MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3443, 9 March 1920, Page 53

MULTUM IN PARVO.

There are 1200 women dootors in Great Britain.

Well-trained hotel managers can command salaries up to £2OOO a year. Certain forma of seaweed are said to be better fodder for horses than oats. Steamers are estimated to be 20 per cent. Bof or than sailing vessels. The Dutch regard stork's nests on their houses as a sign of good fortune. There are in Paris 35,000 clairvoyants, fortune-tellers, and seers of various kinds._ Tunnels three miles long have been discovered excavated by South American ants. There are about 20,000 ex-officers looking for employment, of whom 12,000 are in London. The Food Controller for London and the Home Counties has to cater for over 9,000,000 people. Ships which could; before the war, be unloaded and reloaded in a week, now usually take a fortnight. The daily cost of keeping a large cargo boat" awaiting loading and unloading is between £BOO and £IOOO.

—At the signing of the Armistice, we had 1005 ships on order for the navy; of these '6ll were cancelled. Between the opening of the. last Parliamentary session and the autumn adjournment, Mr Bonar Law had to answer 1151 questions

A retriever, which discovered a child missing for two nights and days, was recently awarded the National Canine Defence League medal. * .. . One church clock in . the Holborn district of London costs £ls a year for lighting, and £7 10s for winding up. Sa;ndy, Bedfordshire, has the oldest women, organist in Mrs Kemp, who recently celebrated her eightieth birthday. This lady has been organist there since 1862. The South Foreland Lighthouse, between Dover and Deal, has been transformed' into a dwelling, the lantern itself becoming a Smoking room. ■>— The native employees at a Bombay mill struck recently because they did not receive a bonus on the reported birth of the owner's son.

—An ex-soldier with only one leg and one arm 'is paid to be one of the best workmen possessed by a big London firm of window-cleaners.

During the war the British home forces made a profit from agriculture of nearly £70,000. The army in France also gTew half a million pounds' worth of vegetables. The Jewish population of the world has been estimated at 15,430,000, of whom 300,000 are in the British Isles. —lf only 10 per cent, of the butterfly eggs were hatched out, every tree and plant in England would be eaten bare of foliage.

The zircon, found in Norway, Ceylon, and other pjirts of the world, has been suggested as a substitute for the diamond. ■ BDUrnemouth, England,' has evolved a seat for the top of its tr&mcars . which can be turned over by_ the passenger, and springs back automatically when vacated. EigHt brothers and sisters, whose cornbind ages total 500 years—an average of 74 years—live within a short distance of each other at St. Heliers, Jersey. The dynasty of Japan is the' oldest in lie world, the present ruler claiming to be the hundred and twenty-second monarch of an unbroken line dating from 700 b.o. —-Interest at the rate of a penny in the shilling per week is usually charged bywomen usurers who lend money in the poorer London districts. Unsound potatoes have been dumped in such largo quantities into the Wash that fishing smacks are sometimes pulled to a halt by the weight of the. potatoes in their nets.

—. After 25 - years' service in the City of London Constabulary, P.O. Bob Allen has retired.. He was instrumental in securing 1200 convictions in oruelty-to-animal cases. The vicar of All Saints', Southport (the Rev. W. B. H. Morris), speaking at the' annual meeting of- the Needlework Guild, said that a few days previously, when he called > on a clerical friend, he found him busily engaged in knitting a jumper for his wife. Copper mines which are said locally to be the oldest in England have been closed at Alderley (Cheshire). These workings run under Alderley Edge,, a famous landmark and resort on- the estates of Lord Sheffield. They are believed still to contain leu-ge quantities of copper ore andi other minerals.

—ln July, 1914, 25 per cent, of all workers in England were women. This rose to 56 per cent, in 1918, and by April, 1919, had dropped to 28 per cent. Japan taught us a useful lesson on the rat during the Russo-Japanese war. An anti-rat- crusade was started, and the ratskins were made into fur caps for the soldiers.

Fresh meaning is given to the saying as to what, may be won on ths "fields"- of Eton by the announcement that in order to encourage Eton boys in agriculture, Mr J. L. Luddington has presented endowment prizes to be competed for annually. A sum of £48,000 has been promised to.the Harrow School War Memorial Fund, of which £43,000 has already been obtained. One-fifth of this sum is to be set aside for the education of the sons of Old Harrovians who lost their lives in the war.

A young woman, on being introduced to Sir Robert Ball, expressed her regret that she had missed his lecture the evening before. "Oh, I don't think it would have interested you," said Sir Robert Ball; "it was all about sun-spots.'' "Was it really?" she replied. "Then it would have greatly Interested me, for, between you and me, Sir Robert I have been a martyr to freckles all my life." Porridge consumption is falling off in Scotla.nd, especially in the cities (states the Daily Mail). Many thousands of sacka of oatmeal come to Britain annually from Canada and the United States. Scotland ia the principal absorber, with Ireland a good second and England an . indifferent third. It is declared that Scottish oatmeal IB the finest in the world. The Canadians and Americans, however, have improved wonderfully in their methods, and some merchants state that there is not much difference- between the native and the imparted article. -—A public subscription fund is being raised in Switzerland for the benefit of the families of 7700 Swiss killed in the world •war in French service. Offioial French «tatisf;ics show that of 8000 Swiss who enlisted, only 300 we<« alive when the war •nded. One story is told of 1000 Swiss who leld up the German advance on Verdun. All were finally killed after being surrounded. The Swiss are very proud of the lecord of these men.