MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 3336, 20 February 1918, Page 47

MULTUM IN PARVO

Altogether thero are 43,000,000 men under arms in 'the present greaj; war.

The cost of a tank, us used on. the Western front, together with armour and guns complete, is £SOOO.

The City of Glasgow makes an income of £IO,OOO a year from fertilisers made from city waste.

poration's factory amounts to nearly £50,000 per annum. No fewer than 120 tons a week of valuable grease are extracted from the waste products in the wool industry. British manufactured saccharine is expected to be on the market early this year. Iho supply has hitherto come from Germany. One of 'the chief difficulties which •had to be overcome was the supply of permanganate of potash. The human voice can be heard a mile straight up at the North Pole, when there 13 "° Wlncl blowing, eo clear is the air. , The southernmost inhabited land in the world is New Year's Island. It is an Argentine meteorological station oIF Cape Horn. The mail goes there once a year. —ln an_ out-of-the-way place like Mafra, Portugal, is a monastery which takes hours just to walk through it, for it is 8000 ft by 700 ft in dimensions, has 866 rooms and only 5290 windows. Just think of a houseeleamng of those windows I T ~/h firsfc , republic -with which the United States had official relations was the Kepubhc of Venice when, just before its fall in 1797, John Adams, then President, - appointed a United States Consul. ., —An eagl© may not be able to reach the sun, but, through powerful telescopes, it has been seen to Uy, with apparent ease, from 30,000 it to 40,000 ft above sea-level. JNo human being could live at that height, to the rarefaction of the air. ■ ~ |f°. nel P .to meet.the increased cost of hying an Order-in-Council has been passed increasing the separation allowance to wives and other dependents of Canadian soldiers from 20dol to 25d0l a month. during the present year 200,000 ash trees V)(v£ S& m 1 2 ak,1 JS aeroplanes. About " P t 0 ' th ° beginni^ Over £IOO in gold and silver was discovered secreted in the house of an rern°ov,i at * A * herstone > En S'"nd, after her hffin 7 G T r } h 2 use - In a tea hidden under a bed £45 was found, while »D 7 was unearthed elsewhere froT; A A S + m ] all £a n m< ? n , arried * lls McCarthy, from Athlone (Ireland) giving evidence at the Land Court, stated that she was the mother of 23 children (12 living), and had doMdv S n - S ¥ B V' U Superintends farming operations on her land, and transacts oattle sales at local fairs, 0,. o? " misual , incident occurred on January 21 along the Cockburn railway lme South Australia. Swarms of ants mocked Sr tKi e + a * r T- had t 0 be in 3,. ht slippery patch could be negotiated. It was stated that the odour S, IC Lf T fr ? m f e man^!ed ol the ants was almost overpowering. A few ■rTT 116 - oldest . known map is one of Sd 7 dS AV" l he B " tish mS^; and dates back to about 2200 b.o This map shows canals which were used as .waterways of commerce. Packaged wcr ™«5 *£,- tag3 ' much as our own modern delivery service. One such <W' sent 'over *.•>*«* tablfte sent over 600 years before, or in 2800 8.0. Even still earlier there existed what we would now call package or mail route" -With a population of just on five mill lions Australia has seven Parliaments The members of these Parliaments. Federal and State, numbered 657. Excluding rn Iw™ passes and what were called "SB expeS her S m oT b rh!-V «' W nces U> metn qtL . U f°^ er Rouses (Federal and State) amounted 'to £143,477, while allow ances to members of the Lowe? Housed SS d t 0 £m ' 732 ' 0r£275 7s 6d°Tcr

h,7 t T indus * r y "J Liguria is a substitute, for bran, of which a factory know turning out hoarly 10 tons a cly from materials hitherto wasted-the fruit of S'eoies of palm, otherwise useless from which about 40 p er ceirt . ot ffrt ™* added to dried fig? ricl husk* dregs of pressed grapes kisfn stones, acorn husks, youne- fi a iS tomato parings by disi^tegrltion?fuWeSa. tions, and kneading. The high nercenta ß a ftJCBS" tho subsitui * aac about is a revival of the ponular ffi? good wine It is noticeable in Wlon that' the reduced supolies, increased ««* i win© for consumption on the premises are S?BLftj S tGr trade "JfcFSS GovSeTt 0 jraff tt nit o e n d ce Stat f? was in the Tariff Bill, which prUfed' thai fr e'T 4 rU t P t nte " ed fSgi° f;uAeT Ur an\e ra ot ff , ° f printed this phrase read "foreiS"frS tS'Vnt for ° * C ° Uld be ««Sd H transforming English sovereigns into ou?s d or and napoleons. s —On the border of South Australia a man named Black, who supported hie grandmother and sister, had 72 acres of crop on shares with another farmer. After he had left for the front the people of Govoke deeded to hold a working bee By 9 a.m on n certain day helpers arrived from as far distant as 20 miles. Sixteen harvestmg mnchinos were soon at work and the whole of the work from the harvesting to the stacking at the railway etation of the 680 bags of wheat was accomplished m eight hours. All the workwas done voluntarily., and the food was provided gratis. It is estimated that over 2C« people were, catered for by the ladies of the district.

The famous Hindenburg support tunnel, dusr and constructed entirely* by Rus Bian prisoners, rune under the ground at an everage depth of 40ft for 13 miles. Practically tho whole length of it is in our

possession. The failure of mines which were found to be sown at frequent intervals to go up when the electricians switched on the contact caused bitter rage and disappointment to the watching Huns in tho rear. The story of just how we discovered the wire leads and cut them is one of those little romances which must await the telling for tho present. Tho youngest brigadier-general in tho British army was killed in December last in the person of Brigadier-general Roland Boys Bradford, V.C., aged 25, youngest son of Mrs Bradford, Darlington. He was awarded tho Military Cross in March and the V.C. a year ago. Ho was also given the rank of lieutenant-colonel, being 'the youngest colonel in tho army, as he was also the youngest brigadier-general later on

—ln 1914 approximately 481,318 sheep out of 38,000,000 died from attacks of blowflies. In some localities the mortality was from 6 to 8 per cent. Though originally (according to Mr W. W. .Froggatt, F.L.S., Government Entomologist in New South Wales) only one species of blowfly attacked live wool in Australia, there are now half a dozen others which have acquired the habit, and it is reasonable to assume that still others—for thero arc others —may do likewise. The Newcastle Chronicle reprints the following from its files of 25 years ago: " November 17. —As showing the great depression amongst the Cumberland and North Country agriculturists, it is reported that at Penrith Cattle Market last week a farmer sold by auction a calf 24 hours old for Id, a one-year-old stirk for 3d, and a two-year-old stirk for ss. It was a genuine sale, and the prices were <& the highest offered, which the farmer took rather than drive the animals home again. The case would eeem to confirm one previously reported of a North Country woman taking 10 geese to market and with .the proceeds of the sale buying 50 lambs and still having 2s 3d in her pocket. Authentic stories of the wonderful daring of British aviators are told. One is that of a pilot who was attacked by three enemy machines, and, looping the loop, fired his gun, bringing down one of the machines. The two other Germans, realising what he was doing, manoeuvred and opened fire as he came down. The pdot countered this bv "side slipping" for 200 ft, with the result that his adversaries overshot him. He fired and brought down a second machine. By 'this time other British machines camo up, and the remaining German thought it was time to get out of it. He dived, but the plucky British pilot dived after him. The enemy machine was brought down. The pilot estimated that the whole of this fight took lees than a minute. "You don't get time 'to think, were the words of one young pilot. If you stop 'to think, you are dead.'