MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3112, 5 November 1913, Page 59

MULTUM IN PARVO.

The Bank of England destroys about 350,000 of its notes every week._ The great armadillo has 92 teeth more than any other animal possesses. Coffee derives its name from liana, a district of East Africa, south of Abyssinia. There are nearly 6,000,000 acres of waste land in England which are capable of being cultivated. Analysts say that butter is the most nutritious article of diet, and that bacon comes next. Spain has more sunshine than any country in Europe. The yearly average ia 3000 hours. In England it is 1400Hares, horses, and giraffes are better able to see objects behind them without turning their heads than any other quadrupeds. A Brooklyn woman has appealed to Presidsct Wilson for epecial permission to wear a man’s clothes. Silk is so cheap in Madagascar that clothing made of it is worn by even the poorest people. The total value of the minerals raised in. Cumberland, Durham, and Northumberland last year was £12,842,000.

Ten persons are on an average run over and killed in the streets of London every week. Sixty-one potatoes have been found on one root dug up by Mr John Green, of Forcet Fen, near Peterborough, England. Tlie postmen in Portugal save themselves much walking on Sundays by delivering letters at church. The word month is from the AngloSaxon “ monath,” and originally meant the interval between two moons.

A • gramophone concealed in a tree served for wedding bells at Oswestry, fhe church bells being under repair. Gambling debts are recoverable by law in France, Spain, Venezuela, and in eome cases in Germany. Salmon rarely live more than 10 years; but pike and carp sometimes live to be 150 years old. Scientists predict that 100 years hence there will be no such thing as an incurable disease. ' St. Petersburg has the largest bronze statue in existence —that of Peter the Great, which weighs 1000 tons. —ln Lapland men and women dress exactly ■* alike —in tunics, leather breeches, wrinkled stockings, and pointed shoes. —lt cost the London County Council £6,000,000 to educate the 660,000 children in the schools controlled by them. The Royal navy loses 2.5 per 1000 men drowned yearly, while the merchant service loses 10 per 1000. Nearly 70,000 tons of corks arc needed for the bottled beer and aerated waters consumed annually in Great Britain. —ln Germany every inn has its room set apart for dancing, and nearly every village its dancing club. —No school in Canada can receive the Government grant unices the Union Jack is hoisted every morning. —No fewer than 1756 false fire alarms were received by the London Fire Brigade last year, but only 27 persons were prosecuted. Eleven alleged centenarians, one of whom was stated to be 116 and another 114 years of age, died in Irish workhouses last year. Sea anemones can live for three or four years without any nourishment except that which they can extract from the water. A convict who escaped from gaol at Lydenburg, South Africa, was captured on a farm where he was masquerading as a policeman in search of himself. . Last year’s sanitary administration _of the Port of London cost the corporation £11,172, of which £227 was paid for ratcatching. —lt has been calculated that nearly 300,000,000 ft, or over 55,000 miles, of film are used up yearly to satisfy the world’s demand for moving pictures. —Mr Edison has never owned a watch in his life. “The one thing I want least of all to know,” he says, “ is the time.” The pain caused by the sting of a nettle is due not to the prick itself, but to a particle of poisonous fluid which is injected into the wound. —ln cases where Nature intends that insects shall feed on flowers at night, the flowers they select are of a white colour. A law recently passed in Norway makes girls ineligible for matrimony unless they can show certificates of skill in cooking, knitting, and spinning. The longest underground thoroughfare in Great Britain is in Central Derbyshire, where you can walk seven miles upon a road connecting several coal mines. Belgium maintains at the public expense a horseshoeing school, at which students from all over the country receive one lesson each week for two years.

—An apple tree 100 years old is a rarity, but a pear tree of 300, and still in full bearing, is by no means uncommon. —ln 1912 the London Oity Police were successful in preventing 30 suicides, and 645 children and missing persons were found and restored to their friends.

The Queen of Spain enjoys the distinction of being the only Royal child born in Scotland since the far-away days, three centuries ago. when Charles I Was cradled. Two skeletons of men and the bones of a horse have been discovered at a depth of 27ft at the junotiop of two roads at Willingham, near St. Ives, Huntingdonshire. •

An energetic American has installed a pumping plant on the bank of the Jordan, near the Sea of Galilee. The water is bottled and shipped to various parte of the Christian world for baptismal purposee.

Herr Kokoscha, the well-known Viennese painter, has broken off his engagement with Frau Alma Mahler, a widow, because she possesses an income of £2OOO a year from her late husband. Captain Eydman, of the Chiswick Fire Brigade, who is the possessor of several silver medals, has_ responded to 95 per cent, of the calls received by the brigade during his 34 years’ service. -—ln Germany' water pipes are being made of glass, with asphalt covering to prevent fracture. It is claimed that they give thorough protection against moisture in the ground, against the action of acids and alkalies, and that they cannot be penetrated by gases. A shoe factory of a novel kind has been working near Berlin for some time past. The “shoes” Wade will not run much risk’ of being worn out on pavements or country roads, for they arc solelyintended for the purpose of walking on ■water. That these “ hydro shoes ” are of a certain practical value is shown by the fact that the Prussian Minister of War has placed an order with the enterprising firm.

—lt ia Btated that more steel and iron are need annually in the manufacture of typewriters and pens than in the manufacture of arms and ordnance.

A coloured recruit named Didier Sergeant, aged 24-, and hailing from Martini?ue, who has been drafted into the 21st nfantry, has obtained permission from the French authorities to do his military service barefooted. He has never worn boots in his life, and declares he would be incapable of marching if compelled' to wear them.

United States Treasury experts, in. computing the probable revenue from the Income Tax Bill now before Congress, have estimated that 2500 persons in the States have an annual income of from £20,000 to £50,000. The number of persons whose income is from £51,000 to £IOO,OOO is 650, the Express says; 350 have incomes of from £IOI,OOO to £200,000, and 100 Eave incomes of over £200,000, or a million dollars. A great discussion recently raged at Stockholm over the question of whether women shall be given by law the right to propose marriage. Thu arguments in favour of such an enactment are that men look particularly silly when proposing, women would know how to do it better, and the number of bachelors would be greatly diminished if women were allowed to propose. Sweden is the only Scandinavian country where women have not the parliamentary vote. In most respects, however, the Swedish woman is on a perfect equality with men m professional, commercial, and educational affairs.

~ A new method of giving medical students instruction, which- will largely obviate the necessity of dissection, will shortly bo put into practice at a Philadelphia medical college. The process is based on the recent discovery by a German scientist of a fluid by the use of which the human body cun lie rendered transparent. The fluid, which is composed of several oils, turns the flesh into a sort of transparent jelly when injected, enabling the student to study the veins, muscles, and bones far better, it is asserted, than if they resorted to the dissecting knife. * .