MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2818, 18 March 1908, Page 83

MULTUM IN PARVO.

— A lady at Harringay has succeeded in collecting almost half a million farthings in aid of a local church. She will try to collect another half million next year. Two ladies at Enfield have undertaken to collect a million farthings for a diocesan fund. — The funeral has taken place at Exhall, "Warwickshire, of John Shepherd, e'ghtyBix, who worked in coal-mines for the lengthened period of 72 years. This is thought to be a, record for the Warwickshire coalfield. — The funeral of Mr Joseph Gfbson, coal merchant, Sleaford, took place the other day. By his special req-uest his coffin was drawn to the cemetry by a heavy horse attached to one of his coal drays, the novel sight attracting a large nvmber of spectators. — A former Oxford undergraduate successfully contested a tailor's bill for £145. incurred by him when he was under the age of twenty-one, the judge holding that the garments supplied were not, under all the circumstances, "necessaries." They included a dress suit for £15 and another for £10. — A Dundee Town Councillor proposed that the Town Clerk should write to officers of the Boys' Brigade to instruct members of that institution to kick banana and orange skins off the pavements. A counter suggestion was made that a committee of the Town Council should be appointed to kick those who dropped the skins on the pavements. — Wrapped around the body of a German who attempted to evade the customs at Queenborough, was a canvas tube containing a large quantity of saccharine. He was fined £100. with the alternative of four months' hard labour. The duty on sacchais 20s per pound. Revenue officers declare that much illicit saccharine is hawked about the country, and that the chief smugglers are women, who secrete the powder in their clothing. —At Kotta, in Saxony, persons who fail to pay their taxes each year have their names published in a list which hangs up in all restaurants and saloons of the city. Those who are on the list must not be supplied with either meat or drink at these places, under penalty of loss of license. — The development of watercress growing in Dorset is enormous. One firm near Bere Regis employs no fewer than forty men in the cultivation, c^cting, and nackincr of the cress, and the proprietor publicly stated a few days ago that he pays £2000 a year in wages. The watercress, which is scientifically cultivated, is sent to all parts of the country. — James L. Williams, a hat-maker, of Danbury, Conn., and his wife have -occupied the same house, taken their meals at the same table, and have been in each other's company almost continually for five years without speaking a word to 'each other. Five years ago they quarrelled, and Williams made, a vow that he would never i again. speak to" his wife.' He has kept it ' faithfully,' and Mrs Williams is now suing | for a divorce. I — The little village of Danbury. Essex, 13 . putting forth a claim as the healthiest' spot in that county, as judged from the longevity of a. few of its oldest inhabitants. The population numbers 850, and among these are twenty-five inhabitants whose united ages amount to 2008 years. The oldest is n'netytwo and the youngest sixty-eight, and the average age per head works out at about eighty-four years. The women preponderate among these "oldest" inhabitants, since eighteen are females and only seven males. ' — Drunkenness in Scotland appears to be on the increase, according to the judicial statistics for 1906 just issued. In some instances the drunkenness reached absolutely j appalling degrees. In the little town of Blairgowrie, in Perthshire, with a population of well under 5000, the proportion of cases of drunkenness reached 1042 per 10,000 of the population, or one case for every ten men, women, and children of the inhabitants. — A Norwegian inventor has patented a euit of clothes which will protect its wearer from drowning. The clothes are lined with a non-absorbent material made of specially prepared vegetable fibre which, without being too heavy, will effectively hold up the weight of a man in the water. Twelve ounces of the rew material will, it is claimed, save a person from sinking. The invention has been tested with favourable results in Christiania. Successful trials were also made with ru^s composed of the same material, capable of supporting two persons in the water. — The first Applicant for a dog license in Nottingham in the New Year was an Irish terrier, which trotted into the Inland Revenue offices with an envelope in its mouth containing the official notice and the necessary fee. The olerk took the letter, made out the license, and handed it to the dog, which trotted back to its owner's office, several hundred yards away. The dog — his name is Mick —belongs to a well-known chartered accountant in the city, and is accomplished in many similar tricks. He has called for his own license for several years. — There are few matters in Ireland upon which the Royal Irish Constabulary are unable to provide information. One such exists, however, in a small event of daily occurrence in the Phoenix Park. The" spot where Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr Burke were murdered used formerly to be marked by a grass plot with two crosses, which formed a place of pilgrimAefe for visitors and tourists. A few years ago, however, it was deemed expedient to remove all records of the event. In its place are invariably to be found two orosses roughly scratched on the gravel. Nobody knows by whom this i 3 done, or at what hour of the day or night. Let the crosses be effaced by rain, and in an hour or two the pa6ser-by will find once more this tribute to the memory of the murdered men.