MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 3276, 27 December 1916, Page 51

MULTUM IN PARVO

Donkey meat is being eaten in Trieste (Austria), and costs Is Id a lb. About 800,000,000 eggs aro consumed in a year in London and suburbs. The annual cost of the additional bonus to British railwaymen, so far as can be estimated, is not likely to bo less than £6,500,000. There aro moro live animals in the United Kingdom to-day than there were at the beginning of the war. The purchases of meat since the beginning of tho war by the Imperial Government amount to £60,000,000, said Mr Runciman. According to tho German papers, tho police president of Berlin has forbidden 5 o'clock teas to be held in future. There are now 275 women conductors and 67 women cleaners employed on the Newcastle Corporation tramways undertaking. A strike of grave-diggers at Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, recently caused much inconvenience; 150 bodies had been left unburied. - —The gallant General Castlenau has been presented by the French "League of Large Families" with a work of art and an address in recognition of the fact that he had 12 children, three of whom have laid down their lives for France in the last two years. From the report of the Royal Patriotic Fund Corporation for the year 1915 it is gathered that an December 31 last £7OO capital remained to the credit of the Light Brigade (Balaclava) Fund, that four men were on the books of the corporation on that date, and that £152 had been allowed to them during the year. Toymaking has become an important industry in Canada. Thousands of people are working day and night making Christmas toys. The new industry belongs essentially to the province of Quebec, wheie tho children in the many small towns and villages have proved themselves very skilful in the work. A warning to persons wearing neck furs has been issued by the West Virginia Department of Health. An investigation by this department revealed that arsenic used in the preparation of these furs causes a rash-like disorder of the skin.

When an engineering firm asked the London City Tribunal to exempt a, shipping clerk on the grounds that he was indispensable, it was elicited that the man, who was married, had one child, and had been in the employ of the firm for 17 years, received only £9O a year. Although tho firm's representative declared that the firm could not do without the man the tribunal refused the application. The British Women's Patriotic League calls attention to tho fact that glucoso (corn syrup) can be used in place of sugar for sweetening all stewed fruits and in tarts and puddings made with fresh fruit. One tablespoonful of corn syrup is equal to three tablespoonfuls of brown sugar, and as a 71b tin of corn syrup costs only 3s great economy in sugar and money can be effected by its use. A Cambridge wrangler is reported to have been counting up the cost of the war to Great Britain. He says, that if Adam were still living and had, from the Creation to the present clay, spent his time throwing sovereigns into the sea at the rate of 50 per hour, dav and night, he would not yet have reached the total wo have spent on the present war. His calculations are based on tho , t chronology of the Old Testament. '" _ The oldest of European newspapers arc mere babies compared with those of China. According to a French authority, the Belting News has now been appearing regularly for a matter of 1300 years, having been issued first in the sixth century. This might be difficult to prove, but there is no doubt "that the Peking Gazette, containing Imperial rescripts and official news, dates back at least to the ninth century and is still going strong. The Metropolitan Life Insurance Company of New York has given to the National Association for the Study and Prevention of Tuberculosis a gift of £25,000 to prove that tuberculosis can bo controlled like any other infectious disease. A town or city of about 5000 inhabitants will be chosen and a campaign started in it. If it can be shown that the disease can be eradicated in one community, a nation-wide campaign will be inaugurated. Rumania's total able-bodied manhood, if it include men up to the extreme age limit of 46, falls little short of 1.100,000. This remarkably high percentage out of a total population of, roughly, 7,500.000 is explained by the marked excess of malo over female births in" tho Danubian kingdom, an excess which averages as much as 8 per cent The same phenomenon is observed in other mountainous countries subject to violent climatic alternations of extreme heat and extreme cold. No wonder that in Rumania spinsterhood after 25 is almost unknown.

Although drinking glasses no .longer tumble on" the table when they stand bottom side down, they still retain the name given them when they did tumble. The tumbling of the first rlass drinking vessel was not an accident. The tip-over was intentional, and it was intended to remind the convivial knight who used the glass that he must not set down the vessel until he had drunk all the wine in it. If he did it would spill on the table. The "tumbling" glasses did not remain long in favour, but the name " tumbler " survives. Hitherto snakeskin and crocodile boots or shoc3 have been something of a luxury, but in the present involved condition of the leather trade they represent a positive economy. The- initial outlay is not small, but both tbese orotic leathers literally wear for over. Crocodile shoos are in black, tan. nigger, and the fashionable rifle prcrn, and are suited to really heavy wear. which is enually durable, is of lighter weight; in the natural state the colourings are soft greys, browns, and mole shades, mottled with ivory, but artificial colouring in no way injures the quality or durability of the skin. Canada is giving away her rich soil in freo 100-aere grants at the rate of an English county per month. Official returns just to hand show that during the- month of July 1398 homestead entries were made for freo land grants of 160 acres each in tho four western provinces of Saskatchewan, Alberta, Manitoba, and British Columbia. As usual, tho largest total. is under tho heading "American," thero being 240 of these, the majority of whom settled in Alberta. One hundred and fifty-eight were English, 50 Scottish, and 21 Irish. Tho number of individuals repi ■'•■ nted iri this total is 3233. Last yvu tho local homoBteads for tho samo month was 2032, a falling off this yom of 634, which i 3 fully accounted for by tho absence of &.j many men with the colours.

New York State is now enlarging the once busy and profitable Erie Canal at an estimated cost of not less than 100.000.000d01, in order that it may carry barges of 1000 tons capacity from tho Atlantic Ocean to tho Groat Lakes, and vice versa. The plan is to charge nothing for the use of the canal. This will mean a burden on the taxpayers of the State—an uncompensated loss to the taxpayers in those parts of the State which cannot economically ueo the canal either to market their produce or to obtain goods for consumption. It amounts to a gift by the taxpayers of the St-ate of New York to thoso producers and consumers in other States who can sell their goods for moro or buy desired goods for less because of tho free use of the Erie Canal. It involves encouragement to transportation via the canal of goods which might better go by railway or by the St. Lawrence River.