MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2456, 10 April 1901, Page 56

MULTUM IN PARVO.

—In Sweden and Norway it is a, crime to make any profit on the sale of liquor; it must be dispensed at cost price.

Among the 2754 students who matriculated at the Eclinburgh University last year there were 252 women, 215 of whom were enrolled in the Faculty of Arts, three in Ecience, 13 in medicine, and 21 in music.

—An American professor claims to have perfected an apparatus for submarine signalling. He is eaid to have succeeded in transmitting the sound of a bell under water for a distance of 12 miles.

Amongst the various denominational retrospects of the past century, the most remarkable, perhaps, is that of Wesleyan Methodism. When the nineteenth century began Methodists only numbered thousands; the beginning of the twentieth century Eees them with a membership of nearly seven and a-half millions in the British Empire and the United States. A century ago the jW-esleynns had but few meetrng-plarep, and these were mostly ramshackle buildings in courts" and back streets. During the past foalf-century upwards of £12,000.000 sterling •has been expended on new chapels, alterations, and improvements. — The difference between the taHest and shortest races in the world ie lft 4£in, and The average height is sft sin. — The more ruinou3 his prices the more •Donuiar does "the New York reEtaurantieeper become. You pay Is 6d for a baked potato at one of the mort fashionable "midnivht slipper" resorts, 4s for 12 oysters, 10s for a pheasant, and 4s for a thimbleful of prepared crab meat. Yet the place is always crowded, and the would-be givers ot ,xheatre suppers often tip the waiters with as much as £1 merely to "keep a table for then-. , , —It i estimated that picKing pockets supports o-var 100,000 of London's populati *^n. — New York City consumes 5,200,000 tons o: ice a year, of" which 4,500,000 tons are natural ice. . . — A fire near ihe town of Weights, in the Santa Cruz Mountains, to the soutii of dan Francisco, w«is recently put out by w.ne in de'ault of water. The w ; ne used was Zinfpndel, and it stifled *he flamfi3 like a clicmieal for the purpose. The wine, in fa"t. was better than water. — Ihe value of real estaDfe of monastic o-ders in France, including tie Je«nlU and the As-umptionists, is returned at '£44,000.000 eterling, hali of which has been accumulated in the last 10 or 20 years. — Beggars in China are taxed, and certain districts allotted to them in wnich to make Hopcah for charity. '—The swiftest train in the Imtecl States ■'s one on the Philadelphia and Reading Company's line, which dees the 55£ miles between Atlantic City and Camden in. SOmin, which is at the rate of 66£ mile 8 ./ 1 } (hour There are nine trains m the United States which run at the rate of 60 miles «m hour. — Ihe Russian Imperial train « undoubtedly one of the most splendid; m the world. It cpwuU of 11 carriages on the corridor system, fitted with electric tells and electric light throughout. So excellent are the springs of the carriages that when the train "is travelling the motion is almost imperceptible. The Imperial train travels at the rate of 35 miles an hour during the day and 22 at night. . — The British Government is the own" of o^er 25,000 camels. Several thousands are used in India to carry stores and equipments when the regiments ara changing quarters. . . _ There are 240.0C0 different species oi insects on the earth; some oi these are so er-all that 4000 of them are only equal to a grain of sand. _ — Apropos of the fact that many American millionaires possess their own private rai'way carriages, probably the most gorceous one is that owned by Mr 3 Mackay, •which cost over £6000. The Baroness de Rothschild also possesses a boudoir on ■wheels. Railway companies, in addition to the usual fare when travelling, charge about £400 a year for warehousing these luxuries. Eggs in countless numbers and of admirable quality might be available always if a certain preserving process were uniformly Buceesstul and universally carried out. Each egg, within 12 hours of being laid, must be iplaced in salt after the pores of the shell have teen closed by butter or glycerine. A two rr three months' old egg, if thus preserved, "will boil with the creamy white that is characteristic of the egg a day old" ' No one who lias ever kept poultry "can forget that condition of egg in which the white does not solidify in boiling, but remains in a state of delicious sni'kiness, and in which even the yolk becomes less firm than in any examples which tall under the notice of the ordinary citizen. " — The Rev. Benjamin Hughes, Calvinistic Methodist minister, St. Asaph, and one of the oldest and best-known Nonconformist preachers in North Wales, has rerehed a special vote of thanks at the hands of the St. Asaph Board of Guardians for faithful service to the Sick and aged in the union workhouse. It ■was reported by the visiting committee that during the past 14 years Mr Hughes had •voluntarily made upwards of 700 weekly calls xo that infirmary, and that during the whole of that period he had missed only two or three weeks. ' — An interesting feature of the work oi srce public libraries not generally known is tho pro-\ ision of books in raised characters for ,tho use of the blind, and not the least touehir° sight at pome libraries is the blind borrower taking out the necessarily bulky volume t^at will solace some of the hours of his per.petual night. At the Birmingham Central Lending Library the col'ection of such books —considerably augum<=nted of late— numbers Borne 500 volumes, and includes the works of Shakespeare. Scott, Tennyson, Ruskm, and Browning. The books in Braille type at the Plymouth Public Library now number 4)1 volumes, and there were 226 issues to blind readers during the past year.

_ When we speak of a thing happening in the twinkling of an eye we mean to convey bhat the action was practically instantaneous. That this is not the case has recently been demonstrated by a capable investigator. He used a specially-arranged photographic apanratus, and affixed a piece of white paper to the edge of the eyelid for a mark. He found Jhat the lid descends quickly, and rests a little at the bottom of its movement, after •which it rises, but move slowly than it fell. The average duration of the downward movement was from 75 to 91 thousandths of a f pcond ; the l ost with eye <=hut lasted variously, the shortest durations being 15 hundredths of a Tco-.d with one subject ?nd 17 hundreaths •with a.-'otVr; and the third phase of the wj ik\ rhe rifj'ng of the lid. tc< k 17 I'uncredths of a Ecocnri moie, mnl-inc; the oiilirc chuafci^ i cf r v. ink about 4U hu*ulicu*h=, ci fcuiteiiths oi s, fcSCvid