MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2426, 12 September 1900, Page 56

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— A deal has just been closed whereby a well-known English brewing firm purchased about 480,0001b of corks. This deal represents £90,000. In two years the company will deliver to the brewery upwards of 100,000,000 coiks. This is said to be one of the biggest deals in corks ever made. These 100)000,000 coiks in bulk, weighing 480,0001b, would support 240,000 men on top of the water were they to be thrown overboard, each with a single lite-preserver on. — The Dalecarlian village of Orsa seems to ■offer advantages as a place of residence to persons of small incomes. The municipality owns extensive forest lands, and by the judicious sale of some of them', the village has a Revenue of about £15,000 a year. The inhabitants pay no taxes of any kind. A first-rate education is provided for their children without the cost of a penny, and each village m the district has its telephone, which is open free to the public use. — r Every boy in Germany, from the Crown a Prince to the meanest subject, is" obliged to learn some useful trade. — The price of the Transvaal sixpence in England is now five shillings. Kruger pennies; however, are relatively more expensive being-priced at Is 6d each. — A case of quintuple birth is reported ,by -Dr. ,Bernheim, of Philadelphia, in the SDeulsche Me.dicinisehe Wochenschrift. This .rare, event happened in Mayfield, Kentucky. rThe. children were of the male sex, and were all bern alive. Their weight was, from four ,to five English pounds, and they appeared quite healthy, there being no obvious cause 'lor their deaths, which took place within a forlmgh'-. According to a text-book quoted ■by the "Lancet, twins occur once in 89 births, .triplets once in 7910 births, and quadruplets once in 371,126 births. «; — There is no word in the Chinese language conveys an intimation of what we term public spirit, nor is there a synonym for patriotism. , — There are two blind beggars in New York who hare stood at their respective corners in jUlfth Avenue every day for twenty-five years. > — The largest and inosc cumbersome form of money is found in Central Africa, wheie uhe natives use a cross-shaped ingot of copper , ore over lOin long. It is heavy enough to be a formidable weapon. . — The English language — according to a. German rtatistician who has made a study of | the comparative wealth of language? — heads ■iho list with the enormous vocabulary of •'260,000 words. German corpes next, with , 80,000 words ; then Italian. ' with 75,0Q0 ; French, with .30,000; Turkish, with 22,500; 'md Spanish, with 20,000. — A good giraffe skim is worth from £2 to ! 'ii4- in South Africa to-day, and much more in "Btirope. On their hunting trips 10 cv 15 years [ago 1 it was a common matter for one hunter to 'kill 40 to 50 giraffes in one day. ! — .In Vienna, telephone booths are fur- , nislicd-with napkins bearing the inscription, t"'Wipe. if yoii please." The napkins are changed frequently, and this undoubtedly 'fierves toi keep the mouthpieces of the trans- ' millers in- good sanitary condition. !■ —'A flower known as the laughing-plant, .which grows in Arabia, is so called becausa its 'eeeds produce effects similar to those prodiiccd /by laughing gap. The flowers are of a "bright '.yellow, while the seeds resemble small blac 1 ! .beans. — Corea is rich in gold, copper, coal, and iron, but it is only during the last few years that the mines have been properly worked. J! — Not even the snow can claim immunity from the tax-collector. The Prince of Paler[mo, the capital of Sicily, owes his wealth to the snow, of which he has a monopoly. The snow is brought in at night in sibaskets from the mountains of Italy, and is shipped to the towns and sold for refrigerating p-arposes. Thus the Prince partly keeps ■;up his establishment with the snow from Hea%en. ' — Each inhabitant of Franco pays annually 47s 6d for the support of the Government, .while each Italian contributes 16s J Bd. In Gerfmany and Belgium the cost is 12s 6d per head I of the population, in Austria 11s Bd, and in '■England, 8s 4d. 1 — Ceylon is th 9 home of the largest spider fn the world. This web-spinning monster lives in the most mountainous districts of that rugged island, ancl places his net, measuring tfrom sft to 10ft in diameter, across the chasms and fissures in rocks.

— The locust, which is very abundant in Southern Europe ancl the Barbary States, is taten by the inhabitants, and is said to be Very good by the travellers who have tasted £{. The. Goliath beetles of Africa are eaten %y "the natives, and are also said to be very ■palatable. .. — A law has come into operation in Japan. ( to ."prevent all smoking by persons under 20 -'.years of age. The police have the right to 'trorcibly prevent an infraction of this remarla- ' Vblc new law. But it does not stop there. i3Tines are provided not only for the smokeio .■but for the tradesmen who sell them the maI ter'ials, and even for their parents for not ■teaching them better habits ! Happy Japan i '•At. one bound she leaped into the ranks of 'civilised nations, but at another she ou»distances them all. t — A tax on titles is the latest device proposed in Italy for raising the national revenue. ••In Roman society one can scarcely meet with fa person who is not a count of a countess, Fbaron or baroness, marquis or marchioness. -Half of these have absolutely no right to such titles, which arc often assumed for the pur£pose of securing wealthy marriages. The [Government are determined to end this i^rickery, and this is to be effected by taxing or fining those who are unable to prove their 'right to their assumed noble Jitles. ii —A discovery likely to be of inestimable lvalue to medical science is reported to have VbeSn made at the Hygienic Institute ab Wurz/berg University, where, it will be remembered, the Rontgen rays were also discovered. Tt [•has been found that certain electric currents .possess the quality of destroying bacteria, and .'can be used for healing a number of clisea&es ■caused by infection through bacteria. The I treatment, is said to be very simple and efficient. It is also painless and without evil 'consequences, as only currents of the strength lof one-thousandth part of an ampere come [into play. The discoverer is a dentisi 1 - narneel Zie'rler, and for weeks past' successful experi- ] ments hays been made in the treatment of Ihe • roots of decayed teeth and fistulas. ! — Certain of the medical schools of the 'American universities have .started "lending ■ libraries," in which boned take the place of ibooks on the rfielve^ and are lent on exactly .Ithe same system as in a circulating library. The student, on paying the sum of Is, can ■borrow any bone -in the collection, and by renewing the loan every week keep it for a 'month. Some of the libraries are valued las high as £5000. A jomplete skeleton is worth from £6 to £20, according to its condition. A skull brings from 5s to £1; and "a perfect specimen — a comparative rarity — as much as £10. Leg, arm, and collar bones command a ready market at from 2s to 5s each, "•while a perfect string of spinal vertebras is valued at £I*.

— The term " crocodile tears," applied to false tears or hypocritical sorrow, is derived from the tales of early travellers, who represented the crocodile as weeping over its prey, or crying to attract persons so that it might devour them.