MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2523, 23 July 1902, Page 62

MULTUM IN PARVO.

v. — The largest dome in the world is that ef the Lutheran Church at Warsaw. Its interior diameter is 200 ft. That of the British Museum Library is 130 ft. — A firm, of silk manufacturers in Lyons have adopted eleetrio driers for their fabrics. /They are, of course, free of smoke or dust, ¥afe, and easily regulated. The heat is produced by the electric current traversing resistances of nickel iron. — The Carltpn Olub is the most costly |p existence. The building cost £180,000, the library, plate, furniture, etc., is .jporth another £170,000. Its income ia £25,000.

— It is announced from Barringen, in ißohemia, that Herr Stor, a wealthy citizen, lias just 'had his thirty-seventh child baptised.

Jt? '— The Bishopric of the Falkland Islands covers all the Church of England in South America, except British Guiana. Its area is therefore seven and a-quarter million square miles. — It is said that Sir Redvers Buller is the wealthiest general (among commoners) in the service, and Admiral Sir Alexander Buller the wealthiest admiral. — The yearly interest upon France's debt jp equa.l to £84- for every man, woman, and child in that country. — The oldest existing picture painted since Ahe beginning of the Christian era is one of the Madonna and child, in an Italian church, painted in the year 886. . — Berne and Geneva hold the record for pheap telephone service. Four pounds is the subscribers' charge for the first year, £2 12s the second, and £1 12 a afterwards. — An X-ray photograph of any portion pi the human body can now be taken perfectly in one second, instead of the tedious »nd exhausting exposure of from, half an pour to sometimes two hours. Tim is the latest triumph of D. H. P. Pratt, of ChicWgo. One of the greatest features of the new discovery is the aid it gives the surgeon in critical cases, when a patient is very ill or »«rvous, and long exposures frequently re■ulted badly. — One of the Ostend steam trawlers, after but 12 days at sea, returned to pork with a catch which sold for £487. The haul and the price constitute a record for the town. — The steel output of the world for a jrear would make a column 1000 ft through and » mile and a. third high. — Between 21 and 30 a man is ill five and fc-half days a year on an average, and between 30 and 40, seven days. In the next 10 years he loses 11 days annually, and between 50 and 60, 30 days. — Army and navy officers in Germany are obliged to make a deposit of £1500 with the i Government before they are permitted to marry. This draws an income of 3 per cent., Rnd at death is refunded to the family or heirs. — In the ward-rooms of the vessels of the 'American navy there is still kept up a custom, worthy of imitation. It is as follows: At 9 o'clock in the evening the captain, or commander will order glasses to be filled, and, rising, will deliver this sentiment : "Gentlemen, I ask you to drink fro Sweethearts and wives. May the sweetheart (become the wife, and the wife always rejnain the sweetheart." The a-seembled officials drink this toast in silence. — Herr Wilhelm Plevka, of Schimmel Gasse, 18 Vienna, has resided in that house for 100 years, and has just celebrated this )unusual centenary. He was born there, remained in the ITbuse when he married, and jbrought up six children there. He has been ilie recipient of many congratulatory mes«?ges. — Josef Hofmann is more than a piano tuayer. He is an expert mechanic and an inventor is well. He has just secured at {Washington a patent right for an improvement on a steam engine. This is the second patent that the young pianist has taken out this year. — All the funerals in Paris are conducted by a single syndicate, which has a licensed pionopoly of the business. There is a regular tariff of rates, a first-class funeral costing '£400, and a. cheap, or ninth-class. £1. — When a burglar wants to break into a (Peruvian house ne takes a sponge and a .bucket of water, and moistens the walls, ."which are covered with only a thin coating of mud, and easily dissolve upon the application of moisture. - — It costs more to send a ton of goods Irom Lolidon to the West of Ireland than to Japan. A ton of woollen goods can be forwarded from London to New York for '£1 ; to Chicago, 1000 miles inland, for £1 15s: and to, Japan for £2 10s. The same "goods, sent from Derry to London, cost £3 10s, and from Gweedoro, 50 miles inland,

