OMNIUM GATHERUM.

Otago Witness, Issue 2823, 22 April 1908, Page 4

OMNIUM GATHERUM.

There xs not an illiterate person m Iceland, although th© population is nearly 80,00a. ' _ Italians applying for work seize and kiss the hand of the employer. It is an old feudal custom. Out of every 10,500 who go m for teaching as a profession, ''only 6250 ultimately become teachers. In the fourteenth century, soldiers were often deformed by the weight of the armour they had to carry. The railway companies of South Australia spend £16,000 a year m removing Ssedfi from their lines.

The women of Greenland denote their state — maid, wife, or widow — by the colour of their hair ribbons. In Norway. vaccination is not compulsory, but a person cannot vote at an election Unless he is vaccinated. "Barometer trees" are smooth and white In fine weather, but they turn back when a storm is threatening. The Queen'g favourite English composer is Sir Ajthur Sullivan, and her favourite song is X The lost chord." Penryhn Castle is being advertised as "To let 1 " m an American paper. The castle contains 70 bedrooms. An astr^i lives about 30 years, and the

average annual yield of a bird m captivity is from two to four pounds of feathers. Forty years ago on Saturday, 11th, the • first newspaper was started on the Thames goldfield by Mr Wilkinson, of Devonport. v In 1850 the fastest steamer afloat was the sA.sia. She oould do 11 knots, and held the record until the Persia was launched m 1856. An open vault m a Parisian cemetery has_ electrical appliances to prevent the burial of persons who may be only m a trance. The Victorian State Cabinet has decided to call for alternative tenders for £30,000 worth of rabbit wire netting m Australia and England. At a village near Exeter the wife of a farm lagourer has given birth to her twenty-second child. All the family aie alive and well. Since the minimum wage provisions of the Commonwealth Public Service came into force they have oost the Postal Department £192,000. The West Australian Government has opened a depot m Perth, where immigrants will be accommodated cheaply until they are enabled to go on to the land. There are now 320 students at Wellington College. No other secondary school m the Dominion, it is stated, has suoh a large number of names on its roll. Some idea of the value of land at Hastings may be gathered from the fact that a nurseryman has purchased the remaining 50 acres of the Frimley Estate at £120 per acre. A magistrate at Verulam, Natal, has held that an Englishman named Mioldewood was perfectly justified m shooting one of a gang of Indian burglars who attacked a native policeman. Speaking at a dinner of London mayors at the Ritz Hotel, the Lord Mayor of London said that during tbe past 25 years the city had given £1,250,000 for technical education. A schoolgirl of 13 years voted recently m an election of guardians at Heywood, . Lancashire. Her name was placed on the list of voters as a joint occupier of a dwelling-house. Sleeping m tight-laced corsets was onoe the custom of English ladies. Girls with stooping shoulders had a flat piece of board boun^ unnn- their backs to keep their shoulders straight. The expenditure on the repatriation of the kanakas m Queensland has amounted to £29,433, of which the State has contributed £17,570, the balance bein-* paid by the Commonwealth. Afc Yarmouth Police Court the mayor presented members of the Caister lifeboat crew with medals which had been awarded them by the Cz^r for bravely saving six of the crew of a Russian ship. It is stated on German authority that the astounding number of 2.000,000 glass eyes are made every year m Germany and Switzerland, while one French house manufactures 300,000 of them annually. The contractors have made a start on the construction of the Wanganui tramways. The contract price is £40,000 odd. The extension to the sea beach, which will cost about £27,000, is now being considered. A United States consular report states that the total number of vessels arriving afc New York from foreign ports during 1907 was 4-749. Of these only 726 were American, while 2039 were British and 710 German. It is stated (says the Waimarino Call) that no more men will be engaged on the line works m the vicinity of Ohakune, and as numbers of men will be leaving, owing to wet weather, the ranks of the "co-ops." will greatly dwindle during the next few months. Private advices to hand from Home state that the designer- of Shamrock IV had just met with a severe accident from whioh he was not expected to recover. Whilst inspecting the Shamrock IV he fell from the deck to the bottom of the boat and was very dangerously hurt. In Great Britain the average man earns, after allowing for taxation, £29 l6s 7d per annum. In the United States it is £25 5s 9d; m France, £18 12s sd ; m Germany, £16 9s 6d; m Austria. £9 15s Id; m Spain, £8 19s 2d; m Russia, £6 12s 6d; and m Italy £° ls 4d. A new danger from motor oars is reported by the Feilding Star. On a recent

