MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 2690, 4 October 1905, Page 70

MULTUM IN PARVO

old women of Cleveland (Ohio) organised a sporting event. Eleven, all of them over 7ij years of age, walked four .and a-quarter miles in an hour and threequarters. The winner was aged 78, and .the second and third 80 and 75 respectively. k- —In Wales there are about 508,000 .people who cannot speak English, Welsh •being their only language ; in Scotland there are 43,000 persons who can speak '^nothing but Gaelic, and in Ireland there 'are 32,000 who can themselves tnly in the Irish tongue. ; —Preserved in the Cathedral of Bangor, /Wales, k a pair of old "dog tongs," which were used for ejecting quarrelsome dogs from church during service. A similar pair is preserved at Llaynynys, Wales, and jjears numerous teeth marks. . —There is a. group of islands to ihe )outh. of New Zealand called the Sisters, be Sevs/i Sisters, which are reputed to be Subject to a practically const-ant rainfall, rfh^same may be said of the islands t -.nd taiawmd of Tierra del Fuego, save for the difference that Ihe rain often takes the form «f sls3t and snow. On a line running Wound the world from four to eight or jnin© degrees there are patches over which , rain seldom ceases to fall. This is called j jthc "'/one of constant precipitation,"' "bufc '■At the same time there are several localiA^Sfalons with it with very little rainfall. :-At the junnual meeting of - the *?i*i'ishioners of * Farnwprth-with-Kearsley ipilrish church, nfcar Bolton. j± was mentioned that the sexton of the church, •feoorge" Holmes, 5 had celebrated hia jubilee. fflfe had comine-iced his duties when 16 msars of ag\?, and ,has officiated at nearly £0,000 funerals. ' __i t i s calculated that 4000 persons make "a, living in London by begging, and that Jtbeir average income amounts to about SGs a week, or over £300,000. a year. Last fcrear 1925' persons were arrested' for begging jin the streets, of .whom more than 1500 Iwer-e sentenced to "ferms of imprisonment Varying "from one weak to three months, jkany of these objects of charity were found tin possession of sums of money, and even tof bank-books showing very handsome defcosits. „ — The light seen in the, sky after the sun sets is sunlight. It is reflected from. )the dust particles in the upper- air. This is twilight, not daylight, since daylight imiriies the seeing of objects "distinctly, while fwilight implies ' a- dim, indistinct vision. i^Twi" here meaais "between," that is, neither light nor darkness. The twilight Bone is about 1500 miles broad, to the east tend west of i;he sunset line. • i More street accidents .occur in tne fcrea of .little more than one -square mile which is covered by the City of London than in any other similar space in the JBtitish Empire. The polio© report that last year no fewer than_,lßl7 persons-r-aa average of nearly six per, day, leaving out teuridaya, when the "city is jpraetically dejTertect— were so serioxisly injured -as to necessitate their removal to .hospital } —When oil was found in North-western ' Pennsylvania &&' discovery' converted a fcirip of .territory,- not more than 50 miles Bong, from ' a wilderness into a market talaee. The great tide of western emigra-' .j&ioii had shunned" ihe spot for years" as jtoo rugged I ' and unfriendly for settlement, Wd yet in' 12 years this region, once iavoided .by anen, was transformed into a trade" centre, where towns elbowed 1 , h other for place, into which three great trunk railways .built branches, and fevery foot of .whose- soil was fought coxby capitalists. „ Oil in- 12 years peopled a waste place, revolutionised the worlds mebhod= of illumination, and added millions {upon -millions of dollars to the wealth of khe United) States. . i? — A cyclist of Skipton has accomplished k somewhat remarkable feat. Mounting bis to-aehin© on the outskirts of Skipton, he i-ode backwards — hind wheel foremost — to feargrave, a -distance of nearly four miles, fia 22min. Although there -are several jsteep hills on the journey,, the performer jiever got off his machine, nor was he assisted in any way. He passed three traps, it motor car 2 and about a dozn cyclists. 1 —What is the shortest bill ever presented %o a Parliament? Sir George Turner, the .Treasurer of the Commonwealth, claims to b© the holder of that record. When Prejmier of Victoria he introduced a bill of tone clause and five words:, '"No person tehall smoke opium." But apparently 'it jis'just as difficult to pass short bills as flong oriss, for Sir -George admits that his vcondensed attempt to legislate the opium evil* out of existence did" not reach the Id-'^nity of an Act of Parliament. — England has 558 people to the square fe/ie, the United States 21, and Canada a.5 There are about 1,000,000 square mile 3 ipf unexplored territory in Canada. Canada contains one-third of the British Empire. •Only; one-fourth of Canada is occupied, and only one-eighth under cultivation. Canada |is larger in area, than the United States; SO times larger than the United Kingdom 'of Great Britain and Ireland; 18 times )the si'-e of Germany; 38 times larger than {France; 20 times larger than Spain; 63 ■ftimes larger than Italy; twice the size of yßritish India; and larger than Australasia. The enterprising optician has come to the rescue of stage folk who aie afflicted {with near-nghtediress. Glasses fitted wi.h ttiny lenses are now made for the use of *the' actor so afflicted, and who, in deference 'to the character be is portraying, may not )wear the regulation eyeglasses or spectacles. TThese special glasses fit close to the eyefcall, and are hardly distinguishable from fthe front of the house, save when the footlights are at their highest pitch of i'.luanination. The nose piece, or bridge, conjiceting tho lenses is covered with a fleshcoloured material, which aids the illusion. — The position of crier at the Paris Halles, or Central Markets, is one which, in view of recent revelations in a case before the law courts, ought not to be tiespised. The men who cry Gatinaie fowls for sale earn £20 a month; those who sell Brittany fowls get £16 a month, and those who dispose of ducks only receive £10 per jnontb. Babbits bring the crier only a pittance, for £6 a month is all he gets. .JSFot everyiiody caai be a crier, for unless you have eound vocal chords and a passable voice you will not be engaged. It also requires a man with a strong constitution, for the crier is at work from 6 o'clock in the morning Till 8 in the evening, and on an average he should sell 2000 i fowls uer hour. I

