MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, 5 December 1900, Page 56

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— During the present century 400 human lives, £25,000,000, and 200 ships have been lost in fruitless efforts to find the North Pole.

— . Mrs Gould, the wealthy American, has just bought of members of the Ladies' Kennel Association two prize-winning black pugs. For one, Black Knight, she paid £200; tor the other, Canonbury Zora, £150. — It is estimated that American travellers annually spend £20,000,000 in Europe. — The public buildings of England alone are valued at a sum approaching £250,000,000. — The British Museum Authors' Catalogue is now completed, after 20 years' labour, and has cost £4-0,000. It consists of 400 volumes and 70 supplements. — The number of men employed on British railways is nearly 400,000. — Ihe cutters of the great glove houses at Brussels and in France earn even higher .wages than the cutters of the most fashionable tailors in London and New York. So |<Ufficult is this art of cutting gloves that most of the principal cutters are known to the trade toy name and by fame, and the peculiar knives ./which they use in the business are so highly .prized that they are handed down from generation to generation as heirlooms. , — In London the foggy days are on an average. 38, which is the same as in Stuttgart. Xn Munich they are 4-7 ; in Hamburg, 52 ; in Tegernsce, in the Bavarian Alps, 134; „-while so few are the clear days in the St. that this lofty pass may be said to {be enveloped in mist Muring the greater part 'of the year. Jts foggy days are 277£ out of 565.

— The Kansas Fire Brigade, reputed to be the fastest in the world, secured the Challenge ,Cup at the. Paris Exhibition. The team gave some fine displays at the Crystal Palace. At /the competition in Paris the team turned out, ran a quarter of a mile to a building, let out 350 ft of hose, threw a stream of water on imaginary fire, and then the men scaled from, window to window to the seventh storey and rescued three people, the whole performance occupying less than four minutes ! — Lovers of flowers ought to know that ithe- Chinese primula, which quite recently has gained a footing in this country, is capable of imparting a virulent eczema to the hands. ;So much is this the case that the pupils of a ((horticultural college not many miles from (]Lon,don are warned that they must never (handle the plant without gloves, and a wellfknown firm of florists would be willing to /banish it if a general determination to that toff ecf could be secured. Unfortunately amaJteur gardeners, unaware of the danger, show '« growing desire for the stranger, because it jiblooms for a much longer time than the old Wimula, and puts out more, though smaller Jtflowers. [X — The smallest coin now, current in Europe ]Se the Greek lepton. It is worth one-tenth of « penny. i . — The latest craze seems to be autograph table cloths. At many important dinners in "London guests are being invited to inscribe 'itheir, names on the white damask tablecloth's with a pencil, the writing being subsequently embroidered. > One club now possesses '» cloth, so crowded with autographs, coals* of-arms, and other devices, that there is but Sittle space left unoccupied. < i • — The florists aver that London expends '£5000 a day upon cut flowers. ' The only European country which has a lower deathrate than England is Norway, i —It is not generally known that in France it is a penal offence to give any form of solid^ food to babies under a year old, unless it be prescribed in writing by a properly qualified medical man. Nurses are also forbidden to tise for their charges any sort of feeding bottle having a rubber tube. ;; ' These and other stringent laws have recently been 'enacted by the French Government, for, in of increasing the birth rate of their country, they are now doing their utmost to teave the lives of the comparatively small ijuraber of babies who are born. — When a marriage takes place in China jfche wedding party enter the temple and* light ! a quantity of fireworks, including a- number ! of crackers. • This is supposed to wake the ; " Great Joss " from his sleep. The priests [repeats the service at express speed, the bride itnd bridegroom take two little glasses of wine, and are then declared man and wife.

, —An interesting story concerning the (value of pigeons as messengers in time of war" jwas told by Captain Limpus and Captain u?erc'y Scott, C.8., in a lecture they gave at (Hongkong on the naval guns used at the relief of Ladysmith. Sir George White photojgraphed a plan of the Boer position for Sir Heavers Buller. It was, however, too heavy for one pigeon to carry. "So it was cut in four, and each piece entrusted to a bird. "I presume all four birds 'were flown together ; at any rate, they arrived at my office in Durban with only 25 minutes between the first. ' and the last. The distance was about 170 odd miles."

— The amusing progress of- a Kaffir courtphin is thus desoribed by an observant *'-Tommy," who writes from the Free State: ".I saw two dusky sweethearts talking together this morning, and it was amusing, _ I icaa* tell you. First of all he did a big grin Shat showed all his white teeth, then he turned up his eyeballs and started jabbering away at a great rate. He might have been asking her to meet him in the twilight, for all I know. She went away, I was going to say blushing, but the Kaffirs are quite innocent of such an accomplishment. The only Way in which they eeem to be able to betray their feelings is by giving an extra turn to their eyeballs." , — A marriage in the old Japanese style Qlways takes place in the home of the bridegroom's parents, except when the man assumes the name of his wife, when the ceremony is performed at the bride's home. The Qnain feature of the ceremony proper consists of drinking a number of cups of Japanese wine, or said, together in certain ways. The bride is always served first, during the marriage ceremony, but never again. At the beginning of the ceremonies the bride is dressed in white, but this is changed for a dress which she receives from the bridegroom's parents. The young husband also changes his garb 'when the ceremony, has been performed, and puts on new garments which are the gift of vho bride's parents.

— At the National Museum in Washington there is a most interesting exhibition of lamps. The lamps are of all ages, from the time of the Pompeian and Roman lamps up •«o the present day. Some of them are of great interest, as, for instance, the firefly 'amp from the West Indies. It is about 18in "n height and built in three storeys, made of wicker and bamboo cages with little doors. The 'fireflies' are imprisoned in this and cared for and fed. The Japanese 'lanterns suspended from sticks are of many types. Among the Chinese lamps are those made of bamboo, which are used to light alleys. They are a grequent case of conflagration. Old English from lanterns, or "lanthorns" as we ought 3o call them, would delight the heart of the collector of curios. There are also olive-oil jymps and JLJjkiiao lamps.