MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3101, 20 August 1913, Page 59

MULTUM IN PARVO.

• —A baseball player in America has been insured for £iu,oob.

Liverpool, with. 99 people to the acre, is the most thickly populated city in England.

Ladies in Hanover are prohibited from wearing large hatpins in the street. Every square mile of the United States has 52 innabitante on the average. Towards the rebuilding fund of St. t Michael’s, Criokjgwood, 15b,973 farthings have been subscribed.

Ninety per cent, of English people can fmte, only 27 per cent, in Spain, and but 16 per cent, in Russia. Neany 70,000 tons of corks are needed for the bottled beer and aerated waters consumed annually in Britain. The agony advertisements the London morning papers average about 500 a day. George Stephenson’s engine, the Rocket, weighed 4 5 tons, while a modern engine can weigh us much as 100 tons. The boots worn by' a professional diver weigh 201 b each. The helmet weighs 401 b, and the diver also carries 801 b additional weight. The nurqber of persons in receipt of oldage pensions’in the United Kingdom at the end of 1912 was 966,008, of wnom 362,628 wer« men.

There are no fewer than 1,200,000,000 tons of coal deposits in Japan. This ooal is now being rained at the rate of 14,000,000 tons a year. Tbe Greek athlete of the Golden Age trained on new cheese, dried figs, boiled grain, milk, and warm water. Jle ate no meat whatever

Six ducks were found inside a python which,was shot at Popatpura, India, by a member of the Ahmedabad Sporting Club. A money-lender who sought to recover £3 8s 9d from a miner at Gateshead was alleged to have charged interest at the rate of 1300 per cent. During his 51 years as a passenger guard on the North-Eastern railway, England, Alexander M‘Turk, who has died m his ninetieth year, was ip 10 accidents without receiving any injury. Damages of £l3 were awarded at Westminster County Court on June 13 to a man who was injured through a gate falling on January 13, and was off work till February 13. Unter den Linden, the famous Berlin thoroughfare, is 215 ft wide; the Ringstrasee, in Vienna, is 188 ft; the Paris Grand Boulevard, 122 ft; and the Andrassystrasse, in Budapest, 155 ft wide. Known as the kleptograph, a burglar alarm invented by an Italian ignites a flashlight and photographs the intruder who invades the room in which it is set.

A Waltham man is rejoicing under his own rhubarb plants, some stalks having reached the height of Bgft and measuring lOin round.

—ln Southsca, down Portsmouth way, some wag has inscribed on a paving-stone: “This monolith was laid by his Majesty Harry Lauder, King of Scotland, on June 11, 1913.” The longest bridge in the world is the Lion bridge, near Sangang, in China. It extends 5j miles over an arm of the Yellow Sea, and is supported by 300 huge stone arches.

Two hundred and sixty-five marriage licenses wore issued at the City Hall, New York, in one day by the Marriage License Bureau. This constitutes a record, the previous highest figure being 106. Throughout the London Hospital e'oe-trically-controlled clocks are to be supplied. At present there are 169 clocks in the institution, and they record almost as many different times.

Canada is nearly 30 times as largo as Great Britain and Ireland, the total area of the Dominion being only 237,000 square miles less than that of the whole Continent of Europe.

Dr Zipport, of New York, who had become wedged in a telephone box. The doctor weighs over 21 stone. A Lincolnshire farmer who had a hundred hampers of cabbages sold at Spalding market for £2 19s 2d got 8d for himself, the balance being swallowed up in expenses—y £l 13s 6d for carriage and £1 5s for commission !

A will has been found under 11 thicknesses of wallpaper by workmen engaged in stripping the walls of a house adjoining the Royal Marine Hotel, Cowes. Recent statistics show that there arc nearly 12,000,000 Jews in the population of the world, of which some 3,000,000 reside in America; in Now York alone there are estimated to be 1.652,000 Jews. Professor Bergonie, of Bordeaux, and Professor Ansonval, of Paris, declare that currents of electricity of three amperes and from 1000 to 1500 volts passed though the body of a man enabled him to digest 70 per cent, of the food which ordinarily passes away undigested. - A Blue Book of 1086 pages, weighing 51b lOoz. and published at the price of 8« 7d, which works out at Is 6d per lb, was issued the other day in London. It was the general consolidated index of the 36 volumes of reports, appendices, and minutes of the Poor Law Commissioners. y A remarkable and successful operation has been performed upon an American railroad brakesman, who broke his nose in February last, by striking it against an iron bridge. * At a hospital at Baltimore two pieces of bone were cut from the third rib on his right side and fitted in the place of the broken nasal bones. —lt lias been discovered that ladv cricketers date back to 1811, when a match was played between the dames of Hampshire and Surrey for 500 guineas a-side. The young women wore shawls and the old ones long cloaks: and the best runner and bowler on the Surrey side was one Ann Baker, who was 60 years old.

Fred Ailsopp, of Stonebow, Peopleton, orcostershiro, formerly a _ famous lightweight jockey, the winner of the Derby on Sir Hugo in 1892. who died on December 4. aged 43 veoro, left estate of the gross value of £23,815, of which £12.655 is not personalty. Daring a spiritualist seance at Osuna. Spain, a parrot, which had been trained to imitate the voice of a nun. long dead, and which had been hidden behind draperies, fluttered down on the table. The medium was mobbed by the company and seriously injured. Although not yet 21 years of age, Miss Lambert, of Leicester, weighs 40_ stone (6601 b). She is said to be a descendant of the famous Daniel Lambert, of Leicester, who weighed 52st 111 b. When you engage a servant or make a bargain in China, it is not considered bind-

ing until “the fastening penny” has been paid. Although his bad faith is notorious

on some matters, yet, to do him justice, when once this coin has been paid the Chinaman will generally stick to his bargain, even if the result to him be loss. —ln cutting up an ash tree at Embleton Sawmill, in Cumberland, the sawyers found a nest containing four eggs and a skeleton of a bird in the centre of the trunk. The nest had probably been built a century ago. The Duke of Norfolk, who is giving the Littlehampton Urban Oouricil a 999 years’ lease of between three and four acres of land for a recreation ground at the nominal erntal of Is a year, suggests that innocent games of croquet, lawn tennis, or bowls should bo allowed on Sunday, but not during the hours of divine service.

According to a recent official return, 2588 newspapers and periodicals are now published in Paris and 3829 in the departments. Of the Paris papers, only 80 are dailies for the general reader, while there are 196 financial papers and as many as 206 medical journals. “Are we,” asks Les Nouvelles, “then so ill as all that?” When M. Maurice Genet alighted from the Berlin express at Brussels h» was affectionately embraced by a well-dressed, attractive young woman, with whom he was unacquainted. “My dear uncle,” she exclaimed, “how glad I am to see you!” After (die had apologised for her mistake and disappeared, M. Genet discovered that his gold watch and chain were missing. Frau Emma Giehrl, of Munich, daughter of a former Bavarian Finance Minister, has just celebrated a remarkable jubilee. For 50 years she has not left her sick bed, and to forget her sufferings and to give pleasure to other people she has during this period written stories of mystery and educational works. Her books for women and invalids form quite a library.