MULTUM IN PAEVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2455, 3 April 1901, Page 56

MULTUM IN PAEVO.

■ — The native names of some of the Natal mountains, rivers, etc., are very picturesque, as well as appropriate. For instance, they • call the Cathkin, or Champagne Castle, a ,12.000 ft moxintam on the inland border, "Urnrdedelele," or the mountain " which must be .■left alone." Tintwa, the 7500 ft hill to the I south of the famous pass, is so named because tto tho natives thereabout its peak seemed to '*' touch the light rain clouds " sooner than :any other local hill. Indumeni, or "the -thunderer," was so called because of its ".echoes; Mahwaga, or "the wrin'kied, frownting " mountain, in consequence of its peculiar .formation. Doom Kop is the " hill of •thorns " ; Spion Kop — famous through the ■ attack made by Sir Charles Warren— is in name and truth the "^mountain of wide views —the hill of spying." 1 — Twenty-five thousand was the greatest number of prisoners ever taken in a eingle ■engagement, being the number of French taken by the German troops at the :-Battle of Sedan, in the Franco-German war, on the 31st of August, 1870, while on the 'following day, as the result of the German -victory, other 83,000 French soldiers surrendered, together with 70 mitrailleuses, 400 and 150 fortress Runs. About , 14,600 French wounded were found lying on *the battlefield, and about 3000 escaped into 'Belgium and laid down their arms. Amongst •ttlte killed was a. correspondent of The Times, -\»ho had approached too near the conflict. •On the- 27th of October, in the same year, Marshal Bazaino, after fighting and wfferins: eeveral defeats in the neighbourhood of Metz, Burrendered with his army, including Marshals -■Car.robert and Le Beouf, 66 generals, about 6000 officers, and 173,000 men, including the Imperial Guard ; 400 pieces of artillery, 100 mitrailleu&es, and 53 eagles or standards. — Military surgeons have made careful calculations which prove that on'y one man in three or one man in four is badly hurt. At the Crimean war there were 32 severe ■wounds among the rank and file to 68 slight injuries But among ihe officers A 0 were •badly hurt to 60 slightly injured. In the ,T>looay though small war against the M&oris of New Zealand. 3* officers and men were severely wounded to 66 slightly hurt. And v this was exactly the proportion of slight to eevere wounds in the Italian war of Independence alsu. The Franco-German war proved «. bit worse, for the .Germans anyhow, the severe wounds being 43 to 57 rligtly miured. But the United States Civil war was quite the contrary, only 20 men being badly .■wounded to 80 slightly hurt. — The public standard measures of length. ■which were laid down by the Board of Trade in Trafalgar squore some years ago, ha\e recently been refaced and readjusted. Tho existence of the&e public standaids is not Igenerally known ; they are to be found on the , .north side of the square, and are defined by j lines engraved on bronze blocks, wliioh are , let into a Ion?, narrow granite platfoim, their position being indicated by a bronze xab- I 3et placed above them. 'The following standards of length are given : Ons of 100 ft, a chain of four poles or 66ft (100 link-), and a •pole of 5£ yards. In addition to the above long standards, there will be found near the eeme spot a mural tablet of bronze marked with the shorter -standards of 3ft. 2ft, Ift. «nd lin. These measures were last adiusted in 1887, and it is interesting to learn that since that year the 100 ft and the chain had " become shorter by .C69in and .032 in respectively, while the pole of 5^ yards had become .003 in longer. — The balanje sheet of Harmsworth Bros. (Limited) (Answers, Hoir.e Chat, etc.) for the year ending October 31 shows profits have been earned amounting to £'230 623 13s 3d, after writing off £20,000 for depreciation, being an increase over last year's profits of £49.516 8p 3c 1 . The directors recommend a final dividend a.t the rate of 30 per cent., end a bonus of sixpence per share, making a total distribution for the ypar of 30 tter cent ; and they also recommend that £25,000 be placed to the reserve fund, bringing the reserve up to £75,000. Mr R. L. Ilarmsworth •was recently elected to Parliament in place of Dr Clark. — King Edward lias succeeded to an income, it is estimated, of over £1000 a day, but he has sacrificf d more than £1000 a week in giving up tLe Duchy of Cornwall, which now | becomes the property of the Duke of Cornwall and York. As* Duke of Cornwall, the King received from this source like three ancl a-half mil'ions-^terling. He entered into possession of . ihe/'*3tate at the moment of his birth, «wl, ihanks to the excellent business ability of Prince Albert, the aecummulated revenues of the Duchy were about a million by the time the Prince Became of age. Eighty 3 - ear' 3 ago the Duchy I yielded only just over £?.2.000 gross. The | revenue is now about £120,000 a year, but there are so many charges of oiip kind or an- j other that the Duke of Cornwall and York • -will receive only about £65,000 a year of the total value of tr-p e-tate. — When the coinage of hor late Majesty " Queen Victoria is superseded by the coinage of King Edward the design for the rever.-e ■will be governed by the personal tapte of his Majesty, who also decides as to the crown on the head. But the head must bp in profile, because it must look to the right and loft in alternate reigvs. George 111 looked to tho right, George ~IV to thatfjfi^t, William IV to the rig^t, and Queen Victoria to the left. Consequently Kdwaid VII will look to tho right — From Bro/nyarcl. a town in the neighborhood of Hereford, comes a rurious story, related by a correspondent to the local paper. About 6.30 on ihe night of the Queen's death, the caretaker of Saltmarshe Castle, which is let tp Major Heyworth, heard a noi«e. He proceeded to where the sound came from, and on going into the room found that a picture of the Queen had fallen from its hanging on the wall to the floor. — The following extracts from the Court ' rules and regulations under King Henry VIII afford an amusing comparison between the tnanners of that day and those of the twentieth century : " His Highness's attendants are not to steal any locks and keys, tables, forms, cupboards, or other furniture out of noblemen's or gentlemen's houses where he goes to visit. The brewer shall not put any brimstone in the ale. Cooks are not to employ scullions that go about naked or that lie upon the hearth all night." It will be obEerved that in bluff King Hal's time there was apparently a " brimstone-in-beer scare »imilar to our own trouble with arsenic. — In connection with the fire that occurred aecently in Laird's shipyard at Birkenhead, fha Liverpool Mercury recalls that from these works came, in October, 1829, the first iron ship that England produced, thus conferring on the yard an historic importance. Her dimensions were 60ft long, 13ft beam. 7 2 ft deep ; she measured 54- tons carpenter s measure, and would cairy a dead weight of about 90 tons. It was at this yard, also, that the first iron yacht, the Glowworm, was built, in thy year 16S7i

