MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 3385, 29 January 1919, Page 47

MULTUM IN PARVO

Hand grenades were produced in the United States at the rate of 2,000,000 a monch. Every six minutes a merchant vessel arrives and another departs from American ports. The British Grand Fleet and the escort services consume 7,CC0,000 tons of coal a year. , library of the late Archdeacon Samuel Boddy, in Toronto, disclosed a sum of £426 in uncashed cheques and bank-notes, which he had apparently used absentmindedly as bookmarks. The gross value of the of London and the Inner and Middle Temples is now £6,984,589. and the rateable value £5,384,976. land large areas of land are being broken up for the sowing of winter wheat and oats. It is expected thit the amount under cereals for 1919 will constitute a record for Ireland.

Those who wish to enter the navy as writers or stewards have to pass an examination in spelling, handwriting, composition, and arithmetic. The candidate's general BBCXirteesa and knowledge are also tested, and in the case of third writers credit is given for typewriting and shorthand.

"Shooting stars" are not really stars, but are fragments which, at some time or other, were probably attached to interplanetary bodies. When we see them flashing across the sky—at perhaps 30 miles a second —they in process of burning. The Lusitania bulletin, presented by Sir Harry Britain to tho Acton Committee of the British Red Cross, together with the last pictifro of the Lusitania, presented by the Cunard line, realised £7OO at auction. Tho purchaser has generously returned it to the donor for the purpose of resale. There is no limit to the depths to which the rights as a freeholder in Great Britain extend. If you purchase a plot you acquire the surface and "everything above and below it." This does not mean that an aviator flying over your land-is guilty of trespass. Hospitals for damaged .goods were part of the ordinary army organisation in France. Hopeless wrecks of things are sent there —smashed motor cars, china, canteen appliances, bikes, rifles, coats, trousers, boots—anything and everything that may be given a new lease' of life by a little "doctoring." President Wilson has improved enormously in golf during the last 12 months, and when he is playing all mention of the war is absolutely barred. Since America came into tho war he has played even more regularly than before, because he finds it helps him to keep a balanced view of things. Courtrai and Bruges were great centres of the real- lace industry, particularly that of torchon. Courtrai had formerly about 7000 women employed on pillow, lace. Lacemaking is learnt by the girls between the ages of seven and 13, and this beautiful industry was ■ fostered in the convent schools. . Dickens was fond of wearing gaudy jewellery, and tho clanking of his numerous gold chains announced his coming while he was yet some great distango away. Longfellow had a .weakess for flowered waistcoats and ho oossessed many of gorgeous pattern arid colour, wnilsfc Bacon was very fond of fine clothes, and spent much of h;s leisure in devising.new costumes for Court occasions . The English Law Courts have found it difficult to decide whether a winkle be fish, reptile, irsect, or animal. The winkle, "from tho legal point of view," is in the same category as a lion or a- Polar bear. It is simply and purely a wild beast. A winkle is a creature that creeps like a reptile-, therefore it cannot be a fish. Funny thing, the law, isn't it? —Mr Fred James, the official Canadian correspondent, says that for the first eight months of last year the Canadian Forestry Corps in France were responsible for an output of forest products of 1,083,899 tons, and" the mills operating in the several districts in France turned out 640,210 tons of sawn lumber, 125,344 tons of round material such as telegraph poles and pit-props, and 318.335 tons of fuel. This total more than doubles what the Canadian Forestry Corps produced in the whole of the previous year. The Yale University Press, in celebration of the Shakespeare tercentenary, is issuing a new edition of Shakespeare's works, in 40 volumes, under the direction of the English Department of the University. The text is unexpurgated; the original stage directions, in general, are retained, and those of later editors added, when necessary, in brackets. There is, instead of a glossary, a "glo'ssarial index," referring' to the explanations of works given in footnotes on the pages on which they first occur. The notes are grouped at the ond of each volume; and the appendices contain only such matter as is likely to houseful to the student without distracting him. Thirteen volumes—five comedies, five tragedies, and three histories —are already published. Travel in Russia, in the old days, used to be comfortable. Nowadays it seems to be exciting. From a Russian paper one learn that "trains run irregularly owing to free fights at all the stations between villagers and Bolsheviks who try to take their corn." and that""one such fight, at Toroszyn, on the present frontier of the Russian Republic, lasted for days, and ended in tho burning of two villages by the Red Guards." The fact that "there is no accomrrind<ttion for travellers at Toroszyn" can hardly have enhanced the amenities of the iourney, though it appears that a wealthy Polish lady onioyed a wcekjs lodsr ing in a watchman's.shed at a cost of 3CO roubles.

Amonor those who «re most familiar with Stonehoiwe there will be nothing hut gratification at Sir Alfred Mond's announcement than the venerable monument i?. to he protected by a sunk fence, or some such device. The late Sir E. Antrobus was denounced up hill and down dale for putting ut> his wire fence, and stationing a guardian at the entrance. Mr Richard Le Galin particular made a merciless onslaught in one of his descriptive essays, and no doubt would have been glad to see the former proprietor of Stonehongo consigned to one of the ■ worst circles of Dante's "Inferno." And yet Sir E. Antrobus was right, and did the nation a service. He aaved as much of the great circles as was still capable of being saved: and he began not a moment too soon. Rapid deterioration Get in from the time when port of Salisbury Plain became a camp. The soldiers had no respect for this stupendous relio of antiquity.