MULTUM IN PARVO.

Otago Witness, Issue 3723, 21 July 1925, Page 54

MULTUM IN PARVO.

There are 172 known species of the fly. —ln India, among the natives, one woman in five is a widow. Kent has more ancient ruins than any Other British county. _ . —An iceberg in the North Atlantic Ocean often exists for 200 years. Roller skates were in use as far back 45 1790 - ~. , , Most plants grow more rapidly by day than by night. . , , The purest English is supposed to be apoken in Lincolnshire. Five tons of human hair are annually imported by London merchants. The swan lives longer than any other bird. Some have lived for 300 years. —ln Queen Elizabeth’s time it cost a man a tax of 3s 4d a year to wear a The rate of the pulse of a healthy person is four times that of the respiration. —lt is estimated that a single day of bod fog costs London £1,000,000. One of the oeculiarities of the cocoanut palm is that it never stands upright. Sixty-six pounds of every 1001 bof wool spun in England comes from Aus- — Posters were originally bills stuck on posts. licnoe their name. The first lightning conductor was invented by a Bohemian monk in 1754. Coloured races possess a keener sense of hearing than whites. Church bells are tuned by shaving the edge until the proper note is obtained. One of the steepest streets in the French seaport of Havre is to have an escalator instead of the pathway. Coke runs 48 to 50 bushels to the ton; hard coal measures only 36 to 38 bushels to the same weight. • A gardener digging at Loughborough, England, unearthed a shilling dated 1574, bearing five lions. The average length of life m the United States is now 56 years, compared with 41 years in 1870. New petrol-driven locomotives, capable of a speed of 40 miles an hour, are being tested on Belgian railways. There are 300 varieties of water beetles to be . found in the fresh-water lakes and rivers of the United Kingdom. Young robins lack the traditional red breast; they are buff-spotted, and not unlike miniature thrushes in appearance. Covent Garden Theatre, England’s greatest opera-house, is being used as a dance-hall until required for another opera season. Grants amounting to £14,000 are made each year to the worst paid clergymen by the Poor Clergy Relief Corporation. . —“lt is the greatest mistake a woman can make to marry a man thinking she is going to reform him,” said a London coroner recently. The first mention of gloves occurs in Ruth,, which means that they have been worn for at least 3000 years. —Scientists say that the whole human body is full of microbes, and that a person" is healthy so long as the microbes are in good condition. —Great Britain controls 21 out of every 100 square miles of the earth’s surface. —Birmingham’s Municipal Bank has now 70,000 depositors, with a balance of £5,000,000 among them. —The publishing firm of Marshall has seven men on its staff who have been with the firm half a century. —A man of 92, who lately died at Wintringham, Lincolnshire, had a photograph which Charlotte Bronte gave him. —The greatest Alpine avalanche was that which in 1827 Bwent away the town of Biel, and killed nearly 90 persons. The longest railway platform in the world is to be built at Manchester. The length will be 2175 ft (nearly half a mile). The highest mountain in North America is. Mount M‘Kinley, in Alaska, 50,464 ft High. Next comes Mount Foraker, just 20,000 ft. A man has been known to stay for five minues in an oven in which the temperature was 380 deg. The Japanese vary less in height than any other nation. In Europe the French display the greatest uniformity. No deaths have occurred at Salecchio, a mountain village in Piedmont, for the last three years. It is also claimed that nobody drinks wine, quarrels, or steals in that happy community. Herrings are so abundant off the coast of Schleswig, Germany, that they fail to find purchasers at id a lb. The Radio Corporation of America re£orted gross sales of only £290,000 in IS2I. ast year the sales were nearly £11,000,000. A little soup, a morsel of meat and vegetables, or a piece of fish, a sweet, or a bit of cheese is dinner enough to keep a man in health. London business girls are said to be much prettier than they used to be. The old theory that office work was fatal to beauty is now quite dead. Children of Jewish parents are, as a rule, well fed, well clothed, and, age for age. slightly ahead of Christian children of the whalebone, which increase yearly. In London the wind is south-west for an average of 112 days in the year. It blows from the north for 16 days only and from the south for 18. Whales from 390 to 400 years old are sometimes met with. The age is ascerb»v tJ ? e s,ze a . nd number of layers of the wholebone, which increase yearly . A fossil tree. 70ft long, and estimated by scientists to be at least 1,000,000 years old, has been unearthed in the Asansol mining area of Bengal, India. Most animals are afraid of fire, and will fly from it in terror. To others there **. a fascination about a flame, and they will walk into it, oven though tortured by the heat. Policewomen to the total number of 301 are employed in the Metropolitan Police district of London, and by six county forces and 27 city and borough forces> Kinema services are now tho usual thing at a Birmingham chinch; there is also an orchestra, and “tableaus” dealing with religious subjects were recently given on a stage erected in place of the choir stalls.