MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3495, 1 March 1921, Page 45

MULTUM IN PARVO.

Europe has 14 reigning sovereigns. in the rjound. During 1919 1,066,000,000 of passengers were carried on British railways. About one-half of all the diamonds in the world are owned by Americans., During the whole course of the war 579 Victoria Crosses were awarded. —The choir at one church in New York costs £7OOO a' year in salaries. The number of halfpennies issued last year was 27,360,000, or £57,000 worth. A well-proportioned man should weigh 281 b for eacii toot of his height. American doctor, ‘‘renew the youth of elderly people in from 15 to 20 minutes.” owns his own house, and in Saskatchewan one in every 14 owns a motor car. Since Chicago became “dry” there is an increase of 258 per cent, in the ’’cruelty” cases dealt with by the police. The work of preserving St. Paul’s Cathedral has already been proceeding eight years, five years being spent on one job alone. '“Tokens,” valued at 2jd and 3jd each, are now sold for use on omnibuses and tramcars in Paris, owing to a shortage of small coins. The maximum fine for being intoxicated on licensed premises in Britain is 10s, and for allowing a dog in the street without a collar £2O. Mail trains between Euston and Holyhead are now running oply 10 minutes behind their pre-war schedule time. Road accidents in the United Kingdom increased from 37,925 in 1918 to 51,326 in 1919; of the latter 2628 were fatal. During the worst period of the war, when 90 per cent, of the British food supplies were controlled, the work of the Ministry of Food cost tile householder on an average 2d per week. The British War Office has now handed 2020 cemeteries in France and Belgium over : to the War Graves Commission. Ultimately this body will control 3300 cemeteries. The projected amalgamation of the Colonial Institute and the Overseas Club has broken down. The councils of both bodies have decided to work independently but in friendly co-operation. A haricot bean has been found growing at the back of a telephone mouthpiece 1 There was nothing to show how the enterprising bean managed to get there. It is suggested that the warm breath of the telephonists assisted its development. A shabbily-dressed man stopped in front of a mirror outside a shop in Piccadilly (.London), and took from his pocket a razor, 6oap, and a brush. Dipping the brush in a dog's drinking bowl, he lathered and shaved himself —An Indian baker in Calcutta, desiring to impress his patrons, inscribed on the shop alter his name, “A 1 British Loafer.” A Chinese trader labelled his eggs “Extract of fowl.” A coloured minister, offered a D.D. degree on payment of certain fees, asked if he could purchase the letters one at a time. New factories are being erected in Great Britain for the manufacture of allsteel office furniture and equipment. Over £BO,OOO has been spent in the equipment of these works and more than half the workers employed are ex-service men. The architects having stated that they will not guarantee the safety of St. George's Chapel at Windsor for another year, it will be closed at Easter for tlnee years to enable restorations to be effected. The architects consider that there is imminent danger of the roof collapsing and entailing the destruction of the entire fabric. The members of the Order of the Gaiter subscribed the first year’s restoration fund. Electric welding has already been applied in Great Britain to the building up of the cutting edge of high-speed tools which have become worn or chipped. A later development of electric welding in this connection is provided by a British machine, which actually welds a tip of hard-cutting steel on to the shank of the tool. The process takes only a second or two, and the weld, which is made under pressure, is the strongest part of the completed tool. This device should appeal to users of machine tools in parts ot the world where facilities for repairing tools are not ample. Close to the pit-head of many coal miles there lie huge “tips” of small coal. When coal of good quality l was cheap these tips were looked upon as waste because the heating value of the stuff was so small that no one would pay enough to cover the cartage. The huge increase in the cost of coal has, however, turned attention to the economic possibilities of these heaps of low-grade fuel. A large company has been formed in England to acquire the heaps and to transform the coal dust into briquettes of a form and composition suit able for domestic and industrial purposes. The attitude of British engineers towards recovery from the effects of tiie war is most interesting and encouraging. While politicians and historians arc continually referring to the time which the world took to get straight again after the Napoleonic and other wars, the engineers refuse to believe that nations must go through a similar long period of depression before their industries arid trade and finance get into a healthy condition. They believe that the progress of British mechanical invention can, if properly applied as a tonic to production and distribution, quickly restore the strength which was waste during the war. Just as British engineering played a leading part in winning the war, so it may be the dominant factor in winning the peace. Consequently British engineers are pressing forward optimistically with many developments in machinery, invention, transport, and the utilisation of fuel. -The leading position which Great Britain has attained in wireless telegraphy and wireless telephony is due largely to ent; rprise inspired by commercial motives and that disinterested study of science by a few able men for which England has always been distinguished. During and since tlie war, however, more than one Government department has had to interest itself in “wireless.” The Admiralty, the War Office, the Post Office, and the AitMinistry are all concerned from one point of view or another; and the Government has formed a Radio Research Board, which will act as a clearing-house for all the experience gained by each department. Four subcommittees have been formed, and these will carry- on research according to programme. The services of several independent British men of science have been secured on these committees.