MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3662, 20 May 1924, Page 57

MULTUM IN PARVO.

There are 600,000 people over 70 and 60,C00 over 85 in Great Britain to-day. Road traffic estimated at 115,000 tons passer Hyde Park Corner, London, every day. —lf Australia could be placed in the Atlantic Ocean, it would fill up all the space between Great Britain and America. Smoking is now forbidden in all aircraft registered in Great Britain, wherever flying, and in all other aircraft in or over our country. to travel from the Arctic Ocean north of Siberia to the East Greenland current, where it begins to affect the weather in Great Britain. Matches which were sold before the war at ljd a dozen boxes cost about Is a gross; the same brands to-day cost 9s 3d a and sell at 10jd a dozen boxes. —“Skyscrapers" waste time, according to one expert, who estimates that the time taken to reach the thirtieth floor would equal that taken by an express underground train to reach a spot a mile distant. A life sentence for an ordinary prisoner means 20 years There are men and women in Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum who have been there twice that period. The oldest is a man who was admitted in 1864. Three canals, each wider than the Suez Canal, will carry the waters of Ihe Indus and bring into cultivation an area eight times the size of Kent, due to the erection of a dam across the great Indian river. This is the biggest- dam in the world.The great armadillo has the greatest number of teeth. Where the normal number of teeth is 32, this animal has from 92 to 100; 24 to 26 in each side of the upper jaw and 22 to 24 in each side of the lower jaw—all molars. They increase in size from front to back, have no roots, but an individual hollow base, showing constant growth, and are destitute of enamel. - Among the many novel inventions which the Prince of Wales was shown during a recent visit to the Middlesex Hospital was a radium clock, which would go for thousands of years It registers the minutes by means of a piece of radium acting on two metal leaves. Beside the clock was a bottle containing 2j,oz of substance the equivalent in energy of 1000 tons of coal.

—ln England last year, out of a total of nearly 7000 new books, otdy 17 came under the head of “facetiae." Only one funny book in 420, fiction which is taken seriously in England, headed the list as usual with over 1200 volumes. Theology was a poor second, with 575 ; children’s boolcs (a sign of the times) just beat- biography and history by 534 to 530. Poetry and drama could only muster 185 volumes.

—M. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel, the celebrated French engineer, is dead at the age of 91, but as long as the tower which bears his name dominates Paris his name will not he forgotten. Public opinion, especially in the embley district, has prevented anything resembling the Eiffel Tower being erected in the grounds of the Empire Exhibition. Yet such a structure might serve a very useful purpose in England, as it does in France. As a wireless station, nearly 1000 ft in height, the Eiffel Tower is unique. It was of incalculable value during the war, when, it was used as an anti-aircraft and observation post. As a meteorological station it plays an important part in the forecasts of local weather. Superstitious people declare that the dream that- is repeated three times is sure to come true. To tell a dream before breaking one s fast is supposed to . bring bad luck. To tell a dream that is the result of sleeping’ with bride’s cake under the pillow is also supposed to be unlucky. Do not marry on your birthday if you wish Dame Fortune to smile on you. It isn’t quite clear why she objects to this arrangement, but she does! If you begin a sea journey while the moon is declining, luck will attend you and see you safely back again. A land journfiy should begin when the moon is young lo find a piece of coal where you are not at all likely to seek such a thing is considered lucky. A pen or pencil find means news from far away, generally with some material advantage for the finder.

The run in London of “The Beggar’s Opera ” (1463 consecutive nights) is not the longest on record. That distinction belongs to “Chu Chin Chow,” with 2208 performances. It is a curious fact that the original production of “The Beggar’s Opera” in 1728 beat the then existing record by running for 62 nights, and this record endured for a century. Its latest- is the third longest, the second place being held by the first production of “Charley’s Aunt” (1466) in 1892. Then in succession came “Our Boys” (1362), “The Maid of the Mountains” (1352). “A Little Bit of Fluff” (1241), “A Chinese Honeymoon’ (1075). and “Romance" (1046). Four of the eight were produced during the Great Wai —“Cliu Chin Chow,” “The Maid of the Mountains,” “A Little Bit of Fluff,” and “Romance.” Indeed of the 65 plavs wiiich have reached or passed the 500 level 24 were produced between 1914 and 1918.’

—At times bread is put to curious uses. It was reported recently that some bread had been thrown cn the water in the hope of locating a drowned man, which it is commonly supposed to do. The mostextraordinary of all superstitions in regard to bread was expressed in the old-time custom of sin-eating It was usual to have poor people at a. funeral “to take on them the sins of the deceased.” When the body was brought out of the house and laid on the bier, a loaf of hrsad was given to the sin-eater over the corpse. Also he was handed a bowl of maple full of beer, and a silver sixpence, in q*psiderat:on whereof the sin-eater took upon himself all the sins of the deceased, and freed him or her from walking after they were dead. —“An Englishwoman of-.peculiar sensitiveness has for many years past i>ecn able to report almost every earthquake in all parts ‘of the world before;., news conies in,” writes Professor H. H. Turner in the Quarterly Review. “She suffers from a curious nervous tension as (hough under the influence of electricity Y.-hich alniost. incapacitates her while it la ts, hut goes off suddenly. She has consulted several doctors, hut none of them has been able to relieve her.” The womai; had a “bad attack” on September 9 last yeffr. On September 11 came news of a, considerable shock in India two days “The testimony is unexceptionaLh an 1 indicates a line of inquiry which hat hitherto not been explored. It may supply unsuspected information both to seismology and to physiology.”