MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 2983, 17 May 1911, Page 75

MULTUM IN PARVO.

Audiences are forbidden to applaud in Russian theatres. There is a chiropodist attached to every corp in the German army. The mint at Ottawa is now turning out sovereigns of King George V in. the manufacture of which only Canadian gold is used.

The first standing army, consisting of guards and regular troops, was formed by Saul in the year 1093 a.c._ Damage to standing timber to the oxtent of between £35,000,000 and £40,000,000 was done by the forest fires in the United States last year. Artist gardeners in Japan earn large salaries. They are required to twist and direct young trees and vines until they assume the shapes of various animals. Europe- and Australia, together are almost exactly equal in area to South America. North America and Australia combined would almost cover Africa. Water thrown upon ice in the Arctic regions will shiver it* just as boiling water breaks glass. This is because the ice is so much colder than the water. The village of Elm, in Switzerland, which is surrounded by mountains 8000 ft high, is deprived of sunshine for six months in tine year. . Austria is the only Empire in the world ' which has never had _ colonies, or even transmarine possessions, in any quarter of the globe. —ln Switzerland a milkmaid gets better wages if gifted with a good voice, because it has been discovered that a cow will yield one-fifth more milk if soothed during the milking by a pleasing melody. A special newspaper is printed for the Emperor of Austria every day. In it nothing is allowed to appear that refers personally to his Majesty, whether of an uncomplimentary nature or the reverse. —-The average daily supply of water used by Londoners last year was 225,650,000 gallons, according to the official return of the Metropolitan Water Board. This gives an average of 31.8 gallons per head of population. Eirypt has a desert railway which runs 45 miles in a straight line; but the longest straight niece of railway line in the world is from Nyngan to Bourke, in New South Wales. This railwav run« 126 miles on a level in a dead straight' line. The United States Post Office Department is continually experimenting with new devices for handling of mails by fast trains. A mail device" has recently been invented which, according to report, during a recent test delivered a live pig weighing 651 b from a train moving- 25 miles an hour, onto a station platform, without injury. A common South African flower possesses the valuable property of keeping fresh for two months or more after cutting. It is a white star of Bethlehem, producing a eompnet spike of flowers on a stiff, erect, stalk 18in to 2ft long. The flowers are of a thin and papery tissue, all white except the yellow anthers. It can fc-e sent over as a out flower from Africa to England, and then lasts for weeks in water.

Many of the Cornish miners who have lost their jobs through the closing of a number of mines are seeking a living by a novel form of occupation known as "tinstreaming." At various points on the north coast of Cornwall the pounding of the seas weairs awav the rocks, the metalbaaring portions sinking: into the sand. The "tin-streamer" digs down to the shingle in order to get at. the black tin deposit. A stream of fresh water'flowing out of the cliff is condiictod x by a gutter to a "buddlc" and into a trough having a perforated zinc bottom. The shingle is thrown into this, from which the tin residue is separated by the water before the final washing. A man who confessed to 38 years wrote to the. United States Postal Department that he robbed a certain post office when he was. 17 Ho got 7dol as booty, and he will pay it back —some day. Meanwhile, will the department accept his assurance of penitence? Another man encloses lOdol as atonement for something: or other, done somewhere, at some time, but further than that he do as not specify. Another correspondent encloses a two-oont stamp with the explanation that she—it's a sfoe this time —several years afro used over aeain on a letter a stamp which had escaped disfigurement in coming through the mails. The Chinese believe that the plague is eaueed by an evil spirit, and they are more eager to wear charms and amulets than to take medicine. For whenever the plague has appeared the common people of all countries have always had recourse to charms. The Chinese declare that the plague spirit has the form of a woman, who flies through the air" and scatters poison from a silver canister But then the Chinese attribute most of their misfortunes to such wandering female demons, and seem to believe that woman in one form or another is the source of all evil. A number of Chinese capitalists are constructing a modern Chineee city on the shore of Yehli Bay, which is to be called Heungchow. The city, which will have broad streets and foreign buildings for shops and residences, is to be ffovernedi by a municipal council; with schools, charitable institutions, police and fire stations, theatre, public wardens, electric light and trams, waterworks, chamber of commerce, and free libraries. Gambling: of all sorts and oiiium-srnoking are to bs strictly prohibited. The important fact about this (says a Consular report) is the desire of the Chinese business men to establish a city upon modern lines, with all modern improvements for their own use and comfort, -From the whole enterprise appears a disposition toward modern thinejs, which is of vast importance in the trade of the country in the near future. —We have no real knowledge of "God save the King;" before the rebellion of '45, when it became a popular Lovalist song: but tunes, of the same shape K*»d existed long: before. One is to be found in a book of "Ayres," dated 1619. by Dr John Bull, and another as a minuet by Puroelh According to another theory, says Countrv Life, the tune of "God save the King" •used to be sung in James ll's Private chaoel'to a Latin hymn beginning "O Deus Optime," and after the revolution of 1688 was preserved by members of the Stuart family, till it was performed publicly about 174? on the birthdav of the Prince of Wales. It 's interesting" to find that tho words "God save the King" are in Coverdale's Bible of 1535. and seem to have been used there as a familiar phrase rather than a translation. "God save the Kina:." according to Froude. was a watchword in the Toval navy in 1545, the countersign being "Long to reign over us."