MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2812, 5 February 1908, Page 67

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— Spain's has increased of only 3 00G,O0O" in the past 45 years. — Tiie ape is probably the only animal that displays anger by yawning. — A debtor, stated at the Yarmouth County Couit ihat he had built houses worth* £17,000, but owing to coast erosion the occupiers left, and the houses 'became' unsaleable. — The temperature of fowls is much higher than that of the average human being. For instance, the natural temperature of tuikeys is about 109 degrees, while that of the average man is about 98. X — Tho monkey wrench does not derive its name frcm any connection with naonkeys The word is a corruption of the inventor's name, Monchy, - and it shows how usage •will often defy strict propriety. —It was something horrible, said Canon Nunn at Manchester, to see "the number of people v/aiting for admission to theatre? and music halls, swallcwing money which was needed at homo. *■ — It- has laken exactly 12 months to restore Selby Abbey, which was practicably destroyed by the fire of October, 1906. It ''a an achievement which would navo surprised the Normaja stonemasons wqo built the church. . _ ... „. — jThe King has. sent to the British Museum a collection ot "pass-words' used for the Court' and the Oity in 1812 and 1820, and signed by George IV. Pats-words aie still used in the Tower of London.. — The stone-breaking task set the casual visitors to the Christ Church Workhouse is by no means to their liking, and as a consequence there is a great reduction in tne number of tramps who have been accustomed to accept the Guardians' hospitality, — "It. has' been said," observed Judge Hans Hamilton at Blackpool County Uou-t» "that so far as motor-car drivers are concerned the world is divided into two parts -the quick and the dead! The quick are those who get out of the way, and the dead are those who don't." _^ — There is a rifle range on the roof ot the north building of the General Post Office, London, constructed- by postal emgoytfts at a cost of £300. The Duke of mnaught inspected the range recently, and mad* a bull's-eye at 150 yards to encourage the marksmen. «*.»«+«» — The champion cheese in the Chester dairy show was sold for 145s per cwt, which is the highest prices ever obtained. Several first prize lots sold at prices ranging from 90 -Some C ?hinf °!fke 140,000,000 penny packets of cigarettes are sold weekly in the United Kingdom, according to a tobaccp expert who addressed the opening meeting of 'the Brewers' Exhibition in London. — "My mother is a 'Welshman, declared ', General Baden-Powell m tne Rhondda the other evening, and the gallant soldier explained that he ussed tna word advisedly, "for," he said she possesses all the grit and pluck of a man. The general- inherits a good bit of it, too. •.• r- 'There is a great deal of talk, about the New Theology," said, the Lord Mayor of London at a Forest Gate matinee m aid of. the Cripples' Fund, "but therew onij one religion— 'Be good and do good. • — Sixteen persons have been killed and 71 injured in the last four years by coming into contact' with live rails, on electricrailways. Thirteen of the deaths occurred on the North Eastern Railway and Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway, and 12 t,i - the 16 victims were trespassers. . —Mr Nathaniel Moore, of the Rock island Railway, U.S.A., celebrated bis inheritance of £150.000 by giving a dinner which cost yB+COO. The men guests were presented with ' favours of gold and 1 diamond sleevefcuttons, and the women with pearl necsis a popular fallacy that fountain pens are quite a modern invention. As a matter of fact, an old work of reference published in 1795 contains an illustration of a fountain pen, the appearance of which is very much like those sold at the present time. Its construction, however, was somewhat elaborate and clumsy, the pen i consisting of various pieces of metal, which had to be screwed and unscrewed before the pen could be used 1 . "..„.. , , — The Norwegian whale fisheries extend over~~tfe«rly the whole of the Arctic Sea. The whales are shot from small steamers, the implement used" being thd_ so-calnd bomb -harpoon, an arrow-shaped iron spear furnished with a line, which is discharged from a small cannon. The .. whale often drags the vessel a long distance until tha creature becomes exhausted" and expires. It is then towed to the anchorage and "stripped of tie -blubber. — The celebration of a Russian marriage sometimes extends over three days. At the •weddins festivities the bride is expected *o dance with the men one after another until she drops with sheer fatigue. It is a mater of pride with her to keep going rs long as possible, and it is not unusual to find a bride dancing gaily after three days and nights of vigorous frolic. When a urn is dancing with a man she always hoMs his pipe. It would be regarded as extremely rude if a man should 1 continue to smoke his pipe in such circumstances. — Speaking on the subject of "Fleas as a national danger," Sir Lauder Brunton said that the theory that plague jwas conveyed Irom animals to man by fleas had been confirmed in India. These insects, having fed upon rats or patients infected with plague, absorbed the bacillus, which was transmitted to the next animal or person In the days of Voltaire FreneE was the language of 27 per cent, of A the population of Europe; to-day it is spoken as a .vernacular by -less than 50,000,000. On the other hand.* German is the mother tongue of 115,000,000 souls in Europe- alone. — The way to get the vote is to convince women and men alike br a continuous campaign of argument that women, are wronged by not having it, and that they want it, and that the community -would be advantaged by their having it. And the first step ia to show ' that women; do not mistake either impertinence to a Cabinet Minister and his audience or- childish clamour in a Police Court for argument.—Tribune. . ' — The debts of the principal countries of Eiffope aggregate some £6,000,000,000, inTolvinff an annual charge of more than '£2W,000,000. Prance is at the head of the most indebted countries with £1,167,000,000 and there com© next Russia wth £920,000,000 of debt, Germany with £840,00,000 Great Britain with £789,000,000. Italy with £520,000,000, Austria with £400,000,000, Spain with £360,0,00,000, and Tfr,^,^ v ith £240,000^000,

— Th« County of Norfolk is, geographically speaking, practically an island. Tha Ne*f the Little" Ouse, and the Waveney almost cut it off from tKe rest of England.-

— The Maiden Insurance Company is a singular Denmark institution. It is confined to the nobility, and the nobleman, as soon as a female child is born to him, enrols her name on_ the company's books and pays in a certain sum, and thereafter a fixed annual amount, to the treasury. When the young girl has reached the age of 21 she is entitled to a fixed income and to an elegant suite of apartments, and this income and this residence, both almost princely, are hers until she either marries or dies. The society has existed for generations. It has always prospered. Thanks -to it, poverty-stricken old maids are unknown amongst, the Denmark nobility, but every maiden lady is rich and happy. — The best eyesight is possessed by those peoples whose land are vast and barren, and where obstacles tending to shorten the sight are few. Eskimos will detect a white fox in the sno-w at a great distance away, while the A.rabs of the deserts of Africa have such extreme powers of vision that on Ihe vast plain's of the desert they will pick out objects invisible to the .ordinary eye at ranges from one to 10 miles distant. Among civilised people the Norwegians have better eyesight than most, if not all, others, as' they more generally fulfil the necessary conditions. The reason why defective eyes are so much on the increase in England and in Europe lie's in too much study of books in early life and in badly-lighted rooms. _ The fruit-bottling enterprise of Lady Algernon Gordon Lennox has been so successful this year that an extension is to be built to the little house near Broughton Castle where the -work has been carried on. The output was 1500 bottles, which found a ready sale. Lady Algernon's object is the development of a new rural industry. At present £3,000,000 worth of bottled fruit is annually imported Into Eng- 1 land. "What lam trying to do in Oxfordshire, could, I am sure, be done in many other districts," says Lady Algernon, "and I hope other people will make < similar experiments. English bottled fruit is at least as good as foreign bottled fruit .^ and can actually be made rather cheaper. '