MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 3292, 18 April 1917, Page 46

MULTUM IN PARVO

Mis*; Owen, the world's champion typist, has actually broken her previous record, which was the typing of 8379 words in an hour. She has lately typed 3549 word' in the same time, making- only 62 errors. A remarkable instance of a, sheep's endurance under snow comes from Swaledalo (England), whore a farmer has just rescued a ewo alive from a deep drift in which it liad been buried for 38 days. Major John Castle Gant. who recently colebrated his hundredth birthday, has died at Eastbourne. He was England's oldest volunteer, joining the City of London Rifles at the ago of 4-3. —We have heard of kinemas in churches before, but now comes news of a kinema in a prison. The carefully-selected films shown at Sing Sing Prison, New York, are said to have an excellent effect on tho morals of the convicts. —.For tho first time in 50 years Britain has ordered a ship to bo built in tho United States. .The Union Iron Works of San Francisco has closed a contract to build three 10,000-ton steel freighters for British firms. For just two years La Libre Bclgique, the famous organ of the oppressed inhabitants of Belgium, has succeeded in maintaining a regular issuo, in spito of all the German efforts to discover its publication and staff. Every week a copy is posted to Baron von Bissing, the German Governor.

—ln the care of the Bradford Guardians is a remarkable woman, Mrs Brannan, who recently celebrated her one hundred and third birthday. Feeble, yet possessing all her faculties, she is fond of a pipe, her favourite tobacco being twist. Tho Chinaman who invented a typewriter for his native language has obtained a patent from the Peking Ministry of Commerce to run for five years. His typewriter uses 4000 Chinese characters. The ordinary Chinese printing office uses about 6000 characters, while a complete Chinese dictionary may contain as many as 50,000. Mine-sweeping is known in the navy as " Jackets." The name came about in this way: In ordinary .cruising, and even when looking for mines, the- crews do not generally wear their safety jackets, although advised to do so. But, once mine-sweepinig begins, everyone must do so. The skipper cries "Jackets!" and everyone knows that tho dangerous work is beginning. _ The town of Pirmasens (Bavaria), which a year ago imposed a tax on cats, has been obliged to abrogate the measure. The tax not unnaturally led to a very marked decrease in the number of cats kept by tho inhabitants, and the result has been that the place is now overrun with rats and mice, the activities of which have proved disastrous. Surgeon-major Buvergey, professor to the faculty of medicine at Bordeaux, on December 15 performed an operation at the military hospital at Aire-sur-la-Dour of great interest to medical science. The doctor, with the aid of X-rays, extracted a bullet from the heart of a wounded soldier. It was lodged to a depth of three centimetres. Three weeks after the operation the man was able to leave tho hospital entirely cured. —'The coal question is becoming serious in Paris. Numerous laundries have had to close, and with coal at £lO a ton it_ is hardly surprising that families are leaving their flats and taking up quarters in hotels rather than submit to the expense of heating . their homes. In view of the grave situation of the poorer classes, the Municipal Council has undertaken to make a special distribution of coal, drawing on the reserve stock of the city. The British Museum contains the finest collection of books in tho world. In 1912 the contents of the library occupied 46 miles of shelving. George II presented the old Royal Library to the nation, including many "old treasures. George 111 set to work to collect in its stead another great Royal library. George IV, however, being no lover of books, was about to sell this, ■ but was induced to present it to tho nation. These two great collections, with the accessions due to the Copyright Acts, have formed tho backbone of the great library. A torpedo with ears and brain, capable of travelling 40 knots and adjusting itself to meet all changes of course of an enemy vessel, has been shown before the Academy of Science in New York by Montraville M. Wood, of Chicago. This torpedo, he declared, is now in tho possession of the United States Government. He claimed that tho torpedo could "hear" a vessel approaching a mile and a-half away, and would, then shed its anchor and attack. "The 'ears' work on the same principle as human oars," said Dr Wood. "The 'brain' —that's my secret." At the Sixth Congress of Exhibitors of Kinema Films, recently held at Chicago, it was stated that at the present time there are no fewer than 21,000 halls and theatres at which this class of entertainment is given in the United States. Those entertainments are attended by no fewer than 25,000,000 persons daily; or, say, more _ than onequarter of the entire population of the States. They employ upwards of 250,000 operators, whose weekly wages amount to 2.300,000d01. The total amount invested in these undertakings was stated to exceed 2,000.000,0<X)dol (£400.000,000). —Mr Ford, in offering to provide the United States navy with 1000 submarines daily, each 20ft long_, and operated by one man, is merely keeping up American traditions. Tho first noticeable success in this line was a boat, fitted with two oars on the principle of the screw, a valvo for admitting water to sink tho boat, and a device for attaching explosives to the bottom of vessels, introduced by an American named Bushnell in 1775._ Another American, Mr Dclaney, in .1859, invented a submarine capable of remaining under water for four hours, while still another, Mr Phillips, in the same decade, was successful in devising a vessel in which he and his family spent a whole day at tho bottom of Lake Michigan. —An untapped and easily-accessible source of food is to bo brought to the notice of the Food Controller by the Yorkshiro Wild Birds Protection Society. The society recently passed a resolution asking Lord Devonport to_ commandeer all gulls' eggs, which are laid in large and easilyaccessiblo colonies, during 1917. In the course of two or threo months there will be millions of eggs._ and they can be collected with such facility on Fame Island, tho Scilly Isles, on the Lincoln and Lancashire gulleries, and in Scotland, that Mr H. B. Booth, the president of the society, declares they could bo sold in the_ markets at a penny each, and at that price make a fair return of profit. It was stated that_ gidls* eggs arc at least as good as Russian or Chinese eggs, and excellent for use in cooking.