afternoon a car went whizzing down Manchester street, and, m passing Mr W. Oarthew's stationer's shop, threw up a stone, which, crashing against the large plate-glass window, cracked it from top to bottom. Mr George Chester, of West Livingston, New Jersey, dreamt three times that he sat down to rest at a spot on the roadside, and that when he rose his heel slipped, moving a stone, and revealing! his wife's lost wedding ring. He at length put the dream to the test, and the ring was found m the exact spot he had dreamt about. Steps are being taken by the executive of the New Zealand section of the Amalgamated Sooiety of Carpenters and Joiners to establish branches m various parts of the Dominion at which the organisation has not hitherto been officially represented. There are already 20 branches ' m New' Zealand. The membership m the Dominion is about 2000 — 350 being m Wellington. A New Zealand miner now m Tierra del Fuego (Mr John Werner, formerly of Lowburn, Otago) 6tates. that he . believes if a rush of miners, could set towards that country as they did towards Victoria and Ofcago m the old days, there would, be a number of fields opened up, and '. things would hum." Tierra del Fiiego is an island about the 6ize of Otago, Southland, and half of Canterbury. There is quite a colony of New Zeaianders established m Tierra del Fuego, at the southern extremity of South America, where they are engaged m gold dredging. Mr Norman. Wakefield, a former resident of Otago, has charge of the dredge Progresso, which he re-erected after some foreign workmen had made a bad job of it. Two of his crew are Messrs Burton and Silk, of Otago. Tlie late Mr E. M. Smith's valuable collection of the products of Taranaki ironsand are to be displayed at the forthcoming Franco-British Exhibition. The Department of Industries and Commerce secured the exhibit from Mrs Smith, and has sent it on at the expense of the Government.*-- The exhibit should be of considerable assistance m attracting the attention of capitalists to the possibilities of the Dominion. An Ashburton gentleman has recentlycome into the possession of a walkingstick that has a history. The stick (says the Ashburton Mail), with others, was made out of a railway*, sleeper (of jarrah wood) that had been on the -Southbridge railway for 31 years. The wood m the stick is as sound as the day it was laid down, thus proving that jarrah is one of the most enduTing woods grown m the Australian colonies. When three xnen were sentenced to a month's imprisonment by the Salford (England) Stipendiary, the wife of one of them screamed loudly, and between her sobmade a pitiful appeal or mercy. The only ohild they had waa ill, she said, and had been crying- all night for " Daddy." The men were thereupon ordered to be brought again into the dock, and Mr Makinson withdrew the sentence, and fined each prisoner 21s. "Thank God [Thank God!" cried the woman. '"I'll pay it." It is not the policy of the Customs Department of the Dominion to prosecute petty smugglers, but its officers collect £50 or £60 a week from travellers who have forgotten to mention their dutiable luggage. A record cargo of bullion, consigned to Adelaide, arrived at Largs Bay the other day by the P. and O. liner Himalaya. There were 351 boxes of silver and oopper coin, weighing 18 tons 9cwt, and valued at £43,880, of which £38,000 was silver and £5880 copper. Two old Crimean war veterans were engaged m a match at a miniature rifle range at New Plymouth on a recent Saturday afternoon. '" According to the News they were Messrs . John 'O'Driscoll, for- ■;■! merly of the 55th Regiment, and now 77 years of age, and F. Watson, who is also considerably over the allotted span of three score years and 10. Mr O'Driscoll is the holder of a gold medal awarded to him as the best shot m the .British army m the . Crimea. Out of six shots he registered, five bulls-eyes and an inner, making 29. Mr Watson made 16. ... Japanese physicians declare if is impossible for internal poisoning to occur if powdered charooal be swallowed a« coon

as the gaetro-intestinal disturbance is felt. French physicians have tested the power of charcoal, and proved that it is the most active of all known antidotes. The charcoal must be taken as soon as the poison' begins to show its effects, and the dose must be large. Charcoal is m no way injurious, and as much as a eoupspoonful may be taken m divided doses mixed with water. Authority has been given by Cabinet for tlie erection on Somes Island, m Wellington Harbour, of a new hospital intendedfor the isolation of aotual patients when vessels are quarantined on account of dis* ease. The present hospital (juafters form part of the ordinary quarantine buildings, and passengers who, when landed, a*je not affected by the disease for which a ship is quarantined are m danger of catching it from the actual sufferers. The provision of a detached hospital is intended to avert this risk by isolating patients.