— Odds and ends, and us queer a collection as one could hope to see, arc found amongst the offertory contributions of the natives of Bu§otu, in the British Solomon Islands. It is no raves thing there for the minister to draw from the collection box a string of red beads, which, providing it measures the length of the arms outstretched, is coin of the realm equalling a florin, but strings of white beads of the I same length arc but as the insignificant threepenny-bit Other articles ".jnong tie collection on the last Bible Sunday in connection wHh the Melanesian Mission Church were white armlets, each equal in value to a shilling-; pieces of tortoiseshell, a bamboo box such as is used to carry lime for betol-chawing, a fine string bag, and a piece of the native- cloth in which the Bugotu women wrap thsir babies to protect them from the Melaiiesian insects. ™he whole collection on that particular Sunday was sold for £31 10s— no insignificant figure. — The salt marshes of the Congo region are to lc found in considerable number in the district of Sarnbalt, and there are also irany of these marshes on the left bank of the River Lufubu. In_ general they represent a kind of pocket or rift in the soil. The walls of the rift show first a layer of blackish clay mixed with sand, and containing numerous quartz and silex pebbles, cr more exceptionally black and white shells, fragments of oyster and mussel. Then comes a layer of stratified and grey-blue schist. The soil of the depression also contains schist as the greater con- j stituent, and is covered by a layer of sandy clay. In order to collect the salt the natives dig a funnel-shaped hole fromjjft to 10ft in diameter and about 3ft deep. The cavity soon fills up with a warm and clear water, which is strongly charged with salt. It comes up with considerable pressure, and the liqxiid seems to boil. Thesalt is partly precipitated at the bottom of the cavity, amd mixes with the soil to form a blackish mud. The latter is washed out with hot water to extract the salt, which is then crystallised from the solution. The product which is thus obtained is of a salty grey colour, nd its taste is more alkaline than that of European salt.