MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 2436, 21 November 1900, Page 56

MULTUM IN PARVO

— A Glasgow man has in his garden what lie calls a "tree clock." Fir trees are planted in such positions that one of them will shade a portion of the house at every hour of sunlight. For example, at 9 o'clock in the morning the "9 o'clock tree" shades the dining room, while as the sunlight changes the "10 o'clock tree" shades the room above or the room adjoining it, and so on through •the day. On a sunny day this "tree clock' insures a succession of shady places round the house. One of the Berlin reviews publishes a calculation of the number of letters listributed annually throughout the world. It °ives the total as 12,000 millions. Of theses dfc says, 8000 millions are in English, 1200 millions in German, 1000 millions in French, "220 millions in Italian, 120 millions in Spanish, 100 millions in Dutch, 80 millions in Russian, ..and 24- millions in Portuguese. The AngloSaxon is for the present very well m front. V — The twentieth century will have 21 leap X years, the greatest number possible. February will have five Sundays three times — 1920, 1948, and 1976. The earliest possible date ' on which Easter can occur is March 12., The last time it occurred on that date was 1818. ,The latest date that Easter can occur is April 25 It will occur but once in the coming century on that date— l 943. The niidole day of the century will, be January 1, 1S&1. 'There will be 380 eclipses during the coming , -century. „ „ — Green is popularly supposed to be the -colour which best protects the eye, but a German - professor denies that it has any ."beneficial effect whatever, and declares that oreen newspapers, green glasses, and green JTunbrellas are "all a mistake. His theory is, 'at all events, plausible. It is that each diftferent colour tires a different set of nerves oi .vision, and, therefore, looking at one particular colour saves one set" of nerves at the expense of another. The best method he points out, is to dim all the rays of light by smoked or grey glasses, wmeli rest all the optic nerves. , . , — Japanese workmen bathe the whole body 'lonce a day, and some of them twice. Public ■ibaths are provided in every street. I It has 'been estimated that there are in ISngland some s*o women editors, authors, land journalises, and of these a well-known '.(publisher has declared that five have an mfcome of £4000 a year. In journalism women Slave met with immense success.^ At least '■one lady journalist receives a salary ot +,/UU a Jyear, and there are not a few who have ! aio difficulty in making from £300 to £500. >The last' census in the United States showed tthat there were 3000 women engaged in lite'a'ary, as apart from journalistic, work. )• The sun's heat raises from the earth every ,minute 37,000 million tons ot water, or say 'ta weight equal to six, times that ef the Great IPyramid. Such heat could only be produced ion earth by. burning 8,000,000 cubic miles of feoal per second— that is to say, a nice' little {block 200 miles long, 200 miles high, and 200 'Wiles broad, weighing 12,000 millions of millions of tons. * ■ — Two logs' of African mahogany were sold by Messrs Edward Chaloner and .Company, m (Liverpool, for no less than £1536. They '(formed one tree, and were bought for the '(purpose of being cut into veneers for the decoration of palatial residences of some ot !tthe merchant princes of the "United States. !The veneers are used instead of wall-papers, Wd, being beautifully figured, give a rich Effect. The prices realised for the two logs jiwere 'respectively 10s 3d and 7s 3d per superficial foot, which is a l-ecord for African malihogany logs in the rough state, as imported. {; Among the wedding presents received flby "the daughter of a Philadelphia politician lithe other day were three complete suites W drawing room furniture, 17 plate-glass 'tmirrors, 148 oil-paintings and etchings, 15 Valuable and 98 ordinary clocks, 11 writing Vlesks, -16 fancy tables, 17 pie knives, 11 nsn ; isets, 13 china tea sets, and nine music boxes, !.to say nothing of 326 pieces of bric-a-brac, 0.02 salt and pepper boxes, and 450 other pieces silver. There were 3000 guests. j, France the number of suicides has increased in 50 years by more than 200 per cent., „-while the population has only increased by '18 per cent. In Belgium and a large part ot 'iGermany the rale of suicide has about in the same period. In Denmark khe rate has practically stood still. In Haig3and and "Wales it has increased from 66 per million in the first 20 years of the Queen s xeign to 86.5 in the five years preceding her Diamond Jubilee. A penny changes hands 125,000 times m the course of a lifetime. .The state dress of a trumpeter of the iloyal Horse Guards, "the Blues," costs over £100. " . , — About two millions a year is spent on the .so-called fashionable "sport" of pigeon shooting, and some 200,000 birds are annually sacri,ficed. The poor pigeon stands but little chance of escape after being released from the .•trap, and is either shot dead or flutters away, : *orn, bleeding, and mortally wounded. Sefveral hundred pigeons are often at big (matches in one day, costing from £20 to !£3O. — Of the earth's surface, 1,500,000 acres are devoted to tobacco culture. The great bulk of horsehair comes over to England from Russia and Siberia, and Merchants, principally German Jews, go over rto the Nishni Novgorod Fair to purchase. - horsehair is then consigned to English 'and German manufacturers, and commands from 2s 6d to 3s 6d per lb. What is known as English gathered hair— which grooms comb .out of the horses' tails and sell to the marine store dealers, who in turn dispose of it to the manufacturers— sells at 1« to Is 6d per lb, ■but is usually nmch tangled and difficult to 'work up. - , -It may not be generally known that the Queen is always provided with chairs risiino- a certain height from the ground, and rtibat even a discrepancy of half an inch either . ; Way causes her Majesty the greatest 'discomifort, for our revered Sovereign is not of lofty stature, and once, when visiting 1 a Scottish Duke, she was given a splendid armchair which, as she herself remarked, must foave been made for the King of the Belgians. i£>f course, her Majesty made no complaint at the time, but ever since then she lias taken her own chair with her. And as with chairs, f^o with beds, sofas, and settees. —In his report upon the trade and commerce of Zanzibar for last year Acting-Con- " (BulJlestell Cornish states that the finest tusks . in record in East Africa, and probably larger rthan have ever yeb been obtained in any part :'3f "the /world, came through Zanzibar last {pear. elephant from which they, were iVotainedwas shot by an Arab near Kilimanjaro. These busks, which consisted 'of perfect ivory without » particle of disease, measured over 10£ ft from top to base, and /eighed 2241b and 2391b respectively. They C/ere sold for £1600. The nearest approach in bulk to this pair were found about ten ,years ago, and weighed 1801b each. They were, however, diseased to some extent.

—It is often said that persons afflicted with certain forms of deafness can hear perfectly in the midst of a tumult. A locomotive engineer, upon examination by a medical expert, was found to be very deaf, and, although he protested that he could hear perfectly well while on his engine, he was suspended. from duty. Some time afterward, having vainly tried to get cured, he applied for reinstatement, again urging the fact of his perfect hearing while on duty. Finally, in order to satisfy him, the physician rode with him upon a locomotive for a long distance and put him to every possible test. To the doctor's surprise he found the man able not only to hear ordinary sounds without difficulty, but also to distinguish whispers and faint movements that were inaudible to his companion.