MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 3314, 19 September 1917, Page 45

MULTUM IN PARVO

■—A portable railroad has been invented for temporary use, -made of interlocking eections which can bo laid either in straight lines or curves.

Electrical devices connected with an advertising mirror cause advertisements to mysteriously appear on its surface and obscure tho features of persons looking at it. For testing textiles en Englishman has inverted a machine which passes fabrics urder a microscope while at the same time they are subjected to powerful electric lights both above and below their surface. Discoverers of an Egyptian worm that wiil eat the cotton boll weevil have been discouraged by learning that it is cannibalistic m its tendencies, and will eat its companions as readily as weovile. —As a new thriller a scenio railway has been patented which is provided with switches which turn cars around and make tho passengers ride backwards until another switch is reached. . The turbines of the {transatlantic liner Aquitania are the heaviest and most powerful motors of the kind yet built, weighing 1400 tons and containing more than 1,000,000 blades. For its buildings all over the country, its war ships, army posts, and lighthouses tho United States Government every year buys enough coal to make a pile a milo square and 10ft high. The manufacture of absolutely clear ice without the use of distilled water has been made possible by the invention of a pump to keep tho water in circulation without aerating it while it is being frozen. —ln making tests for the foundations ot a new building at Washington, D.C., there was sunk into the ground a concrete pile 16in in diameter and 60ft long—the largest that ever was made. Guy Fawkes has done much to popularise fireworks; but he certainly was not responsible for them! They wore invented in Europe as far back as 1360, but the Chinese are said to have used them in ages far more remote. All Petrograd restaurant and hotel employees struck unexpectedly, the hotel guests having to make their own beds and the restaurant customers to fetch their food from the kitchens. The employees demand the abolition of "tips" and 15 per cent, of the profits. American grey squirrels, introduced into Richmond Park, near London, have spread into tho adjacent and proved such.a pest that the authorities are taking measures to exterminate them. They not only drive away tho native red squirrel, but work great damage in gardens and orchards. , The theory that more boy babies than girls are Born in war time has been revived in the report of the British Registrargeneral for 1915. The births registered in the vear numbered (314,614. Males numbered 415.205 and females 399,409, the proportion of males to females being 1040 to 1000, while ordinarily a slight excess of female births is recorded. —ln four years Linooln called to his command in defence of the Union of the American States and the abolition of slavery 2.500,000. Of these enlistments more than 2.000.000 were boys under 21, more than 1,000.000 of the soldiers were not even 18; 800,000 went into the army before 17; 200,000 before they were 16, and 100,000 before thev were 15 years old. The expenditure by the Tourists and Health Resorts Department last year exceeded the receipts by the following amounts: —Qucenstown, £416; Te Anau and Manapouri steamers, Glade House, and Milford track, £910; Hanmer Springs, £1841; Rotorua, £1703; Te Aroha, £llßl. Tho only tourist and health resorts at which the receipts exceeded the expenditure by tho department were:—Rotorua acclimatisation district. £283; Waitomo Caves, £659; Hermitage, Mount Cook, £272.

—On r'rainage operations on tho Haurnki Plains. Auckland., a total of £216,378 has been expended so far. The land in occupation is 38,991 acres., subdivided into 294 sections (exclusive of town sections), valued at £243,851. —Out of the total arrivals in New Zealand last year of 3503 the number of immigrants -assisted by the Government was 638. Tho declared capital value brought by these was £1407. —Of the 39 men, 380 women, and 219 children constituting the immigrants assisted to New Zealand last yenr, tho districts for which they were booked were: —Auckland, 16<3; Canterbury-, 64; Hawke's Bay, 31; Marlborough 13: Nelson, 8; Otago. 20; Southland. 17; Taranaki, 34; Wellington, 261: Westland, 22.

—No money was Land district last year to open up blocks of land. In Southland district £416 was expended, and in Canterbury £35. Fortunate Auckland had over £10.256 expended. The inspector of prisons, in his report, says that the labour of physically-fit pr'soners in Now Zoaland resulted in a paving to the State of nearly £25.000. This does not include the labour of those employed in domestic work, cooking, cleaning, etc.. within the prisons. The Roxburgh Branch of the Second Division League has obtained permission from the Roxburgh Borough Council to plough up tho local sports Ground and plant it in potatoes, subject to the council beingrepresented on the committeo appointed to carry on the work. The British Government has a scheme tinder consideration of nationalising the liquor trade of Great Britain. It»is calculated that it would involve an expenditure of £250.000.000. This addition to_ the public debt, staggering- as it would be in ordinary times, is viewed quite calmly by the British public, notwithstanding tho colossal figure of tho. existing war indebtedness—£3.7o3,ooo.ooo. Before the end of th« war this burden is likely to be £5,000.000.000. or one-fourth of the total estimated capital of the nation.

Wooden shoes are becoming very general in Germany now. and oven men in their offices are seen wearing- wooden sandals, without socks. The Mucnchner Post savs: "Nov.* that the officials in the public offices are advised to coino in sandals without socks, the councillors themselves will set a good example and assemble in wooden shoes. The effect would not be so dreadful as some conservative people seem to think. Indeed, it would not even bo a new thinpr. From a notice issued in 1450. we know that the Frankfurt councillors woro wooden shoes, for they were advised to toko off their shoes at the sitting, in order to avoid the uoisy clic-clac. So let us go back to the good old times."