MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3195, 9 June 1915, Page 67

MULTUM IN PARVO.

—Half-farthings were coined in the reign of Queen Victoria.

—'lire first aniline dye to be prepared on a largo scale was mauve. 1 \\ nen the Border .Regiment was first raised it was mounted on mules.

Ihcre are 5660 miles oi navigable waterways in Holland.

It is estimated tnat the Channel tunnel would cost £16,000.. ££ to construct. A Landwchrman who was wounded in 47 different place.?, and in whose body thcro are still lodged 18 pieces of shrapnel, is rupily recovering in hospital at Konigsberg. According to the latest figures, the total expenditure on alcoholic liquors in the United Kingdom for 12 months is £166,681,000. ; —Under the heading of “Women and hair Service,’’ Dover I’ost Office is advertising for girls to act as telegraph messengers.

tral Labour Exchange in London that the work of classifying the 20,000 applications which have been received irom women in all parts cf the country was being proceeded with.

A Paris correspondent writes;—“The chestnut tree planted by King Edward "VII in the British Embassy grounds in Paris some 12 years ago, the “ Anglo-French tree,” as it is called, has this year kept to data by blooming on March 22, in honour of the birth of spring. - —-Canada is to pay disabled soldiers from £ls to £53 a. year, and the widow of a pr.vato will get £4 8s a month and £1 a month for each child.

A village of 2000 cottages is to bo built near Woolwich for workers in the arsenal. The estate will be laid out on what are known as garden city lines. Thoro will be about only 12 houses to the acre. tain’s new • super-Dreadnought, which is working havoc among the forts of the Dardanelles, a quarter of a million sterling if she were to tight all her guns to their full capacity for one hour.

—-The consumption per head per annum of beer in the United Kingdom is about 26 gallons. This is higher than any other country in the world. Germany comes next with 22 gallons. Denmark 19 gallons, and the United Stales 16 gallons. -—Like the Americans, the Germans go in for largo departmental stores. In the main streets of Berlin stand huge, palace-like buildings in which anything from a pin to a motor car can be obtained. Berlin, with its 2,071,000 inhabitants, is the sixth Largest city in the world where population is concerned. New York, London, Paris, Tok'o, and Chicago rank before it in the order named.

One of the most interesting war relics in the shop windows in London is a sadlybattered silver tea-caddy belonging to Admiral Sir David Beatty. It was struck by a German shell which d’d some damage to the Admiral’s cabin in H.M.S. Lion during the North Sea action. The caddy was made by the Duchess of Sutherland’s Cripples’ Guild, and has been lent by Lady Beatty for exhibition in the window of the guild’s shop in Bond street. The average ago of general officers in the French army has been lowered in this war by 10 years. To-day more than threefourths of the officers commanding armies and army corps are less than 6C ycais of age. Some are considerably younger. A number of the army corps commanders are from 46 to 54 years of ago, and* the brigade commanders are usually under 50. Montreal exports more wheat than New York and Boston comb nod; yet it is pretended that it is the New York dealers who are making us pay more for our bread. _ Mrs Fulford. widow of Senator Fulford, has offered to the Canadian Government the sum of £20,000 for the purpose of raising and equipping a regiment ov Canadians for the war. Mrs Fulford is a very rich woman, who lias already given considerable sums to the Patriotic and Red Gross Funds. Hotel life docs not seem to appeal to “ star ” actresses like it did once. It was not long before Miss Maud . Allan and Madame Pavlova, when they were staying in London, took to themselves semi-perma-nent homes in Regent’s Park and Hampstead respectively. Now one hears Mdlle. Gaby Desl.ys has settled in a fine mansion in Kensington, in inrnishing which some £6OOO has been spent. The new Lord Rothschild has tastes rather outside the general habits of the family, for the hobby of most of the Rothschilds’was and is Art. But the new bearer of the title has always been interested in zoology, and has spent much patience and money in seeing how far various species can bo acclimatised in When ho was in the Commons between 1899 and 1910 ha was noted for his wonderful straw top hats in summer. The hats had much to commend them in 'ightness and coolness, but they did not become popular.

Paris -will shortly have an opportunity of inspecting; one of the famous 42-centi-motre (16jii0 snclls, which is now on view at Yerdun pending its transfer to the Invalides. The shell fell in the neighbourhood of one of tho forts without exploding. The removal of tho fuse was a. delicate operation. The shell weighs nearly a ton, and stands sft high. —ln order to relieve the hard-worked censor, soldiers writing homo letters from tho front are to bo put on their honour as to their contents. A special envelope has been issued to the troops in tho fighting line for this purpose. It is green in colour, and headed “On active service.” The most important part is this declaration on tho flap, which must be signed by the writer: “ I certify on my honour that the contents of this envelope refer to nothing but private and family matters.” Such letters are no longer censored rogimcntally, but are merely liable to examination at tho base.

A bomb-dropping aeroplane —a torpedo of the skies —that is controlled automatically. without the necessity of exposing an aviator to danger, is the idea of an American mechanic. With the control properly set, the machine travels to the required locality, where it automatically drops tho bomb and then turns back, shutting off the power and coming to the ground on reaching the starting-point. Tile late “Rolf Eoldrewood.” who was Mr T. A; Browne in private life, - took to literature as the result of an accident which lamed him. When a squatter in the bush he was kicked by a horse, and it war. to relieve the tedium of the long weeks of inactivity which followed that he wrote his first Australian sketch, “ A Kangaroo Rush.” It was printed by the Cornhill, and that, as ho used to affirm, was how ho was “kicked into literature.”