MULTUM IN PARVO

Otago Witness, Issue 3403, 4 June 1919, Page 53

MULTUM IN PARVO

Paris has a smaller rainfall than London. More rain falls by night/than by day. —lt takeß 17 hourß for the contents of Tory high clouds to reach the earth. A dozen stolen rabbit skins were valued in a London court the other day at £o. It was explained that, by dyeing and dressing, they had been transformed into the finest "seal coneys" I During the first 11 months of 1918 Great Britain imported 11,653,548 gal of wine as oompared with 6,048,062 gal for the whole of 1917. Empty sardine and salmon tins, which formerly went from Great Britain to Germany, are in future to be utilised for the homo toy industry. The national treasure of Belgium—Stale documents, savings bank securities, bullion, and other valuables —which has been in safe custody in the Bank of England during the war, has been safely transferred to Brussels. —ln the British Civil List the following are among the items:—Their Majesties' Privy Purse, £110,000; salaries of house, hold, £125,b00; expenses of household, £190,000; works, £20,000; Boyal bountj, £13,U00. The French Government's scheme to bring about a fall in the high price of living by the institution of booths for the sale of food has been a great success. In every one of the districts in Paris in which a booth issituated*prices,have rapidly fallen. . —Trigonometrical surveying is such tedious and expensive business that less than one-fourth of the land area of the globe has as yet been accurately surveyed. The maps of the other three-fourths are mere approximations or based on clever guesswork. The strangest theatrical contract ever made has been signed by an actor, and actress on behalf of their daughter, now 11 months old. It engages the daughter to appear at the Palladium in Whit Week, 19.J6, at a salary of £25 a week! Ontario has come to the front among the gold producers of the British Empire in a remarkable fashion during the war. The mine, owing to labour scarcity, was able to operate at only one-half capacity during 1918. Notwithstanding this handicap, however, Ontario's premier mine produced one ton of solid gold every month, and paid more than one million dollars in dividends during the year. The British Admiralty have received from Mrs Fergus, of Kelvinside., Glasgow (widow of the Hev. William Fergus, minister of Blythswood Parish, Glasgow, for 37 years), an interesting and valuable gift of two cup 3 of Sheffield plate of a pattern dating from about the year 1800, which, according to tradition, were used as communion oups on board H.M.S. Yictory at the time of the Battle of Trafalgar. —lt is said that a duel is to be fought shortly between Flight Captain Robert Schroider and another well-known French aviator named Vaudecrane under absolutely new conditions, as they propose to settle their quarrel in the air. The French "Ace," Captain Madon, and Pilot BabO are acting as Vaudecrane's seconds. The adversaries will each ascend in a Nieuport single-seater aeroplane fitted with 120 n.p. motor and a Vickers' machine gun. Some two miles of the Channel Tunnel have already been bored. The work was done more than 34 years ago. At the time when Mr Chamberlain, then President of the Board of Trade, took alarm over the scheme, there was a boring machine at work on the Frenoh side and another on the English'side, and both were making good progress, after initial difficulties. Sir Edward Watkin took the writer to the English end of the tunnel—about 1000 yards under the sea —many years ago. It was excellently kept and well fit. The chalk through whioh the tunnel is driven is much softer than most of the land chalk, Tenants in fashionable riverside drive apartment houses. New York, have joined in a Tevolt against the landlords, who are raising rents 40 to 70 per cent. The new leases become effective on April 1. The rent 9 hitherto paid range from £4OO to £IOOO a vear (says the New "Fork correspondent "of rhe Daily Express). , The tenants announce that they intend to carry the matter into court on the ground that it is against public policy to permit landlords to extract such enormous rentals as compel the tenants either to go into ehe rtreeta or ourtail their purchases of the" necessities of life..., ■ Camel-hair brushes are not made from the hair of camels, but from the tails of Russian and Siberian squirrels; and "genuine" French briar-root pipes are not made from the roots of'brier, but from the root of a white heath, which reaches a considerable size, and is cultivated in the South bf France for pipe-making purposes, i Silkworms are not. worms, but caterpillars; sealing-wax contains no wax; heartburn has' nothing to do with the heart; and sweet spirite of nitre do. not contain any nitre. Finally, if you think a. centipede has 100 feet, count them and see. You will not find more tl an 30 feet on the largest size. There is a curious plant that grows in Arabia and is known as the "laughing plant" This name comes from the fact that anyone who eats its seed cannot control his laughter. The natives of the district where the plant grows dry the seeds, and reduce them to powder. A small dose of this powder makes those who eat it act in a very strange manner. The soberest person will dance, shout, and laugh like a madman, and rush abc-nt, cutting the. most ridiculous capers for an hour. At the end of this time the reaction comes. The dancer is exhausted, and a sleep comes upon him. After a nap of several hours he wakens, with no recollection of the antics ho has performed-