparing a bar of "rtruck steel" and bars of pine, ash, and hemlock, of a given weight and length, the pine will sustain a weight half as great again, the »9h more than twice a3 great, and the hemlock almost three times an great a weight as the nteel. But, uufortunitfcly, the wood in each case occupies 10 or 12 times as much space as the nsetal does. Mr and Mrs Kosi (David and Elizabeth), now residing at No->k Fern, Inverness, were born — Mr Rosi in 1794 and Mrs Ross in 1792— their ages now being respectively 102 and 104 years. Born in the same village in England, the couple have been known to each other for a ceutury. They were schooled t gefcbw, and at an early age were sent out to farm service to eke out a livelihood. Nothing of importance is known respecting them until they had reached between 20 and 30 years of age, when a rumour was circulated that the pair were missing from their employment. This proved true. It transpired i that the couple had gone off together to the famous "Gretna Green," and there were united in matrimony. They afterwards took up their abode in Scotland, managing a farm. Soon after they emigrated to America, but matters were not to their expectations, and the next move was to Australia, where they remained a considerable period, amassing a tidy fortune in sheep farming. Then they returned to their native country (50 years ago), and ever since have been living m comparative ease and comfort. Only three children were born of the union. One lived to the proverbial three score and ten years. Of the surviving one is in New Zealand and the other in England. Mr and Mrs Ross have always been of temperate habits, excepting that Mr Ross is an inveterate smoker, sometimes consuming an ounce of his favourite shag per day. The venerable couple have done much travelling (which seemß their chief hobby), having been three timeß to Außtralia and New Zealand and six times to America and back. Nothing extraordinary has occurred during their long married life except an unfortunate accident which befell them when returning from their diamond wedding some years ago — they had the misfortune 1.0 be thrown out of a carriage, and both sustained a fractured arm. The old couple are still hale and hearty, and, with the exception of failing eyesight, still retain their faculties. I