MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3489, 25 January 1921, Page 53

MULTUM IN PARVO.

The British Post Office telephone staff Includes 49,080 persons. Chinamen are appearing in Paris, where they seek work as domestic servants. The salary and allowances of the French President amount to about £48,000 per annum. Made of paper and costing 4d, a new hat was recently invented by a French actress. Food for cats which are kept to destroy rats costs the Port of London Authority £7OO a year. A good dress designer will cost a manufacturing firm anything up to £2OOO a year. British Government employees number 90,000 in excess of the number employed in August, 1914. Women are proving successful as barristers in America, France, and most other European countries. Motor cars placed in a new cradle-like device may be turned over at any angle for inspection and repair. Unless the purchaser requests a receipt, no stamp is necessary in the case of cash transactions, whatever their value. The British teddy bear is claimed to be the finest in the world; even Germany is buying these popular toys from Britain. Bedroom suites, in the white or unfinished state, are sold in Shoreditch at £9, it was stated in a county court recently. A blinded ex-service man trained as a masseur at St. Dunstan’s recently came out first at an examination, beating more than 300 competitors who possessed their sight. To outwit the stealer of new designs in gowns, some firms keep their best models always under lock and key. A system for patenting such models is being worked out. Owing to the housing shortage in Paris the number of divorce cases has decreased. L nhappily matched couples are continuing to share a house as neither party can find other accommodation. -—The Census Bureau announces that the population of the United States is 105,683,000, an increase of 13,710,000 over the population at the previous census in 1910. Every six hours a man employed in the mining industry is killed; every three minutes one is injured. A church magazine in Hertfordshire asks the church wardens to take care of all buttons found in the collection, as there is a button shortage. Seeing a Leicester woman in the River Soar, an angler threw his line across the river, and the hook, catching in her dress, brought her to the bank. for those wounded in the war, Luigi Tagliati, who had wounds in both legs, beat 15 competitors, completing the distance in 56 minutes. A healthy man can remain under water from one to two minuses. The record is held by Georges PoUliquen, a Frenchman, who in 1912 remained under water for nearly six and a-half minutes. _ — Fallen leaves make railway lines as slippery as glass, and special warnings are issued t<j engine drivers in the case of a known accumulation at certain spots in the autumn. Newspapers can he used to grorv vegetable marrows. These plants are notoriously greedy, requiring either rich virgin soli or plenty of. nitrogen. A Surrey gardener has found that the best stimulant is newspaper which has been allowed to rot in the open before digging in. A hollow 7 wild carrot has been used to make a flute 18in long and £in in diameter. The tones are accurate and remarkably sweet. The fragile ends of the flute were strengthned with adhesive plaster. One end w 7 as tightly stopped with cork and sealed. In France the whole blackberry crop is allowed to go to waste, since the French peasant refuses- to eat the fruit. Some believe the berries to be poisonous, while others affirm that the Crown of Thorns was woven of brambles, and that the bush should be held sacred. The fifth quinquennial election to the American Hall of Fame has resulted in the choice from among 177 names submitted of the following six Mark Twain, the distinguished author. James Buchanan Eads, a famous engineer. Among his feats w 7 ere the invention of a diving bell, the construction of ironclads at the outbreak of the Civil war, and the deepening of the channel at the mouth of the Mississippi. Patrick Henry, statesman of the War of Independence. _ notable for his oratory. William ihomas Greene Morton, physician, the discoverer of the anaesthetic properties of ether. Augustus Saint Gaudens, the great sculptor. Roger Williams, a pioneer, founder of the State of Rhode Island, whose zeal for freedom of conscience w r as admired by Milton his friend, who described him as “that noble confessor of religious libertv.” Of the 27 women nominated, one, Alice Freeman Palmer, the educationist, w 7 as chosen. Electric cooking apparatus made in Great Britain has become so robust and 60 efficient that it is finding its way into the working class dwellings constructed under the numerous “housing schemes” undertaken by local authorities or by private enterprise. In one large colony every house is being equipped with an electric cooking range, two electric fires, and an e.cctric copper for washing purposes. There fire used for burning refuse and also for warming (by means of a boiler at the back of the fire) the water for baths and other uses. The construction of the houses is so much simplified by the use of electrical cookers and heaters that the total cost including all the electrical appliances is less than that of a similar house built in the ordinary way. Electric- light is, of course, installed. The electric ranges are large enough to cook ordinary workmen’s meals for seven or eight persons. -A bequest of 1.000,000d0l (£285.000) has Ren refused by Mr Charles Garland, of Now York, who is aged 21. because he prefers to work for his living. Mr Garland’s father, Mr W. A. Garland, a multi-millionaire died over 10 years ago. Mrs Garland forfeited her chum to a. share of the Garland millions br marrying again m 1912, Since then the estate has been held in trust for the throe sons. The eldest came of age last, year and accepted his million dollars. Charles’ who has just reached his 21st birthday’ refuses to follow this precedent, and his younger brother, who is a student at Harvard, is quoted as saying that he intends to follow Charles’s example. Mr Charles Garland, who is married and living with his wife and infant daughter at his mother’s summer home at Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, is planning to become a motor mechanic. He says:—"T believe that in refusing to accept the money I am placing

myself on a Christian basis. Private property is the main cause of our unrest and unhappiness. It saps the meaning from life.” Men’s suits made of certain tweeds manufactured last year and sold at £5 6s would mean a profit to the cloth manufacturer of about Is per suit.