MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2399, 22 February 1900, Page 52

MULTUM IN PARVO.

rr- In Scotland there are 46 parishes without paupers, poor-rates, or publichouses. — Three-tenths of the earnings of a Belgian convict are given to him on the expiration of his term of imprisonment. Some of them thus cave more money in gaol than they £ver saved before. — There are 48 different materials used in constructing a piano, from no fewer than 16 different countries, employing 45 different diands. — The Republic of Venezuela contains 506,159 square miles. It .is larger than any ■country in Europe, except Russia. — A Parisian photographer has made a specialty of theatrical scenes. His magnesium flashlights are fixed in sets of four on the front of the first circle at each side, near the stage. Each flashlight has a reflector behind it, and they are all opsrated at once by pressing an indiarubber bulb. — Thimbles! have been found in prehistoric mounds, with every evidence of having been made by machinery similar to our own. — The wealthy women of Venezula are Eaid to be extremely fond of dress, and will Epend much money on personal adornment. — During the last 200 years England has spent over twelve hundred millions of money in^war, which still means a payment of over 20 "millions a year in interest on debt. Biit the naval- wars of the future will be far more expensive than the land wars of the past. It is .estimated that a naval action between 30 modern battleships would cost something like a million sterling an hour; and thai a naval war between England, France, and Russia •would cost a sum of money equal to the market value of every inch of English soil. _ j — Just when the day became divided into hours is not known ; nor is the process explained. The Greeks and Romans measured time by the water-glass and the sun dials. The hour-glass, filled with sand, was the outgrowth of these articles. — Nothing in the natural world is ever destroyed. All things are in perpetual change, but their essences do not cease to be. • Nothing can be annihilated. This is a world of persistent energies — no atom is destroyed, no force distinguished. The stick of wood disappears in tHe fire to reappear in other forms — in ashes and gases. No particle of the wood is lost or destroyed. Pass a piece of coal through all the laboratories on the earth or in the water? under the earth, and still it .will remain unchanged in essence to the end of ages. — Edwin Markham. — The Sultan of Turkey is about to have the cinematograph brought into use for the purpose of enabling him to survey his railway works in Anatolia without the trouble of moving from his chair. The 110 kilometres of the line are to be photographed and reeled off • before his Majesty and the Court at Yildiz Kiosk. — In view of the recent exportation of the new quick-firing Colt gun to the Cape, an interesting series of experiments for testing the -time in which the destructive weapon can ,'be taken to pieces paid reconstructed, ready for use, has just been held in London, beaore a large company of interested experts, an Englishman managing to accomplish the feat in the extraordinary time of lmin 7)9sec. The Boers do n^ot possess specimens of this gun, ■which only weighs 401b, and fires between 300 and 400 shots per minute. The range of the gun is nearly two miles. — The western part of Persian is inhabited by a species of camel which is the pigmy of it? kind. It is snow-white, and Uon that account almost worshipped by the people. — In an old church in Herefordshire there are two thriving elm trees, which naturally sprouted from the pavement of the edifice nnd stand one at each end of a pew. — What would happen if all the inhabitants of the British Isles were seized with the desire to attend a place of worship? That is a question the Quiver asks, and its answer is that, after every house of God 'belonging to all denominations had been filled, 25,000,000 people would be crowded out. There is space at present to seat 15,000,000. The population is 40,000,000 ; therefore if all chose to attend a place of worship, the accommodation would have to be three-fifths larger than it is at present. — Artificial cotton is being manufactured in 'Austria. — In the Sandwich Islands the beauty of tvomen is measured by their height. — One of the strangest and most conservative of Christian communities is the settlement of monks and hermits on Mount Athos. 'A.ccording to a German scholar who visited the region not very long ago, there are 21 large monasteries, 11 villages, 250 cells, and 150 ' hermitages, which, together, accommodate about 6000 persons. They represent all nations, but agree in living in perfect seclusion according to the rule of St. Basil. They are eaid to be tolerant -and hospitable, but no Moslem is allowed to settle in the district, and no woman may set foot on the mountain. — The Illinois Central R. R. Company has equipped and placed in operation an inspection car propelled by a gasoline motor. —It is commonly said, and with some ius- . lice, that the writing of letters is a lost art. The speed of communication insured by railways, posts, telegraphs, and all the other machinery of life has rendered the quiet, measured interchange of confidences unnecessary and well-nigh impossible. While our grandfathers stayed in one corner of the world, we hasten up and down, substituting conversation for the ambling letters which 'served as a link between them and their friends. We gain, and posterity loses. There is probably no man so dull as \o prefer pen and ink to talk; but though of talk no echo remains, letters may have a_ magic which Jwill bring the dead back to life. Indeed, it is upon letters that we rely to reconstruct the tpast. — London Mail. — A scientist who carefully noted a spider's consumption of food in 24 hours concluded that, if the spider was built proportionately to the human scale v he would eat at breakfast (approximately) a small alligator, at 7 ■R.m. a lamb, at 9 a.m. a young camelopard, at 1 o'clock a sheep, and would finish up with a lark pie in which there were 10 birds. — Professor Ripley finds that the average 'Jew in Northern Europe is from sft 6in to 6ft lOin in height. In Italy the average is famch lower — sft lin. The decrease in stature tof the Southern Jew is attributed to the fact that in the days of Imperial Rome the physically strong were enrolled into the army, leaving the general body of Jews short in stature. Professor Ripley considers that starvation, sedentary habits, and persecution have resulted an the physical degeneration of the Jews of Northern Europe. Yet shall your rugged moor receive The incomparable pomp of eve, And the cold glories of the dawn Behind your shivering trees be drawn; And when the wind from place to place IDoth the unmoored cloud-galleons chase, Your garden gloom shall gleam again •With lea-ping sun, with glancing rain. — B. L. Stevenson.