" — In the city of Heidelberg, Germany, fnere is a building called the Church of the iHoly Ghost, which is unique in its way, (being the only church in the world m which the Protestaiit and Catholic services are held at the 6Ome time, a partition wall through „ the centre separating the two congregations. — The United Kingdom builds her war vessels both more cheaply and more rapidly than any other country in the world. In the following: leading navies of the world the cost of buildiner typical ironclad.-, per ton is a.«> follows: United Kingdom, £60; United c ' : *os, £78 ; France and Germany, £87 to £90. — Cigai .-mokors will not bo comforted by the knowledge that the tubercle bacillus has been found in cigars which had been made by a consumptive at Havana, where, according to a sanitary census iust taken, there were 1187 cases of tuberculosis. — A. doctor has announced hi» belief that in diagnosing a patients' case it is as essential to observe his walk aa to feel his ajulse. From recent investigations in this branch of what we may venture to call pedestrial therapeutics, it appears that a person in vigorous and robust health walks with his toes pointed to the front, and that as health begins to go the toes turn gradually 'out and a perceptible bend appears m the knees. — One of the biggest women in the world lives in Greece, at a little \illajre near ,Corinth. Her name is Va^siliki Calliaudji, She is 22 years of age, and her height is 6ft ff£in. Her lovely eyes are said to bo the largest ever seen 1 , and her head, feet, and kanda are much bigger than those of any woman in Greece. . — A novelty in weddings is reported from Bethune, in France, where, on the same Bate, in one family, golden, silver, and premier weddings wore celebrated, the whole party attending the parish church. The grandfather and grandmother of the bridgroom, aged 88 and 76 iespecti\cly, celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of their wedning, while the bridegroom's mother and lather celebrated their twenty fifth year of »<xkUd lifo.

— He strictness with which medical degrees and titles are guarded in Germany might b& supposed to be a handicap to irregular practitioners, for to lay fake claim to being a dootor is a serious offence in that country. Nevertheless, quacks seem to flourish there as elsewhere, for some recent statistics show that in addition to 2000 qualified physicians in Berlin, there are no fewer than 476 professional quacks.

— Pretended deafneP3 is readily exposed by a simple device, which is often resorted to by the Parisian authorities. Six men there recently tried to escape conscription, but they subsequently betrayed themselves. One man was informed that he might stroll about the barrack-yard, a portion of which was paved with stone. A few minutes later ai coin was adroitly dropped behind him, and its musical jingle caused him to turn to look for it. The same trick was tried with each of the other five, and succeeded in every case.

— The Ea is said to have the shortest name for a vessel in the world. She is a Spanish steamer, and reached Philadelphia laden with iron ore, after a voyage so rough that three of her sailors were incapacitated by sea-sickness. The En. was named by a Spanish nobleman after his daughter, Esmeralda. She belongs to a line that has set. in the matter of short names, an example that other lines are beginning to follow. The Eolo, the Aro, and the Oria pre sister ships* of hers. In all the fleet, there is not a name that is more than five letters long.

— Mr Fife Scott, long well known in hunting circles, has latterly turned his attention to mechanics, with the result (says the Morning Post) that he lias just patented what promises to be of great service to those responsible for the cleanliness of the streets, particularly in London. Thp. apparatus is a combined sweeper and prraper, and, besides being admirably adapted to a tricycle, can be driven at the rate of about six miles an hour by steam, gas, or electricity. At the same lime that the thoroughfares are purified, the filth, by a clever device, is raised into an accompanying tender, and it» is believed thao at small cost to the cities using it. their mud can be deported for the manuring of farm land to the mutual benefit of town and country.

— An eggshell farm is a part of one of the primary departments of study in some of the American schools. Each child takes an eggshell about two-thirds whole. The child's name is written on the shell, and after a lesson on soils, sufficient earth is placed in the shell to fill it: Each one in a room ia given the same kind of seed to plant. After the plant become 3 too large for the shell, the child is encouraged to take it home and plant in a garden. The teachers aim to teach the complete life-history of the plant from seed to seed.

— Next to its magnificent hall, the pride of th© Reform Club (London) is its well of water undefiled. When the club was built, an artesian well was sunk 115 ft below the surface of the ground, and thence, independent of the water companies, the club has enjoyed the advantage of a cheap and exceptionally pure supply. About a year ago discovery was made that the woll was running dry. Experts were called in. who recommended the further sinking of the shaft to a depth of 140 ft. The work has now been completed at a co«t of £700. It is estimated that the fcuppjy will last for fully 40 years. — (Germany seoms to take the lead in novelties of a charitable nature. In the town of Haschmajin prizes are offered yearly for the men who will marry the ugliest, most crippled, and the women over 40 who h&\e been jilted at leafit twice. The money was left by a big financier, anil he, realising that beauty is an attraction hard to overcome, made a provision in his will that out of the income of the fund not less than £16 shall go with the ugliest girl in any year, and the cripple shall receive £12. The four women over 40 who have bren jilted by a lover receive, when the funds will permit, £10 each, but the trustee can vary this amount, and, at his own discretion, offer a larger prize to someone who will marry an unusually ugly girl or one to whom Nature has been specially unkind.