— The London, Brighton, and South Coast railway runs en an average 16,000 special trains every year in connection with race meeting's. The race meeting which \\j° been a record for this Hue v»a» tiie Derby of 1863, when 26,000 passengeis were carried from London Bridge and Victoria station, £10,111 being paid 111 fares. — Bengal pig-iron (says the Iron and Coal Trades Review) is be;ng sold on <qual terms with Middlesbrough iron in Sydney and in Melbourne, in Hongkong and in Shanghai. — As a national industry, agriculture employs more labour than any other. More than a million men over 15 years of age are employed as farmers, labourers, graziero, and gardeners in agricultural districts. These men spend more time m the open air than any class in England, except, perhaps, the fishermen. They are the product of the country life, and the heirs of the constitutions so developed. Their death rate is low at nil ages. From 15 till 55 it is, on an average, 3.5 per cent., or less than that of all other male workers in Great Britain, and lower than that of all other workers in the country districts — than shopkeepers, for example, or the smiths or wheplwrights. — Good observers, with the necessary power of 6cent — for example, Flaubert, the great French writer — have perceived in travelling that different towns have different characteristic odours. They are more or less obgerv- ( able, of course, according as they are Vy'eak or ' strong, and it is essy to see how they can arise by fuel, cooking, manufactures, etc. The odour of Paris has recently been studied by M. Paul Adam, of the Service d'lnspect'.^n, who reports that pfter ths odorous elements of manufactories had been diminished or stopped, others of tho indpt^r.-nmate character remained. Further cwi •.maticn showed that factories of guano-phosphates wcie to biame for a great part ol them. • — It is consideied that a great number of railway accidents arc due U> defective working of the points, and to the fact that trains ti a veiling at a high rate of speed frequently ,<miss ainl sometimes "jump" them altogether, with disastrous lesultt. A new kind of 1 "crossings" has just been invented, however, which it is claimed will greatly lessen tho danger. The crossings now in use are built of i=e\eral separate pieces of steel lails, ) which arc apt to move and thus cause accidents. In the new method they are built j in one solid ma^s, which thus insures the dif- 1 ferent points always keeping their place. The | new bVdlem is shortly to be trj<,d oil t'.ie Alidland lathvay, and will no doubt bo gCDcntlly adopted on all the principal lines in t 1 c near J future. — A price-list of a London universal pro\idingf establishment admirably illustrate 3 tho market price* of entertainers for children's paities. A humorous ventriloquist comes first at £5 ss, a conjurer (with man' nctte.-) next. £>t £3 7s od. performing £3 3^, humorous sketches a la Grossmith £3 3s. A lady p-\'mibt, juggler and conjurer, acrobat, avd roinic singer are each quoted at two guineas. "Punch and Judy" varies with quality of dci? sn<l dxiration of performance between £1 5s and £2 12s 6d. Each performer in stiing or \ocal quartettes is worth a guinea. La^t o f all comes the lady pianist, who, playing four ho/ms, asks 123 6d.